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(HAT could be more interesting than the origin
of our common numbers, those apparently
simple yet marvellously useful little marks
upon -which Almost the whole fabric of our
science and civilization depends T . ,
We have jbeen'taujht to call our numbers "Arabic,'' as '
distinguished from the cumbrous old Roman numerals.
In fact,, if. y6u' search the' latest encyclopaedia you will
find them still described without qualification as Arabic.
But It is one of those half-truths, which are said to be
worse than a real falsehood, for they teach us to accept
what ,1s not true, rather than search for the facts.
Dr Eugen Loeffler, an eminent German professor and
ma'hematiclan. has just announced the discovery of the
real source, of. our numerals,' They reached Europe
through' the Arabs; It la true, during the Middle Ages,
but .they' actually originated with the ancient Hindus.
' the Aryan's of very early times.
The- Aryans; who made their way Into India about
2000 a C. were a branch or the Indo-aermantc race.
They subdued the native Inhabitants of India, reducing
them-to the lower castes.' while the Aryans formed the
sastes. of "priests- arid princely warriors. - The Aryans
'were.deeply.lnterested In science and religion. -
The language In which their ancient books are written
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Is the Sanskrit, and these books, called the Vedas. mean
ing "science" or "knowledge." are filled with the wisdom
of this ancient race, . Their language ceased " to be
a spoken, or living, language In the third century B. &
The spoken language that succeeded it is related-to the
elder tongue as French is related to Latin.
The ancient religion was Brahmanism, and In the sixth
century B. C. Buddha trle:d to effect a reformation, but
only succeeded partially. The Brahmans are still the
dominant religious teachers of India.
The original Brahman mathematicians, before the
discovery of paper, used the sand for making figures
and "doing- sums." They" drew what we now call "an
abacus, an arrangement of columns with lines between,
the first column containing the units, the next the tens
and the next the hundreds, and so on. When there were
more than ten . In the first column one was added to
the next column, and. In this way the significance of
"position" In numeration was established. Numbers
are still called "sand figures" in Hindu.
According to legend, this system of figuring, after It
had been devised by the priests, was first taught to a
woman ruler. The old Brahman iprlest. Instructing
his queen in the art of figuring, took a pointed stick
and drawing the columns In the sand, showed her how
ten units made one ten and ten tens made one hun
dred. This Is the very foundation
of our syetem of calculation. It
" made possible the wonderful as
tronomlcal and mathematical ad
vancement of the Hindus, which
Table Showing ;iKE ?- ,
PEVELOmEKfT -OF; CURrDlGtTSi
. IKE 1 WISE 'i-it-N ' FKan lHB-ti NUW 'CJAiy'iw'UfWfirf
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- of any but the crudest kind. ' 1 "
v The three wise men from the East who cama,
drawn by an unfamiliar sur, to the birthplace of
; the Saviour,' were, according to legend Hindus.
Modern scientific investigation has confirmed this .
belief. It was the ; knowledge of astronomy, In
which the Hindus then excelled, that led them to
) follow this star, and this knowledge was In turn
"closely bound up with their knowledge of arlth-
metic. which was. essential to astronomical calu
' latlons, - : '
i It was from the Western Arabs that the figures;
passed to Europe during the tenth century. Up
to that time only the Roman numerals had been
In use In Europe, but the greater convenience of
the Arabic numerals ' compelled ' their adoption,
especially as so. deep a knowledge of the mathe
maticaj sciences came with these figures. '
in this way and through the Introduction of
Arabic scientific works translated into Latin did. .
the "figures find acceptance throughout Europ -J
.was transmitted to the . ;
Greeks and Arabs and
.. finally to all Europe.
By 900 B. C the Hindus had a well developed
science of arithmetic and algebra, as well as the .
geometrical problems which we now find In the ,.
first book 'of the, Greek. Euclid. They knew how
to calculate fractions and how to extract the cube ;
root They carried their science so far as to call :
each position by a separate name, not as we do,
skipping the tens and hundreds after we reach a ;
thousand. For Instance, we wojuld write out the
figures 86,739,325,178 as elghty-slx billion, seven
hundred ani eighty-nine million, three hundred
and twenty-five thousand, one hundred and seventy-eight,
but the Hindus write out thus: 8
kharva, 6 padma, 7 vyrbuda, 8 koti, ,9 prayuta, 3 ;
laksha, 2 ayuta, 8 sahasta, 1 cata, 7 dacan, 8. . .
The Hindus discovered the figure 0, a cipher, t
unknown to the other early civilized races, yet -absolute
necessary for mathematical expression
. or, the4 otats
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