devanāgarī numerals

[Jainarayan]

Originally Posted by charitra

Namaste all
see the striking resemblance between hindu- arabic and Persian (Zorastrian)- urdu numerals, the later is a much older civilization than the 2 abrahamic faiths, somewhat younger than the hindu civilization..

Persian variant: ۱: ۲: ۳: ۴: ۵: ۶: ۷: ۸: ۹

Arabic 123456789 Indian numerals١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩

Persians pronounce the numerals very close to Devanagari pronunciation:
ek, do, se, char, panch, seesh, hapht, aasht, nou, das. But they call zero as sifr.

The proposed ancestor (of Persian, Hindi, Latin, Greek, Russian, et al) language's numbers were:

oino, dwo, trei, kwetker, penkwe, sweks, sept, oktou, newn, dekm

Russian:

1 - один (adeen)
2 - два (dva)
3 - три (tri)
4 - четыре (chyetirye)
5 - пять (pyat)
6 - шесть (shest)
7 - семь (syem)
8 - восемь (vosyem)
9 - девять (dyeviat)
10 - десять (dyesiat)

It looks like Russian one, eight, and nine deviate from the pattern. I wonder how that happened. Maybe eight, vosyem is "one more than seven" and nine is "one less than 10".

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté

parārdha
This word means a few things and we find it mentioned in the kaṭha upaniṣad (1.3.1).
This is the word for the highest countable number say the ancient Indian mathematicians - 100,000,000,000,000,000 . This is 100 quadtrillion

A few more numbers for one's consideration...

• lakṣa or lac is 100,000; it comes from this word lakṣa and is defined as 'that which is attached or fixed' ; a mark to aim at , target , prize
• 10 lakṣa = prayuta = (10 x 100,000) = 1,000,000
• 10 prayuta = koṭi = (10 x 1,000,000) = 10,000,000; koṭi means the highest point , eminence , excellence , the end or top of anything
  • Yet this is not the case, as there are numbers even above this one. Some people say tens of millions, and threrefore 10 x 1,000,000 or 10,000,000 which we defined as koṭi. Yet the other name for this is krore some spell crore.
• 10 koṭi = arbuda = (10 x 10,000,000) =100,000,000. This word arbuda is defined as 'above' ; an additional definition
  is a 'swelling' ; it is also the name of a serpent-like demon conquered by indra.

We can see the power of 10 here, where the next significant (large) number is 10x the last number.

So to jump from arbuda (above) and go greatly above (maha) we have mahārbuda or (10 x 100,000,000) one billion. Some use the word badva ( meaning large number) and is defined as 100 koṭi-s.

If we keep using the power of 10 for each sequential number set we arrive at parārdha or 100 quadtrillion ( or 10 to 17th power ; 10^17).

Yet there is a number greater then this. It is 10 to the 53rd power (10^53). The word that is used is most interesting. It can be the following:
tallakṣanām or tallakṣaṇām or talakṣaṇām or tālakṣaṇām. This is the number I have been pondering as some of its components are most interesting:

• tal= to establish
• talita = fixed
• tāla - a span
• lakṣa or lac is 100,000
• lakṣaṇa - a mark , sign , symbol , token , characteristic , attribute , quality ; indicating , expressing indirectly . We know this word to also mean a lucky mark , favourable sign
• talla = varuṇa's wife
  • talla also means talaka a small cart with burning coals , a pot of clay; it too is taḍaga or a pond ( the connection to varuṇa aforementioned)

It is from this gaṇa¹ ( group) I am trying to discern how one arrives at the name of this large number 10 to the 53rd power (10^53).

praṇām

words

gaṇa - a flock , troop , multitude , number , tribe , series , class