Page 21 of: Ganitatilaka (Sanskrit text and English introduction)

were different, the former referring to those used in engraving and the latter, to those used in ordinary writing.* PLACE-VALUE SYSTEM OF DECIMAL NOTATION 3 It appears that India has been the birth-place of various
numerical notations. Out of them, the one in which there are
used only ten symbols, is of considerable importance. In this
notation nine symbols represent numbers one to nine, and the
tenth, zero. The former nine symbols are designated as anka² and
the latter viz., the zero-symbol as s'unya. This notation with a
decimal scale goes by the name of "place-value system of decimal
notation" or "the decimal place-value system", and is adopted
throughout the civilized world, since the application of the
principle of this place-value is both sufficient and efficient
to enable one not only to write any number whatsoever but to
write it in the simplest way possible.
That this place-value system of decimal notation was
known in India several centuries before the dawn of Christianity
can be deduced from the following particulars:-
1 In this connection he has added that in the Jaina literature, as also
in the Vedic literature, we ordinarily find that a distinction is made between
forms of alphabets used in engravings and in Mss., which are respectively styled
by the Jainas as Kāṣṭhakarma or wood-work and Pustaka-karma or book-work.
He has substantiated his statement by referring to the 10th and 146th sūtras of
Anuyogadvāra as well as Maladhārin Hemacandra Suri's commentary on the
former. I may add that Hemacandra has interpreted pottha as (1) pota,
(2) pustaka and (3) tāḍapatrādi. Furthermore, the word pusta occurs also in
the bhasya on Tattvārthādhigamasūtra (I. 5), and is explained on p. 46 by
Siddhasena Gaṇi as
. It also occurs in the bhasya on VI.
10 and is explained in the ṭika on p. 21. On p. 78 of this very tīkā (VII. 11),
the word pusta is used.
2-3 These literally mean "a mark" and "empty" respectively.
4 In Jinabhadra Gani's Vis'eṣāvas'yakabhāṣya (v. 704), a gāthā of the
Avas'yakaniryukti of Bhadrabahu is quoted as under:-
" शिबुगागार जहन्नो वट्टो उक्कोसमायओ किंचि [śibugāgāra jahanno vaṭṭo ukkosamāyao kiṃci ] "
What is the true radical significance of the word thibuga and in what sense
has it been employed in the above passage? The commentator Hemacandra
Sūri is of opinion that it signifies "bindu". Dr. Datta asks me a question:
"Is it then the 'zero' of the decimal numeral notation? If so, it will have
to be admitted that the modern decimal place-value notation was known in
India in the 4th century before the Christian era."
4 गणि [gaṇi] ο