The Brahmans have not more than eighteen places of notation, the first being units, Ekam, and the rest proceeding by multiples of ten. All above units have a separate designation as above noted, thus differing from the Greek compounds of notation. An intervening number of this scale, for instance, fifteen, is included in the second, one hundred and twelve, in the third place, and so on.* And further by the addition of eleven places to the eighteen, they reckon up to twenty-nine places and employing the terms of six of the series, the remainder are suffixed as com­pounds, as will be seen from what follows. Thus: Tens, hundreds, thousands, lakhs, tens of lakhs, kroṛs; kroṛs tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thou­sands, lakhs, tens of lakhs, kroṛs of kroṛs; kroṛs of kroṛs tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands—nineteen places from the unit's place, and this illustrates the foregoing description. Kroṛs of kroṛs tens of thousands is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, up to nine tens of thousands of kroṛs of kroṛs, and in a descending scale, nine thousand kroṛs of kroṛs and nine hundred so on to nine. Again, kroṛs of kroṛs lakhs, tens of kroṛs of kroṛs of lakhs, kroṛs of kroṛs of kroṛs; kroṛs of kroṛs of kroṛs tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, lakhs, tens of lakhs, kroṛs of kroṛs of kroṛs of kroṛs,* which series proceeds in the manner above given.

The Greeks have their scale of notation from one to nine and the recurring ternary series they call a cycle. Thus from one to nine are units, from ten to ninety, tens, and from one hundred to nine hundred, hundreds. This is termed the first cycle. From one thousand to nine thousand are units of thousands, from ten thousand to ninety thousand are tens of thousands, and from one hundred thousand to nine hundred thousand are hundreds of thousands. This they call the second cycle. And thus at the end of each cycle the word “thousands” is added, as for instance, the third cycle begins with units of thousands of thousands, i. e., a thousand thousand, followed by tens of thousands of thousands, i. e., ten thousand thousand up to ninety thousand thousand. Next follows hundreds of thousands of thousands, i. e., a hundred thousand thousand. The begin­ning of the fourth cycle is units of thousands of thousands of thousands, and so on throughout the remainder of the series. The designations in all are but three, viz., tens, hundreds, thousands, and as to what is said in ancient books of this system being borrowed from the Greeks, the version above given certainly does not support it.