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Devanagari Workbook – Numerals
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Devanagari Workbook
 
 





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Devanagari numerals and their Sanskrit names

Devanagari
numeral
Arabic Sanskrit word for
the ordinal numeral (wordstem)
0 shuny (शून्य)
1 ek (एक)
2 do (द्वि)
3 teen (त्रि)
4 chaar (चतुर्)
5 paanch (पञ्च)
6 chhah (षष्)
7 saat (सप्त)
8 aath (अष्ट)
9 nao (नव)


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About the numerals

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To the left is a list of the Indian numerals in their modern Devanagari form, the corresponding European (Indo-Arabic) equivalents, and their pronunciation derrived from Sanskrit. Today in most places throughout the world, including India, the familiar shapes we use are more commonplace than the nagari numerals. Yet still, in the classical poetic texts that celebrate mathematics, perhaps sometimes on handwritten tally sheets, these numbers remain. If upon learning this, you could use some motivation to continue learning these numbers, perhaps their history will help.

A decimal place system has been traced back to ca. 500 in India. Before that epoch, the Brahmi numeral system was in use; that system did not encompass the concept of the place-value of numbers. The Indian place-system numerals spread to neighboring Persia, where they were picked up by the conquering Arabs. The addition of zero as a tenth positional digit is documented from the 7th century by Brahmagupta. Though the earlier Bakhshali Manuscript written sometime before the 5th century also included zero, it was not used as a decimal marker. it is in