It should be stated definitely at the outset, however, that we are not at all sure that the most ancient forms of the numerals commonly known as Arabic had their origin in India. As will presently be seen, their forms may have been suggested by those used in Egypt, or in Eastern Persia, or in China, or on the plains of Mesopotamia. We are quite in the dark as to these early steps; but as to their development in India, the approximate period of the rise of their essential feature of place value, their introduction into the Arab civilization, and their spread to the West, we have more or less definite information. When, therefore, we consider the rise of the numerals in the land of the Sindhu,[51] it must be understood that it is only the large movement that is meant, and that there must further be considered the numerous possible sources outside of India itself and long anterior to the first prominent appearance of the number symbols. No one attempts to examine any detail in the history of ancient India without being struck with the great dearth of reliable material.[52] So little sympathy have the people with any save those of their own caste that a general literature is wholly lacking, and it is only in the observations of strangers that any all-round view of scientific progress is to be found. There is evidence that primary schools {15} existed in earliest times, and of the seventy-two recognized sciences writing and arithmetic were the most prized.[53] In the Vedic period, say from 2000 to 1400 B.C., there was the same attention to astronomy that was found in the earlier civilizations of Babylon, China, and Egypt, a fact attested by the Vedas themselves.[54] Such advance in science presupposes a fair knowledge of calculation, but of the manner of calculating we are quite ignorant and probably always shall be. One of the Buddhist sacred books, the _Lalitavistara_, relates that when the B[=o]dhisattva[55] was of age to marry, the father of Gopa, his intended bride, demanded an examination of the five hundred suitors, the subjects including arithmetic, writing, the lute, and archery. Having vanquished his rivals in all else, he is matched against Arjuna the great arithmetician and is asked to express numbers greater than 100 kotis.[56] In reply he gave a scheme of number names as high as 10^{53}, adding that he could proceed as far as 10^{421},[57] all of which suggests the system of Archimedes and the unsettled question of the indebtedness of the West to the East in the realm of ancient mathematics.[58] Sir Edwin Arnold, {16} in _The Light of Asia_, does not mention this part of the contest, but he speaks of Buddha's training at the hands of the learned Vi[s.]vamitra: