There are several noteworthy points to be observed in studying this system. In the first place, it is probably not as early as that shown in the N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t forms hereafter given, although the inscriptions themselves at N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t are later than those of the A['s]oka period. The {21} four is to this system what the X was to the Roman, probably a canceling of three marks as a workman does to-day for five, or a laying of one stick across three others. The ten has never been satisfactorily explained. It is similar to the A of the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] alphabet, but we have no knowledge as to why it was chosen. The twenty is evidently a ligature of two tens, and this in turn suggested a kind of radix, so that ninety was probably written in a way reminding one of the quatre-vingt-dix of the French. The hundred is unexplained, although it resembles the letter _ta_ or _tra_ of the Br[=a]hm[=i] alphabet with 1 before (to the right of) it. The two hundred is only a variant of the symbol for hundred, with two vertical marks.[70] This system has many points of similarity with the Nabatean numerals[71] in use in the first centuries of the Christian era. The cross is here used for four, and the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] form is employed for twenty. In addition to this there is a trace of an analogous use of a scale of twenty. While the symbol for 100 is quite different, the method of forming the other hundreds is the same. The correspondence seems to be too marked to be wholly accidental. It is not in the Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i] numerals, therefore, that we can hope to find the origin of those used by us, and we turn to the second of the Indian types, the Br[=a]hm[=i] characters. The alphabet attributed to Brahm[=a] is the oldest of the several known in India, and was used from the earliest historic times. There are various theories of its origin, {22} none of which has as yet any wide acceptance,[72] although the problem offers hope of solution in due time. The numerals are not as old as the alphabet, or at least they have not as yet been found in inscriptions earlier than those in which the edicts of A['s]oka appear, some of these having been incised in Br[=a]hm[=i] as well as Kharo[s.][t.]h[=i]. As already stated, the older writers probably wrote the numbers in words, as seems to have been the case in the earliest Pali writings of Ceylon.[73] The following numerals are, as far as known, the only ones to appear in the A['s]oka edicts:[74] [Illustration] These fragments from the third century B.C., crude and unsatisfactory as they are, are the undoubted early forms from which our present system developed. They next appear in the second century B.C. in some inscriptions in the cave on the top of the N[=a]n[=a] Gh[=a]t hill, about seventy-five miles from Poona in central India. These inscriptions may be memorials of the early Andhra dynasty of southern India, but their chief interest lies in the numerals which they contain.