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 Nānā Ghāt 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.
The cave was made as a resting-place for travelers ascending the hill, which lies on the road from Kalyāna to Junar. It seems to have been cut out by a descendant
of King Śātavāhana,[[75]] for inside the wall opposite the entrance are representations of the members of his family, much defaced, but with the names still legible. It would seem that the excavation was made by order of a king named Vedisiri, and "the inscription contains a list of gifts made on the occasion of the performance of several yagnas or religious sacrifices," and numerals are to be seen in no less than thirty places.[[76]]
There is considerable dispute as to what numerals are really found in these inscriptions, owing to the difficulty of deciphering them; but the following, which have been copied from a rubbing, are probably number forms:[[77]]
The inscription itself, so important as containing the earliest considerable Hindu numeral system connected with our own, is of sufficient interest to warrant reproducing part of it in facsimile, as is done on page 24.
The next very noteworthy evidence of the numerals, and this quite complete as will be seen, is found in certain other cave inscriptions dating back to the first or second century A.D. In these, the Nasik[[78]] cave inscriptions, the forms are as follows:
