Vedic v/s International Numbering System

There are various numbering standards in use globally. But three main systems are Short Scale, Long Scale and Indian numbering system. These three systems are used by over 90% of the world. Indian numbering system is used in some part of Asia. Most of the English speaking world excluding Continental Europe use Short Scale system whereas Continental Europe use Long Scale system. Till 1974 Britain was also using Long scale but after that they aligned themselves to short scale. Both these systems are same upto million. After that short scale increments by multiple of 000’ whereas the long scale increments by 000,000. This makes a major difference as one trillion in short scale is one billion in long scale. Some countries following long scale use milliard and billiard to match the billion and quadrillion respectively of short scale.

The Indian numbering system is used in India as well as in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. The terms lakh or lac (100,000 or 1,00,000 in the Indian system) and crore (10,000,000 or 1,00,00,000 in the Indian system) are used in Indian English to express large numbers. For example, in India 150,000 rupees becomes 1.5 lakh while 30,000,000 (thirty million)  becomes 3 crore with commas at the thousand, lakh, and crore levels.

Names of numbers

The table below follows the short scale usage of one billion being one thousand million. In India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, following former British usage, the long scale was used, with one billion equivalent to one million million.

Graphical representation of global use of numbering system

Blue : Long scale, Red : Short scale, Maroon : Short scale (and milliard), Voilet : Both scales, Yellow :   Other naming system, Grey : No data

 Vedic Numbering Systems

There are various systems of numeration found in various ancient Vedic literatures of India. The following table gives one such system used in the Valmiki Ramayana. You will observe that after Koti (Crore) the system follows multiple of 00,000 and hence the unit size becomes very large. Also please note that the Shanku in the table below is not the same as Shankh in the table above.

Use of such large numbers seem illogical to a common person. We all believe that science in ancient India was very advance. Our astronomers had knowledge about planets, stars, nakshetras, galaxies and their distances. Following lines, however, may provide some logic to the high value units.

The modern astronomy science has proved those distances. The modern astronomy use units like Light year. A light year is the distance that light ray covers in one year. The speed of light is 3 lac kms per second and hence it covers 9.5 trillion kms. in one year.

Another popular distance unit in use in astronomy is PARSEC. It is used for denoting distances of astronomical objects outside solar system. Though the Parsec measurement is a bit technical but in simple terms one Parsec = 3.26 Light Years or 31 Trillion Kilometres.

Proxima Centauri, the nearest star is 1.3 Parsec from the Sun. Most of the stars that are visible to unaided eyes are within 500 Parsecs from Sun. And then there are stars and galaxies that are visible using highly sophisticated aids. Their distances could be unimaginable. Western astronomers use Kilo Parsec (kpc), Mega Parsec (mpc) and Giga Parsec (gpc) to indicate distances of some of the universe objects observed. These are not hypothetical. Some of the such large distant objects found by astronomers are (a) Andromeda Galaxy at 780 Kpc away, (b) galaxy cluster Virgo is about 16.2 Mpc and (c) galaxy filament Hercules – Corona Borealis Great Wall is about 3 Gpc from earth. And then there would be objects farther then these that are oblivion to us and are yet to be explored. Magnitude of such distances give some explanation about the large number units mentioned in the number tables above.