Ok. The surprise is the book I found lying under the intersecting rack of Mathematics and Computer Science. This book grabed my attention by having Kannada (a prominent south indian language) script in its cover page. I instantly borrowed it (not intending to read it but to just photograph it's cover page) and captured the cover page. This is the book.
"The Universal History of Numbers II" - Georges Ifrah
The kannada word (written with yellow brush) overlayed along the picture of the human palm reads "Mangalore" (Mangalooru, as read in Kannada) which is a city on the west coast of Karnataka.
Then I began to read it. The first chapter is "Indian Civilization: Cradle of Modern Numerals". In which the author lists the various theories that exist about the source of modern numerals and proves them all wrong. Points to various theories that prove India to be the source. Then he goes on to explain the various sources of the origin of modern numerals with reference to the different languages that have numerals built into them like Marathi figures, Punjabi figures, Nepalese figures, Tamil figures (did not have a representation for Zero), Kannara/Kannada/Karnata figures, Sinhalese figures etc..etc..
I've always wanted to know about the Tamil figures because I've never come across them before seing this book. I am very happy NOT to find them in vehicle registration boards in Tamil Nadu. When I learnt Kannada figures and Hindi figures, I remember asking my dad (who claims to be a tamil vidwan) about them. Infact he did not know or he told me in a manner I never remembered them. It was interesting to find that there are no separate symbols to represent figures. A slight variation of the character set is used to represent the tamil figures. Now, this is going to be a good read for me during the christmas holidays.
I've also found this author's other book "The Universal History of Numbers : From Prehistory to the invention of computers" (here)
ok. it's time for stagecoaching....
