Historia Matematica Mailing List Archive: Re: [HM] Indian numbers: ">During my recent visit to India, I learned that when writing about large
>numbers, say in newspaper reports on the budget, they don't use
>'million', but rather two other numbers: Lakh, which is a hundred
>thousand, and Crore, which is a hundred lakhs. Does anybody know the
>history of these units?
>Avinoam Mann

As Heinz Lueneburg noted, 'lakh' is from Sanskrit 'laksha'.
Similarly, 'crore' is from Sanskrit 'koti'. These terms for
10E5 and 10E7 are attested in non-mathematical works in epic and
dharmasastra literature going back to the first few centuries of
this era; they seem to have got into Sanskrit scientific texts a few
centuries later. Cf. Takao Hayashi, _The Bakhshali Manuscript_,
Gronigen 1995, chapter 6."

I always wondered what a LAKH of RUPEES was.