Brahmi Number Five

It marks five in the Brahmi numeral system.

The earliest securely attested Brahmi numeral signs appear in Ashokan inscriptions from the middle of the third century BCE; those early examples do not clearly attest five. Fuller evidence, including five, appears in Naneghat and Nasik cave inscriptions from the first or second century CE.

Brahmi writing appears on official inscriptions, coins, ownership marks, and gift records. At Naneghat, numerals occur in a list of gifts made for religious sacrifices.

How did Brahmi numerals develop?

Their forms changed across periods and number systems.

The system's origin has several proposed explanations: local tally marks, earlier South Asian number systems, and models from outside the region. Kharosthi, another script used in northwest South Asia, had its own link to Aramaic, a different writing tradition; that connection is separate from the proposed origins of Brahmi numerals.

Early Brahmi used separate signs for units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, building numbers through addition and multiplication. Later Brahmi also used positional decimal digits, where a digit's place sets its value. Gupta-period forms developed from Brahmi between the early fourth and late sixth centuries CE; Nagari forms followed around the seventh century CE.