Malayalam numeral for one hundred

൱ belongs to an older Malayalam numeral system. Comparative histories connect older Malayalam numerals to South Indian forms derived from Grantha, an older South Indian script. Malayalam inscriptions show the system's multiply-and-add pattern by 1000 CE. The surviving record of this specifically Malayalam numeral series before the mid-1700s is sparse.

Treatises used the system to measure and calculate. An 18th-century palm-leaf manuscript also uses Malayalam letter-numerals to mark folios, the manuscript's numbered leaves. By the middle of the nineteenth century, writing numbers with zero and digits whose place determines value had shifted the older system toward historical use.