Indian numbering system
The ancient Indian numbering system, used today in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar (Burma), is based on grouping by two decimal places, rather than the three decimal places commonplace in the West. (China, Korea, and Japan, also differ from the Western practice in grouping by four.) This system of measurement introduces separators into numbers in places appropriate to the two-digit grouping. For example, 30 million (3 crore) rupees would be written as Rs.3,00,00,000, with commas at the thousand, lakh, and crore levels, instead of Rs.30,000,000.
The terms crore and lakh are in widespread use today in Indian English.
The table below follows the short scale usage of billion being a thousand million. In India, following British usage, the long scale was used, with one billion equivalent to a million million.
| Term | Figure | Power notation |
Western system (short scale) |
|---|---|---|---|
| एक (Ek) | 1 | 100 | 1 (One) |
| दस (Das) | 10 | 101 | 10 (Ten) |
| सौ (Sau) | 100 | 102 | 100 (Hundred) |
| सहस्त्र (Sahastr) / हजार (Hazaar) | 1,000 | 103 | 1,000 (One thousand) |
| लाख (Lakh) | 1,00,000 | 105 | 100,000 (One hundred thousand) |
| करोड़ (Crore) | 1,00,00,000 | 107 | 10,000,000 (Ten million) |
| अरब (Arawb) | 1,00,00,00,000 | 109 | 1,000,000,000 (One billion) |
| खरब (Kharawb) | 1,00,00,00,00,000 | 1011 | 100,000,000,000 (One hundred billion) |
| नील (Neel) | 1,00,00,00,00,00,000 | 1013 | 10,000,000,000,000 (Ten trillion) |
| पद्म (Padma) | 1,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 | 1015 | 1,000,000,000,000,000 (One quadrillion) |
| शंख (Shankh) | 1,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 | 1017 | 100,000,000,000,000,000 (One hundred quadrillion) |
| महाशंख (Mahashankh) | 1,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 | 1019 | 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (Ten quintillion) |
The higher numbers listed above 'arawb' are not commonly used, though padma and kharawb are sometimes used in Hindi. Neel, Padma, Shankh are more commonly found in old sections of Indian Mathematics.
Instead of saying the higher numbers, it is more common to use lakh and crore repeatedly or in combination, saying 1 lakh crore for 1012 or one trillion.
In Mumbai (Bombay), khokha is underworld slang for a crore and peti is slang for a lakh.
The term crore (کرور (Korur) in Persian) was also used in Iran until recent decades, but with the meaning of 500,000.
In Sinhalese, a crore is called kōţiya, and a lakh is called lakshaya. This is very similar to south indian languages like Kannada where crore is called Koti and lakh is called laksha.
Lakh has entered the Swahili language as "laki" and is in common use.