Aksharapalli

Aksharapalli (Akṣarapallī) is a certain type of alphasyllabic numeration scheme extensively used in the pagination of manuscripts produced in India in pre-modern times.

[2] In this system the letters or the syllables of the script in which the manuscript is written are used to denote the numbers.

[1] When the Aksharapalli system is used, the various syllables that constitute a number are placed one below the other as in the Chinese language and they are written in the margins of the various leaves of the manuscript.

This arrangement may be the consequence an attempt to save space for the contents of the manuscript.

The system was in use as late as the nineteenth century in those regions of India which now constitute the Kerala State.

Aksharapalli numerals in Malayalam as given in "Grammar of the Malayalam Language" by Hermann Gundert published in 1868 and reproduced in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 1896. [ 3 ]