Sinhala numerals to record donations given by royals and other people who were belonged to the upper echelon of ancient Sinhala society to Buddhist temples. Brahmi numerals are ancestors of Arabic numerals which are used presently worldwide. Brahmi numerals had symbols for 10,100, and 1000. Number 1 and 10 in Brahmi have not been found in Sri Lanka up to now. Therefore, shapes of these two numerals have been hypothesized taking into consideration of shapes of Brahmi Number 1 and 10 found in India without physical evidence . Sinhala rock inscriptions suddenly become barren of numerals from A.D. 400 onwards. Tradition of
Sinhala numerals have a zero and they also did not have zero concept holder. They included separate symbols for 10, 40, 50, 100, 1000. These numerals were also regarded as "Lith Lakunu" or ephemeris numbers by W. A. De Silva in his "Catalogue of Palm leaf manuscripts in the library of Colombo Museum". This set of numerals was known as "Sinhala illakkam" or Sinhala archaic numerals. Sinhala numerals or "Sinhala illakkam" were used in the Kandyan convention which was signed between Kandyan Chieftains and the British governor, Robert Brownrig, in 1815. Eleven clauses were numbered in Arabic numerals in the English part