Hindu–Arabic numeral system system is based upon ten (originally nine) different glyphs. The symbols (glyphs) used to represent the system are in principle independent of the system itself. The glyphs in actual use are descended from Brahmi numerals and have split into various typographical variants since the Middle Ages. These symbol sets can be divided into three main families: Western Arabic numerals used in the Greater Maghreb and in Europe, Eastern Arabic numerals (also called "Indic numerals") used in the Middle East, and the Indian numerals used in South Asia. The Hindu-Arabic numerals were invented by mathematicians in India. Perso-Arabic mathematicians called them
Indian numerals Bakhshali Manuscript, written sometime before the 5th century, also included zero. But it is in Khmer numerals of modern Cambodia where the first extant material evidence of zero as a numerical figure, dating its use back to the seventh century, is found. As it was from the Arabs that the Europeans learned this system, the Europeans called them "Arabic numerals;" the Arabs refer to their numerals as "Indian numerals". In academic circles they are called the "Hindu–Arabic" or "Indo–Arabic" numerals. The significance of the development of the positional number system is probably best described by the French mathematician Pierre Simon