Indian numbering system

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The Indian numbering system is used in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh to express large numbers, which differs from the International System of Units. Commonly used quantities include lakh (one hundred thousand) and crore (ten million) – written as 100,000 and 10,000,000 respectively in some locales.^[1] For example: 150,000 rupees is "1.5 lakh rupees" which can be written as "1,50,000 rupees", and 30,000,000 (thirty million) rupees is referred to as "3 crore rupees" which can be written as "3,00,00,000 rupees".

There are names for numbers larger than crore, but they are less commonly used. These include arab (100 crore, 10⁹), kharab (100 arab, 10¹¹), nil or sometimes transliterated as neel (100 kharab, 10¹³), padma (100 nil, 10¹⁵), shankh (100 padma, 10¹⁷), and mahashankh (100 shankh, 10¹⁹). In common parlance (though inconsistent), the lakh and crore terminology repeats for larger numbers. Thus lakh crore is 10¹².

In the ancient Indian system, still in use in regional languages of India, there are words for (10⁶²). These names respectively starting at 1000 are sahasra, ayuta, laksha, niyuta, koti, arbhudha, abhja, karva, nikarva, mahapadma, shanmkhu, jaladhi, amtya, madhya, paraardha. In the Indian system, now prevalent in the northern parts,^{[clarification needed]} the next powers of ten are one lakh, ten lakh, one crore, ten crore, one arab (or one hundred crore), and so on.