Why Does India Use Lakhs and Crores?
It's a question many visitors and global colleagues ask: Why does India use lakhs and crores when the rest of the world uses millions and billions? The answer involves ancient mathematics, language, and cultural identity.
The Short Answer
India uses lakhs and crores because:
- It's ancient — The system is over 3,000 years old
- It's linguistic — Indian languages naturally count this way
- It works — 1.4 billion people use it daily without issues
- It's official — Government, legal, and financial systems use it
The better question might be: Why would India change a system that works perfectly well for its population?
Vedic Origins (1500-500 BCE)
The Indian numbering system originated in Vedic Sanskrit texts:
- Lakṣa (लक्ष) meant "100,000" in ancient Sanskrit
- Koṭi (कोटि) meant "10,000,000" (now "crore")
These terms appear in religious texts, astronomical calculations, and ancient mathematical treatises. The famous mathematician Aryabhata (476 CE) used these terms in his astronomical calculations.
When you say "lakh" or "crore" today, you're using words that ancient Indian scholars used millennia ago.
The Linguistic Argument
Here's something crucial: Indian languages think in twos after thousands.
In Hindi, you'd say: - 1,00,000 = "ek lakh" (one lakh) - 10,00,000 = "das lakh" (ten lakh) - 1,00,00,000 = "ek crore" (one crore)
The comma placement in Indian notation matches how the number is spoken. This isn't arbitrary — it's phonetically logical.
Meanwhile, saying "ten lakh" as "one million" would require learning entirely new vocabulary that doesn't exist in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, or any other Indian language.
British India & The Persistence
When the British colonized India, they brought Western numerals (1, 2, 3...) but the naming convention stayed Indian.
Why didn't the British change it?
- Practicality: Changing how 300 million people count wasn't feasible
- Administration: Tax records, land documents all used lakhs/crores
- Trade: Indian merchants had used the system for centuries
Post-independence (1947), India kept the system because it was already deeply embedded in all official processes.
Modern Usage
Today, lakhs and crores are used in:
- Government budgets: "₹5 lakh crore allocated for infrastructure"
- Stock markets: BSE and NSE report in crores
- Banking: Loan amounts, account balances
- Media: All Indian newspapers and TV channels
- Daily conversation: "My salary is 15 lakhs"
Even multinational companies operating in India adapt: - Apple reports Indian iPhone sales in crores - Amazon India discusses GMV in lakhs/crores - Tech companies list job salaries in LPA (lakhs per annum)
The Global Perspective
India isn't alone in having unique number systems:
- China/Japan: Use 万 (wàn/man = 10,000) and 亿 (yì/oku = 100 million)
- Korea: Uses 만 (man) and 억 (eok) similarly
- Greece (ancient): Had "myriad" (10,000) as a base unit
The Western million/billion system isn't universal — it's just more familiar to English speakers. India's system is equally valid and arguably better suited to its languages.
Fun fact: Even the Western "billion" means different things! In the US, a billion is 10⁹, but traditionally in the UK, a billion was 10¹² (a million million).
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