India uses a traditional numbering system using a unique grouping of 2 decimal places, rather than the commonplace 3 decimal places. Terms crore and lakh are in widespread use today in Indian English. General usage of higher denominations today are recursive e.g. 2 lakh crores (2 followed by 12 zeros). The old Indian system referred to a billion as the old British billion; equivalent to a million million.
The table below follows the short scale usage of billion being a thousand million.
India's unique number system
| Term |
Figure |
No of zeros |
In words (short scale) |
| lakh (lac) |
1,00,000 |
5 |
Hundred thousand |
| crore |
1,00,00,000 |
7 |
Ten million |
| arab |
1,00,00,00,000 |
9 |
1 billion |
| kharab |
1,00,00,00,00,000 |
11 |
100 billion |
| neel |
1,00,00,00,00,00,000 |
13 |
10 trillion |
| padma |
1,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 |
15 |
1 quadrillion |
| shankh |
1,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 |
17 |
100 quadrillion |
| maha-shankh |
1,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 |
19 |
10 quintillion |
Only arab, crore and lakh are commonly used; the higher denominations listed above are relatively unheard of, though padma and kharab are sometimes used in Hindi.
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