A poem written in numbers

Siribhūvalaya

A Kannada Jain poem, about 1,200 years old by its own account, written entirely in numbers. Each number from 1 to 64 stands for a sound; the numbers sit in 27 × 27 grids, 1,268 of them.

Only 33 of its 59 chapters were ever printed. In 2026 we used AI to turn all 59 from numbers back into Kannada letters, and to write a first English translation of every verse.

The letters are checked. The meaning is not: the English is rough, and the poem now needs people who read Old Kannada.