But the number most likely to induce vertigo is a simple date: 1989. On November 15 that year, only six days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tendulkar first played for India.
It is astonishing enough that he was only 16 when, wearing the pads bequeathed to him by Sunil Gavaskar, then the keeper of the keys to Indian batting's hall of fame, he went out to face Pakistan's Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
Yet nothing contextual ises Tendulkar better than events more than 3,000 miles away that year in Germany. Eastern Europe's social and political upheaval seems so long ago now, but Tendulkar - like some historical document which forever updates itself - is still with us. Here is a modern cricketer who has straddled eras like no other.
When he made his Test debut in Karachi - imagine an English teenager playing his first game at the MCG - he had been practising with a proper cricket ball for just five years. Previously, he had faced tennis balls or ones made of rubber. No Indian had represented his country so young.
Sensing vulnerability, Waqar hit him on the nose. Later in the series Wasim was warned by English umpire John Holder for peppering him with too many bouncers. Even then, Tendulkar was singled out, yet he still managed a respectable series average of 35, better than his feted seniors Ravi Shastri and Kapil Dev.
Tendulkar showed, wrote Wisden, 'that age is no consideration in Test cricket when a batsman is brimming with talent'. And so it proved.
Twenty-two years on, he stands on the brink of his 100th international hundred. Next comes Ricky Ponting, with 69. Jacques Kallis has 57, Brian Lara retired with 53. No-one else has more than 44. The best-placed Englishman is Graham Gooch with 28. The figures speak for themselves.
Comparisons with Don Bradman, who made 29 hundreds and averaged 99.94 to Tendulkar's 56.94, remain one of cricket's favourite parlour games.
Statistically, Bradman will always be untouchable, but the gentler fixture list of his day meant his workload paled in comparison. Bradman played 52 Tests in 20 years, although his career was interrupted by the war. Tendulkar is about to embark on his 178th in 22 - and he has played a year-and-a-quarter's worth of one-day internationals.
And while Bradman had expectations of his own to deal with, not least a burgeoning sense of Australian nationalism at the time of the Great Depression and the iniquities of Bodyline in 1932-33, Tendulkar has played each of his games carrying the hopes of a billion Indians.
Suffice to say that when Bradman first saw Tendulkar on television, he called his wife Jessie over to tell her that the Indian reminded him of himself.
It remains the greatest compliment ever paid in cricket - even if Bradman was in effect complimenting himself. Gooch was captain of England when Tendulkar first toured here in 1990 and, curly-haired and stubble-free, saved the second Test at Old Trafford with an unbeaten 119 - the first of his 99 hundreds.
'You can always tell with a player from the way he moves and holds himself and shapes up at the crease,' says Gooch. 'Even at 17 years of age, you could see he had all the attributes. I was slightly irritated his innings cost us the Test, but it was a masterful knock and it set the tone for the 98 hundreds that followed.'
For those who followed his progress as a frighteningly precocious schoolboy in Mumbai, the Manchester hundred may have felt as inevitable as one of those trademark square-drives, played off the back foot on tiptoes at the top of the ball's bounce.
Tendulkar was lucky to inherit his poet father's sang-froid and work ethic, regularly arriving for practice at dawn in Shivaji Park, where hundreds of youngsters still congregate daily and dream of becoming the next Sachin.
Sensing vulnerability, Waqar hit him on the nose. Later in the series Wasim was warned by English umpire John Holder for peppering him with too many bouncers. Even then, Tendulkar was singled out, yet he still managed a respectable series average of 35, better than his feted seniors Ravi Shastri and Kapil Dev.
Tendulkar showed, wrote Wisden, 'that age is no consideration in Test cricket when a batsman is brimming with talent'. And so it proved.
Twenty-two years on, he stands on the brink of his 100th international hundred. Next comes Ricky Ponting, with 69. Jacques Kallis has 57, Brian Lara retired with 53. No-one else has more than 44. The best-placed Englishman is Graham Gooch with 28. The figures speak for themselves.
Comparisons with Don Bradman, who made 29 hundreds and averaged 99.94 to Tendulkar's 56.94, remain one of cricket's favourite parlour games.
Statistically, Bradman will always be untouchable, but the gentler fixture list of his day meant his workload paled in comparison. Bradman played 52 Tests in 20 years, although his career was interrupted by the war. Tendulkar is about to embark on his 178th in 22 - and he has played a year-and-a-quarter's worth of one-day internationals.
And while Bradman had expectations of his own to deal with, not least a burgeoning sense of Australian nationalism at the time of the Great Depression and the iniquities of Bodyline in 1932-33, Tendulkar has played each of his games carrying the hopes of a billion Indians.
Suffice to say that when Bradman first saw Tendulkar on television, he called his wife Jessie over to tell her that the Indian reminded him of himself.
It remains the greatest compliment ever paid in cricket - even if Bradman was in effect complimenting himself. Gooch was captain of England when Tendulkar first toured here in 1990 and, curly-haired and stubble-free, saved the second Test at Old Trafford with an unbeaten 119 - the first of his 99 hundreds.
'You can always tell with a player from the way he moves and holds himself and shapes up at the crease,' says Gooch. 'Even at 17 years of age, you could see he had all the attributes. I was slightly irritated his innings cost us the Test, but it was a masterful knock and it set the tone for the 98 hundreds that followed.'
For those who followed his progress as a frighteningly precocious schoolboy in Mumbai, the Manchester hundred may have felt as inevitable as one of those trademark square-drives, played off the back foot on tiptoes at the top of the ball's bounce.
As a 14-year-old, he made unbeaten scores of 207, 329 - in a partnership of 664 with his friend and future Test team-mate Vinod Kambli - and 346 in the space of five innings in a schools tournament. 'Gentlemen,' an Indian selector was reported to have told his colleagues when pushing for the prodigy's inclusion on the 1989 trip to Pakistan. 'Tendulkar never fails.'
English bowlers down the years have come to understand the truth of that statement. In 24 Tests against them, Tendulkar has scored 2,150 runs at an average of 61, with seven hundreds. Four of them have come in 13 Tests in England, where he averages 62. The old wisdom that Indian batsmen struggle in English conditions is happy to regard Tendulkar as an exception.
Even so, in 2002, they thought they had his measure. 'He was in bad form that summer,' says Duncan Fletcher, then the coach of England but now in charge of India and Tendulkar. 'So we tried the tactic of bowling short outside off. Only in the last Test did he get a hundred. Great players always find a way.'
English bowlers down the years have come to understand the truth of that statement. In 24 Tests against them, Tendulkar has scored 2,150 runs at an average of 61, with seven hundreds. Four of them have come in 13 Tests in England, where he averages 62. The old wisdom that Indian batsmen struggle in English conditions is happy to regard Tendulkar as an exception.
Even so, in 2002, they thought they had his measure. 'He was in bad form that summer,' says Duncan Fletcher, then the coach of England but now in charge of India and Tendulkar. 'So we tried the tactic of bowling short outside off. Only in the last Test did he get a hundred. Great players always find a way.'
The trouble was, Tendulkar turned that hundred into 193 as India squared the series at Headingley.
Angus Fraser, who dismissed him in his first Test in England, at Lord's in 1990, recalls: 'Brian Lara was probably the harder of the two to bowl to, because he could make you look ridiculous if he was in the mood. But Sachin was the greater cricketer - to play to such a high level so for so long is remarkable.'
As if to prove the point, Tendulkar's 177 at Trent Bridge in 1996 was his 10th Test ton - yet he was still only 23, far younger than any of the England players in that game.
Although a Lord's century has so far eluded him - in fact, in seven attempts he has never made more than 37 in a Test at the home of cricket - he seems to have got better with age. There have been slumps, it's true. But the best yardstick of a player's greatness is his response to adversity.
In January 2004, Tendulkar arrived at Sydney having failed to score a Test hundred for 14 months. Tormented by a range of bowlers from Jason Gillespie to the forgotten Brad Williams, he had been limited to scores of 0, 1, 37, 0 and 44 in the first three Tests.
Tendulkar simply decided to stop encouraging Australia's bowlers outside off-stump, and so - as if he was a painter discarding his easel - out went the cover drive. For more than 10 hours, he stuck to his monastic policy and forced the bowlers to come to him. He finished with 241 not out, of which 188 came on the leg-side, and almost overshadowed Steve Waugh's final Test appearance.
When tennis elbow and a shoulder injury conspired to rob him of form once more in 2006, critics were quick to predict the end of his career. Instead, Tendulkar knuckled down - and came again.
Since that annus horribilis, he has scored 4,102 Test runs at 63, with an astonishing 16 hundreds. And he became the first player to reach 200 in a one-day international, against South Africa at Gwalior in February 2010. Tendulkar was nearly 37.
His long-time team-mate Rahul Dravid says: 'I wasn't playing that day. But I remember talking to some of the South African boys later, when they played with me in the Indian Premier League. They said it was incredible how he kept finding the gaps with good cricket shots and score at a good pace without ever seeming like he was rushing.'
Over a couple of decades, presumably, you have to learn how to pace yourself. Gooch says: 'His desire and commitment to Indian cricket are extraordinary and he has to deal with a level of attention that none of us can really appreciate.
'He can barely go anywhere or do anything without being ambushed, so to maintain that level of performance is something else.'
That degree of expectation was captured only nine years into his international career by the Indian poet and critic CP Sunderan.
'Batsmen walk out into the middle alone,' he wrote. 'Not Tendulkar. Every time Tendulkar walks to the crease, a whole nation, tatters and all, marches with him to the battle arena. A pauper people pleading for relief, remission from the lifelong anxiety of being Indian, by joining in spirit their visioned saviour.'
India has changed even in the 13 years since Surendran penned those words. But being Sachin Tendulkar has not.
Angus Fraser, who dismissed him in his first Test in England, at Lord's in 1990, recalls: 'Brian Lara was probably the harder of the two to bowl to, because he could make you look ridiculous if he was in the mood. But Sachin was the greater cricketer - to play to such a high level so for so long is remarkable.'
As if to prove the point, Tendulkar's 177 at Trent Bridge in 1996 was his 10th Test ton - yet he was still only 23, far younger than any of the England players in that game.
Although a Lord's century has so far eluded him - in fact, in seven attempts he has never made more than 37 in a Test at the home of cricket - he seems to have got better with age. There have been slumps, it's true. But the best yardstick of a player's greatness is his response to adversity.
In January 2004, Tendulkar arrived at Sydney having failed to score a Test hundred for 14 months. Tormented by a range of bowlers from Jason Gillespie to the forgotten Brad Williams, he had been limited to scores of 0, 1, 37, 0 and 44 in the first three Tests.
Tendulkar simply decided to stop encouraging Australia's bowlers outside off-stump, and so - as if he was a painter discarding his easel - out went the cover drive. For more than 10 hours, he stuck to his monastic policy and forced the bowlers to come to him. He finished with 241 not out, of which 188 came on the leg-side, and almost overshadowed Steve Waugh's final Test appearance.
When tennis elbow and a shoulder injury conspired to rob him of form once more in 2006, critics were quick to predict the end of his career. Instead, Tendulkar knuckled down - and came again.
Since that annus horribilis, he has scored 4,102 Test runs at 63, with an astonishing 16 hundreds. And he became the first player to reach 200 in a one-day international, against South Africa at Gwalior in February 2010. Tendulkar was nearly 37.
His long-time team-mate Rahul Dravid says: 'I wasn't playing that day. But I remember talking to some of the South African boys later, when they played with me in the Indian Premier League. They said it was incredible how he kept finding the gaps with good cricket shots and score at a good pace without ever seeming like he was rushing.'
Over a couple of decades, presumably, you have to learn how to pace yourself. Gooch says: 'His desire and commitment to Indian cricket are extraordinary and he has to deal with a level of attention that none of us can really appreciate.
That degree of expectation was captured only nine years into his international career by the Indian poet and critic CP Sunderan.
'Batsmen walk out into the middle alone,' he wrote. 'Not Tendulkar. Every time Tendulkar walks to the crease, a whole nation, tatters and all, marches with him to the battle arena. A pauper people pleading for relief, remission from the lifelong anxiety of being Indian, by joining in spirit their visioned saviour.'
India has changed even in the 13 years since Surendran penned those words. But being Sachin Tendulkar has not.
when he heard that cathartic roar reverberate around the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai as his captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, hit the winning runs against Sri Lanka.
While he can't control his body ageing, Tendulkar has increasingly sought to exert more control over his mind, believing this is where the game is played most. He trains his mind to stay clear and not wander. "You have to be still in your mind, and keep it blank. It is also important to avoid any needless anger," he says. "Growing up, I picked up a lot from my father, who never lost his temper, and I tried to follow that, so I don't lose my cool."
