The Study of Jyotisha · Chapter 43 of 54 · Part Eight · The applied branches

#Other schools

A student of Jyotisha will soon meet methods and traditions that are not in Varahamihira or Parashara: palm-leaf "Nadi" readings, the "Bhrigu Samhita", the Lal Kitab, KP, and Western astrology. Some are serious systems with their own books; some are commercial products wrapped in legend. This chapter describes each as fairly as the evidence allows, separating what is documented from what is tradition and what is unverified claim.

#The Nadi traditions

The word nadi (here meaning a fine division, or a "leaf" of a manuscript) covers two very different things.

#The printed Nadi books

There is a rule-based Nadi astrology, taught in printed books such as the Bhrigu Nandi Nadi and the Chandra Kala Nadi (also called Deva Keralam). Their distinctive ideas:

• The ascendant is not primary. The Bhrigu Nandi Nadi's modern editor says that in the Nadi books "the Lagna is not considered as of primary importance"; it only fixes the day's positions. The reading is built round the significator planets: Jupiter for children, Mercury for education, Saturn for profession, Venus for marriage — and their transits.
• Very fine divisions. The Chandra Kala Nadi divides each sign into 150 parts (nadi amsha), each with its own result, so that two people born minutes apart would have different readings.

These books are systems one can study and test like any other.

#The palm-leaf readings

The other "Nadi" is a consultation business, especially at Vaitheeswaran Koil in Tamil Nadu: the client gives a thumb impression, and the reader searches bundles of palm leaves for "their" leaf, which is said to have been written by an ancient sage and to name the client, their parents and their life.

What is documented: the Madras Government Oriental Manuscripts Library bought at least one Nadi palm-leaf manuscript in 1914–15, and the University of Madras printed it in 1961 (the Saptarishi Nadi). Nadi manuscripts are real old texts.

What is legend: that Chola kings kept the leaves in the Tanjore library; that the British auctioned them; that each leaf was written for one particular person thousands of years ago. No catalogue record, auction record, or scientific dating (such as radiocarbon dating) of the commercial leaves has been found.

The way the "right leaf" is usually found — the reader asks a long series of yes-or-no questions while turning leaves — is a known technique for drawing information out of a client (sometimes called "cold reading"). Even sympathetic writers warn about fraud in this area. A student should treat the claim that an ancient leaf names a modern client as unverified until the leaves are independently dated and the readings tested.

#The Bhrigu Samhita

The "Bhrigu Samhita" is said, in legend, to be a vast work of the sage Bhrigu containing the horoscopes of millions of people. Families in North India keep manuscripts under that name and consult them.

Printed books called "Bhrigu Samhita" are usually modern compilations. One widely circulated English book of that name is, by its own preface, a compilation "culled out from various standard and published works": twelve chapters, one for each ascendant, giving each planet's results in each house. Its compiler himself describes many claimed "original" Bhrigu Samhitas as "cheap and fraudulent".

So: the name is ancient and revered; the claim of a book containing everyone's horoscope is legend; the printed books are useful compilations of standard rules, and should be read as such.

#Lal Kitab

The Lal Kitab ("Red Book") is a Punjabi system published in five volumes between 1939 and 1952, associated with Pandit Roop Chand Joshi (1898–1982), though the original authorship is disputed. It combines horoscopy with palmistry (samudrika). Its best-known feature is its remedies: cheap household acts — feeding a cow or a dog, giving to the needy, throwing a coin into flowing water — instead of gemstones and expensive rituals. It is generally taught as using a fixed chart (Aries always the 1st house) and its own annual rotation table, though this course has not been able to read the original Urdu-script volumes to confirm the details.

Whatever one thinks of its astrology, the Lal Kitab's attitude to remedies — cheap, charitable, harmless — is a sharp contrast to the expensive "remedies" sold elsewhere (Chapter 44).

#Krishnamurti Paddhati (KP)

KP, the "Krishnamurti method", was developed in the mid-20th century by K. S. Krishnamurti. Its main ideas:

• each nakshatra is divided into nine unequal "subs" in the proportions of the Vimshottari periods (Chapter 22), giving 249 divisions of the zodiac, each with a star lord and a sub lord;
• houses are measured with unequal cusps by the Western Placidus method, not whole signs;
• the sub lord of a house cusp decides whether the house's matter is "promised";
• ruling planets at the moment of judgement help with timing;
• in KP horary (Chapter 40), the questioner picks a number from 1 to 249, which fixes the ascendant.

KP is precise and very popular, especially for horary questions. It is a modern system — its books are 20th-century works, not classical texts — and Krishnamurti is reported to have said that watching Nadi readers inspired its fine divisions.

#Western astrology

Western astrology shares its roots with Jyotisha. Both descend in part from Hellenistic astrology (Greek-speaking Egypt, about the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE), which reached India in the early centuries CE (Chapter 48). The shared features are striking: the twelve signs, the seven planets ruling them, exaltations, the houses, the 7th-house aspect, many Greek words in Varahamihira (Chapters 7, 9).

The main differences:

Because of the 24° difference, most people's Western "Sun sign" is one sign later than their sidereal Sun sign. Each tradition has its own consistency; they cannot both be literally right about which sign the Sun "is in", since they use different definitions of the signs.

#A general rule for any school

When you meet a new system or a new reader, ask:

1. What are the rules, and where are they written? A system that cannot state its rules cannot be checked.
2. What is documented, and what is legend? Old manuscripts are real; claims about what they contain must be shown.
3. What does it cost, and who profits? Be most careful where the method is secret and the fee is high.
4. Has it been tested? Chapter 52 explains how.

#Summary

• "Nadi" covers printed rule books (Bhrigu Nandi Nadi, Chandra Kala Nadi), which can be studied, and palm-leaf readings, whose claims to name modern clients are unverified; Nadi manuscripts are real, the legends about them undocumented.
• Printed "Bhrigu Samhitas" are modern compilations of standard rules; the claim of a book of everyone's horoscopes is legend.
• The Lal Kitab (1939–1952) is a Punjabi system known for cheap, harmless remedies.
• KP (K. S. Krishnamurti, 20th century) uses 249 star-and-sub divisions, Placidus cusps and ruling planets.
• Western astrology shares Hellenistic roots with Jyotisha but uses the tropical zodiac, the outer planets and different houses and aspects.

#Exercises

1. What is the difference between the printed Nadi books and the palm-leaf readings?
2. Which parts of the Nadi story are documented, and which are legend?
3. How does KP divide a nakshatra, and why does it get 249 divisions?
4. Why do most people's Western Sun signs differ from their sidereal ones?
5. What four questions should you ask about any new system?

Answers: 1. The printed books state rules that can be studied and tested; the palm-leaf readings claim that an ancient leaf names the client, which is unverified and is "found" by a questioning process. 2. Documented: Nadi manuscripts exist, and one was bought by the Madras manuscripts library in 1914–15 and printed in 1961. Legend: Chola libraries, British auctions, leaves written for individuals in antiquity. 3. Into nine subs in Vimshottari proportions; 27 × 9 = 243, and where a sub crosses a sign boundary it is split in two, giving 249. 4. Because the tropical zodiac is now about 24° ahead of the sidereal, so the same Sun position usually falls in the next sign. 5. What are the rules and where are they written; what is documented and what is legend; what does it cost and who profits; has it been tested.