BY M. V. NARASIMHASWAMI, M.A.

To the average European mind, the Orient spells everything that is mysterious and supernatural, and there is ample reason for it. It can safely be asserted that the march of civilisation in the East has taken a different course altogether from what it has been in the Western countries. The oriental mind with its marked bias towards the recondite and the spiritual, discovered and developed diverse departments of knowledge which, to a person in the grip of modern intellectualism, may appear to be strongly redolent of barbaric incoherence.

To the Hindu, especially, among the orientals, these sciences are of perennial worth and the sciences of divination, like astrology and palmistry, are daily guides and sources of inspiration. That belief in such sciences is not necessarily an indication of the undeveloped state of mind of a person is evident from the increasing flair, even of the cultured European mind, for astrology and palmistry. In modern days, these sciences are proving themselves at every step by the remarkable series of predictions made in recent times, coming true.

Although palmistry has been in vogue on the European continent for some centuries, belief in such things was for a long time considered to be hors de mode by cultured persons. Fortunately these conditions are gradually changing, and the sciences which were tried in the court of intellectualism and found to be undeserving of mature consideration are gradually coming into their own, through the marvelous efforts of a hierarchy of European astrologers and palmists like Cheiro and Noel Jacquin. The reserve with which M. Noel Jacquin recently expounded the science of palmistry is indicative of Western apathy towards such sciences.

The predictions of Cheiro and others concerning extraordinary events or general tendencies in the life of an individual, though marvelous in themselves, still lack the detail of consideration which alone can vindicate the claims of the science. It is one thing to tell a person in a general way that he will come upon good or bad luck in future, and quite another to be able to predict the life of an ordinary person, day in, day out. We marvel indeed at the bold predictions of recent political events concerning whole nations, or events in the lives of distinguished personages which have been, and are being, adumbrated in the press for popular consumption. But when a palmist goes to you, takes your hand and tells you of the domestic altercation that you have had two days ago with your wife, or finds out from your hand that your grandfather had a harelip, it is something uncanny and bordering on devilry.

We can very well understand that controlling and important events or tendencies of life can be presaged from a study of the lines of the palm. But how a passing phase of patriarchal petulance or a proavian anatomical distinction finds its counterpart in the lines of the palm is beyond comprehension. When you come face to face with such a master, you are literally taken aback and look timidly for horns on his head. But such, in truth, are the weird powers of Mr. Naidu who is now plying the modest profession of a broker in the Vizianagaram market.

Swamineni Suryanarayanarao Naidu Garu, to give him his full name comes of a respectable stock. His forbears hailed from Masulipatam in the Kistna district where they held high positions in Government service. A man nearer fifty than forty, tall, restless, with quick and alert eyes full of intelligence, he is fanatical in his devotion to the science of palmistry. Though poor, he does not sell his marvelous knowledge but scatters its fruit free to all who seek for them.

His system of reading the palm is as weird as his powers of prediction. The basis for his study is not supplied by the clearly impressed lines on the palm, which form the stock-in-trade of every continental system of palmistry. He relies mainly on the small and almost obscure lines on the thumb and the base of the thumb, which is known as the ‘Mount of Venus.’

Preliminary to the reading of the hand, Mr. Naidu presses the skin of the palm of the subject with his own thumb and draws the skin into folds. The lines, which were hitherto very faint, suddenly flash into prominence and begin to tell their stories to the master. He bases his calculations on the relative brightness or lustre of the lines, which he believes, changes with time like the phases of the moon.

Like the rest of his race, he can predict with amazing accuracy the important events of a man's life that come to pass at any distant future, but that is not at all the wonderful part of his system. He is at his greatest ease while reading into the near future and foretelling the daily humdrum life of an individual, with very accurate item calculations, which might well be the object of envy of Western palmists.

A friend meeting Mr. Naidu on the road announces to him his intention to leave the station next day. Mr. Naidu casually takes the friend's hand, and at the end of some cogitations punctuated by nods of the head, assures him smiling that the latter would not move even a mile from his home inside the next three days. The friend would naturally think that he had caught Mr. Naidu napping, but to his chagrin he finds his projected journey evicted from the programme altogether by unavoidable circumstance.

Another astonishing feature of his system is that he is able to read the history of other lives related to the subject. A parent, for example, often goes to him to consult about the inclinations and tendencies of his offspring with a view to make a right choice of profession for the latter.

From some calculations based upon the lustre and the shape of the lines, he can cast the nativity of a person and it coincides exactly with the one drawn from an astronomical knowledge of the precise position of planets at the time of birth of the subject. And whenever there is doubt regarding the exact time and date of birth of an individual, Mr. Naidu's word is final.

Verily, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy’.