By A.S. Fernando
The human hand is a marvellous creation of na­ture, say anthropologists. Not without reason, for its adaptation to the require­ments of life marks the be­ginning of human civilization.

The hand is the direct servant of the brain. Mark­ings on the hand reveal not only the workings of the brain, but also the general characteristics, mental pe­culiarities, capabilities and feelings of its owner. Above all, these markings signify what is in store for him in the future, say expert palm­ists.

Palmistry is the art of telling the characteristics of a person and important happenings in his life by examining the lines and other marks on the palm.

Hand tells everything

To the trained reader, the hand reveals not only the character, talents and pro­clivities of the subject but also the health, sickness, and important incidents in his life and also the most suitable career to be followed by him, says the celebrated writer on palmistry who goes by the pseudonym Psychos’, in his work, The new Guide to Palmistry’.

Two parts of Palmistry

Palm­istry, ac­cording to Psychos is di­vided into two parts, namely Chirognomy or the science of judging the char­acter from the shape of the hand and the fingers and Chiromancy, the sci­ence of reading the actions and habits of the past, present and the future events from the for­mation of the palm and the lines marked on it.

Hindu palmists treat palmistry as a branch of Astrology. As regards the other branches of Astrolo­gy, the date and time of the birth is vital for making a correct prediction. But in the case of palmistry, the date and time of birth of a person is not very im­portant because his past, the present and the future lie hidden in the lines and marks on his hand.

Palmistry for prognosis

Palmistry has also made a great contribution to­wards the development of medical science in regard to diagnosis of disease. Because a disease  person is afflicted with could be quickly and easily deter­mined by observing the texture, lines and marks on his palm whereas it would take a day or two for a physician to ascertain the cause of a disease with the aid of medical equipment.

The science of palmistry is said to have been greatly devel­oped in India in ancient times. Sages in ancient India, it is said, were able to give a reading cover­ing very minute of the life of a person by examining the lines and marks on his palm.

Tiniest line tells a story

Expert palmists say that one should not base one’s reading on one particular main line in isolation, be­cause the prediction could go wrong without a study of other lines complemen­tary to the main line.
An expert palmist would not overlook any line be it very tiny or barely discern­ible because he knows even the tiniest line would tell a story.

Right hand and left hand

Expert palmists would place special emphasis on the right hand, because it is the right hand people most­ly work with. If a person uses his left hand for writ­ing purposes and to per­form other manual func­tions, the left palm should be given more importance.

The left hand of women dependent on their husbands or parents assumes more sig­nificance than the right one. However, in the case of wom­en who earn their living by using their brain or brawn, their right hand should be considered more impor­tant than the left one.