The Magician of Masinagudi

A Slice of TIME

Ever felt like a vamp at a black tie dinner? Ask me, for it was one such gathering of early Baby Boomers, which I had inadvertently strayed into. I was flummoxed by the topic, terminologies and convictions being thrown around on a subject being passionately discussed – NADI JYOSIUM (or palm leaf reading form of astrology).

A thumb impression smeared with a black cream, scanned on a non-biometric piece of leaf, was able to throw up a precise data file, from a huge data farm of clustered palm leaves, which contained transcripts of your past and a peek into your future – phew!!

I know, it is foolish to try to ‘Rationalize’ or ‘Scientify’ everything in life, but as part of a unique ‘Cusp Cult’ -born between the last year of the Baby Boomer and first year of the Generation X categorization, further compounded by the fact that I was one of the early riders of the IT Era – embracing technology, it was really hard on me for my right sided brain was refusing to accept any of their claims without supporting data or clear logic.

Esoteric, Metaphysical, Mystical, Mythic, Occult, Paranormal, Karma, Dharma and a huge range of such terms sound strange to me and I was determined to do my research to get a hang of this strange art.

So, off I went into an 8 day sojourn of research and data assimilation on - what sounded a weird but turned out to be a wonderful science form (serious had nothing to do with the number – it just took, or should i say - lasted, that much time). No, not that I have mastered it in just over a week, but seemed to get some sort of a reasonable explanation to convince my lop sided grey matter on the logic of the science. So here is what I think I learned on this traditional science . . .

The foundation of life was a no brainer, which has been deeply engrained into our system, which is: The five basic elements (Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, and Space) or form factors (Pancha Boodham) constitute the creation of human kind. “Energy” is the powering source of this form factor based creation, and the interplay of the various energy sources controls our existence and way of life on earth.

Apparently, a complex network channel of lines, hubs, spokes, power points etc. criss cross the human body, channelizing this energy flow within the system. Each of these channels is defined as a Nadi (there are supposed to be 72,000 channels). Like the human nervous system which comprises of main arteries, veins and sub veins, this complicated network is supposed to have three main Nadi’s (Sushumna, Ida and Pingkala) and various subsystems. This, according to the script, is the human side of the composition.

On the earthly front, across cultures, religions and faiths, there has been consensus on the point that the Universal Zodiac is a large pizza of 12 equal slices. The Nadi concept is built on the lines of embracing the popular Hindu principle of 27 Stars (Nakshatras) in combination with the 12 major signs of the planetary system. Add this to the 72,000 Nadi’s in conjunction with the characteristics of the Pancha Boothas and you have a permutation combination of the 4 factors (12 Zodiac, 27 Stars, 5 Boodhas & 72,000 Nadi’s), the math outcome of which - let us for a lack of a clear term call it – The X factor, essentially is slated to form the core foundation for this amazing science, passed down the ages by our learned ancestors.

So, Nadi or Astrology for that matter, is supposed to be a slice of time, a kind of frozen DNA, which captures the traits and characteristics based on the (a) The latitude and longitudinal position of the planets at the moment of your birth, pertaining to the GPS coordinates to your place of birth (b) the influence of the energies of these planetary subsystems on the individual depending on their position at the time of their conception and time of birth (c) and the predefined characteristics of each of the ‘The X Factor’ (which essentially are what are captured in the Palm Leaves).

The learned scholars further state, that the entire earth, if mapped on a grid map (similar to our GIS meta mapping grid), will fall into one of the combinations of ‘The X Factor’, with a set pattern of characteristics depending on the earthly coordinates. For example, if the moon has a prominent look in at a particular point and time inside a grid cell, then the chances of the traits of that particular human, born at that particular time is more subdued, calm etc.

Lastly, according to the Nadi experts, there are only so many grid cells on the earth and each of those cells fall under one of the combinations defined by the X Factor, captured on a palm leaf. In other words, there can only be that many numbers of human characteristics as those of the number of grid cells or the number of Palm Leaves and the ‘Palm leaf bank’ is an encoded capsule of all the possible such permutation combinations.

This kind of gave me some sort of logic to work upon, though there are a zillion

other things that still do not convince my peeved mind. Like for example, while the data structure, the databank and storage does seem to make sense, the matching of the thumb impression on a basic plain dry leaf (obtained by a black cream smeared on the thumb) to the correct palm leaf file from the data farm, beats me hollow. How the data is used to dig out your parents, ancestors, spouses name stumps me all over. Relating the leaf data to what is in store for the future beats the daylights out of me – at least for now and I will soon start my search process to start them out.

Now I know why they say learning is a continuous process . . .