It is indeed a divine experience to be born in this country with it’s rich cultural heritage, traditions and customs and immense wealth of ancient scriptures spilling over with knowledge about the cosmos and wisdom of our ancient sages. I have always felt deeply connected with anything sacred and spiritual that these scriptures and the ancient manuscripts reveal , just like several others in my country and even abroad. At the same time there are equal number of critics and non-believers though I have also seen that even the die-hard atheists are influenced and impressed with the immense wisdom that our ancient scriptures contain and try as we much we cannot escape being impressed by it at some point of our life or the other, specially if we are born as an Indian.
I had heard and even read a few times about one such ancient “ knowledge and practice” called “Nadishastra” and was full of intrigue and inquisitiveness to know more about this occult science.This opportunity came my way unexpectedly, when I got the information about a nearby centre through my son’s friend and I decided to visit the place. On reaching the venue I was confronted by a typical south Indian priest who could barely talk in English or even for that matter in Hindi. As we engaged in a preliminary conversation , discomfort hung thick in the air. I was told to give my thumb impression, as is the practice and the basis of making predictions in this branch of occult science and asked me to wait in the adjoining room. Barely after five minutes the man came in with a bundle containing strips of ancient looking scriptures stringed and tied together. He untied the strips gingerly, declaring that on the basis of my thumb print he had selected 20 odd strips and in those he would find the exact strip which would have the main events of my life scripted including the names of my close family members .
Barely had I braced myself up for this strange encounter, that the priest started chanting shlokas, pausing in between to ask questions. During this process he started eliminating some of the strips on the basis of the information gathered from my answers. The whole thing lasted for about 5-10 minutes at the end of which he declared my husband’s name and profession, names of my parents, that I had an elder son and a younger daughter and gave me their names and few other details about my family .I was both fascinated and flustered at the same time. He then asked me if I had any specific questions and I gave him my queries. He told me that he would write my details in a booklet that he had with him, in Kannada(the local language) and get it translated for me later on.
He then started writing down in the booklet, patiently and painstakingly, smoothly and steadily filling page after page, humming to himself all the time, visibly enjoying the task. I watched him initially with amusement and later with admiration for he was very unlike any other priest I had met before, who are normally always in a hurry to go over the proceedings. Since he took his own sweet time to write the details I glanced around the room and saw the life-sized portraits of two sages, recognizing one to be of Maharishi Agasthe about whom I had read once, two set of wooden padukas (footwear) were also kept there along with the usual paraphernalia of a puja room. The environment was serene and the aroma of incense and sandalwood paste lingered in the room. After filling 4-5 pages he took up the task of translating whatever he had written, line by line, filling me with details about my life. At the end he confirmed what I head read about Nadi shastra, that all these scriptures had been written thousands of years back by the great Rishi Agasthe after years of rigorous and deep meditation and there exists a record of almost every person existing today. I paid and thanked him and took his leave, my mind a whirl pool of thoughts .
As I walked back home, I was filled with awe and admiration for all the people associated with the ancient practices of worship ,meditation, astrology, astronomy and other fields of occult science. Their knowledge, the dedication and passion with which they pursued their goals is unparalleled and unimaginable in today’s times or even in those times in any other part of the world. Imagine writing about people who would be born thousands of years hence and also to be able to give their names and detailed predictions about their life, what kind of insight and intuitional powers these people possessed? And that too without much technology whereas today even in this hi-tech world our predictions are very often far from accurate. All this awareness makes us feel so insignificant in front of them. I felt truly blessed to have been born in this divine land and a believer in reincarnations, wished to be born again and again on this very land, my mother land. And as if in sync with my sentiments and mood, I passed several gateways beautifully decorated with traditional rangolis in myriad colors and patterns, as thepeople of the nation got ready to celebrate the Makar Sankranti festival in true traditional style.
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