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SATYASAMHITA AND GANDHIJI'S HOROSCOPE *
I. The Satyasamhita and Satyācārya:
The Satyasamhita is a stupendous work consisting of 125 volumes. Each volume in its turn, has got 300 palm-leaves. It is in Sanskrit and written in a Tamil script called Grantham. One Madrasi Pandit named Srinivasacharya IYENGAR has got it.
The work deals with the predictive portion of Astrology. Its reputed author is Satyacārya who, as he says in the text of the Satyasamhita attached at the end of the article, was one of the many stars that shone in the court of one Vikramaditya.1 At the latter's repeated request Satyacārya described the futures of all the people, living on the earth. Thus it is legitimate to hope that every one's future is mirrored in this huge work.
Nothing can be said regarding the historicity of this marvellous work and its divine author. But looking to the fact that such words as Nyayavadi and Nyayadarii are used to denote modern distinctions existing between an Advocate and a Solicitor as well as the words like Samācārayantra and Kalasala for Press and College respectively, I am inclined not to attach much antiquity to this work as its extraordinary divine nature would tempt me to. A part of the work may be genuine and there are certain elements with the flavour of the Moslem age interpolations.
I would not have put faith at all in this work as I know there are, now-a-day so many counterfeit Samhitas afloat in the market. But the reading of GANDHIJI'S horoscope as published, according to it, in the December issue of Gujarat 1931, refers to such incidents and episodes of GANDHIJI'S life as actually took place in years later than 1931,5 I am encourged to make a scientific study of this work which is decidedly on a higher level and which requires a reasonable explanation, though I must admit that my researches have not yielded sufficiently satisfactory results on account of the fact that I do not claim to be the regular student of Astrology as other Śastris, who have learnt at the feet of the master this occult science.
II. Argument:
In this work, the Lagna is described as consisting of 150 Amias; and 150 predictions, all different in details, are allotted to each Lagna. Each prediction is divided into two main groups, namely, Prathama Bhava and Dvadasa Bhava. It takes some
Published in the Bharatya Vidya (Bharatya Vidya Bhavan, Kulpati Munshi Marg, Bombay-7)' Vol. IV. Pl. I and II,
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A part of the text of the Satyasamhita containing the reading of Gandhiji's life is attached at the end of the article.
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