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of one hundred years, of which a considerable portion had already elapsed. Practically, however, I have ascertained, that every man who can pay handsomely for the search can expect to find his horoscope or some kind of description of it, whether intelligible or otherwise, in these volumes.*[1]
I may farther state here that the language used in these books is Sanskrit and that the technical phraseology of Hindu astrology is to be found in almost every Sloka. They are written in every variety of character, Nagri, Telugu, Grantha, Kanarese and Malyalam characters are employed indiscriminately in transcribing these books. Judging from appearance many of these books seem to be very old; but this fact is of no importance whatsoever. Even if the book is a new one it will always be asserted that it was copied from some old manuscript and no importance whatever is attached to any particular book.
From the foregoing description of the Nadigranthams it is clearly not a very easy thing to account for their existence and examine their foundation to see if they have anything like a scientific basis. A thorough knowledge of all the existing systems of astrology does not enable a person to find out the process by which they could have been written, much less to produce similar works on any limited scale. It is not alleged by these astrologers that they have any occult basis or that any occult powers are needed to interpret them. There is not even room for the supposition that by some mysterious occult process, these so-called astrologers ascertain the horoscope of an enquirer and the past, present and future incidents of his life and only use these Nadigranthams as a veil to hide their real secret and mystify the public. And moreover all the circumstances connected with them are calculated to create
