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sitting there with his three wives and a host of Rishis. A considerable portion of the account was devoted to the description of the dancing of Apsaras and planetary deities. I may here mention that in reply to one of my questions, the astrologer informed me that Yyasa was the author of the book from which he was reading. But Vyasa knew nothing about the third wife of Narayana who was introduced, as is well-known, into the Hindu Pantheon by the Vaishnavite writers of Southern India in later times. The dancing or nrityam of Grahams or Planetary deities is a new idea which does not appear in any other Hindu book.
The account then proceeded to state that in the present year of Kaliyuga on the very date on which my friend's questions were asked, certain would be asked by a Madhava Brahmin. The astrologer went on giving lengthy explanations of the meaning of the Sanskrit text until he came to the description of the questioner and the enumeration of the questions. After arriving at this stage he began to propose explanations and tried to discuss the subject with us for the purpose of ascertaining the real meaning of his text. My friend hastily produced his horoscope and placed it before the astrologer for his guidance. Seeing, however, the real difficulties of the astrologer's situation, and estimating at its true worth his anxiety to get his interpretation confirmed and cleared of all its ambiguities by the light of our statements, I requested him to go on reading the text to its end without taking the trouble to explain its meaning to us as we could understand it ourselves. This proposal was not quite agreeable to him, he, however, proceeded to describe my friend and his antecedents. The description was extremely meagre and contained nothing more than what was known about him to a considerable number of people in Madras. The description was wrong, however, in stating that my friend was a follower of Vysarayamatham, while he was a follower of Raghavendaswamy's matham. It was also wrong in stating that his father was married thrice. I found that in four or five distinct and unambiguous statements made
