Chapter LXIII - A brief discourse on the auspicious and inauspicious marks on the persons of males

Hari said:—Hear, O Shankara, I will now describe in brief the characteristic marks of men and women.

Tender palms like lotus petals and not perspiring, fingers adjoining each other, copper-coloured nails, beautiful ankles, well-formed head and feet, plump like a tortoise, mark out a man to be a king. Yellow nails, rough face, high head, feet like winnowing baskets, and withered fingers of the feet, are the marks for sorrow and poverty. There is no doubt about it. Thighs like the trunks of elephants containing few hairs, and one hair in the navel are the marks for great kings. The learned men and persons conversant with Srutis have two hairs each on their thighs. Those, who are poor, have three hairs and diseased men have their knee-joints devoid of flesh. One, who has got a small genital organ, becomes a rich man with no issue. One, who has got a big genital organ, becomes poor. One, who has got one scrotum, becomes poor. One, who has got unequal testes, gets a fickle wife. One, who has got equal testes, becomes a king. One, with hanging testes, becomes short-lived. One, having a bad wrist, becomes poor. With pale-coloured wrists a person becomes happy.

An idigent person passes urine with great sound. Those, who pass urine without any sound, become kings. Those, who have even bellies, enjoy various pleasures of life. Those, who have bellies like pots, become indigent. Those, who have serpentine bellies become poor. Linear marks indicate longevity. He, who has three lines on the forehead, becomes happy, gets sons, and lives for sixty years. One having two lines lives for forty years. One, who has a line on the fore-head extending to the ears, lives for twenty years. If one has three lines on the fore-head extending up to ears he lives for a hundred years. One, having two lines, lives for seventy years. One, having three lines, lives for sixty years. The person, having two lines one clear and another indistinct, lives for twenty years. One, who has short lines, lives for forty years. The person, who has broken lines, meets with an accidental death. The person, on whose head are seen the marks of a trident or Pattisha, is favoured with riches and children, and lives for a hundred years. The person, whose line of life passes through the middle and fore-fingers, lives for a hundred years, O Rudra. The person,—on whose palm the line of knowledge extends up to the thumb, and the line of life extends up to the foot of the middle fingers from the youngest in an unbroken and undivided condition,—lives for a hundred years. The person, on whose palm the line of life appears in a distinct form, lives for a hundred years and becomes the happy recipient of all earthly blessings. The person, on whose palm the line of life extends also from the youngest to the middle finger, lives for eighty years.