Encyclopaedia of Indian Astrology – Vol – 2 [CBH]

Prof. N.E. Muthuswami – (1925-2005) was born in Noorani village in Palakkad in the year 1925 to Sri.N.S.Easwara Iyer and Smt. A.V. Ananthalakshmi Ammal as their fourth son. After completing his primary education, he joined Trivandrum Sanskrit college and passed Mahopaadhyaaya in the year 1945 in first rank. After this he underwent the 6 year Diploma course in Indian Medicine in Ayurvaeda. During this period he completed the Sahithyaratna and Hindi Vidwan examinations in Hindi. He entered into the private service as a Hindi teacher. He later joined as Hindi Lecturer in Mar Ivanios College, Trivandrum, S.N. College, Quilon and S T Hindu College, Nagercoil. In 1954 he started his career in Government service as Hindi Lecturer in University College, Trivandrum.

He became the Principal of Hindi Training college, Trichur. Later became Professor at Government College Pattambi and then retired from service as Editor of Publications Department from Ayurveda College, Trivandrum. As the editor of the Publications Department, he had edited and published with commentary, classics from Sanskrit relating to Ayurveda and edited a Dictionary in Ayurveda in Malayalam.

During his service in the above department, he was well known to his students and colleagues as a good teacher, friend and well-wisher. He was known to the student community through his well written and simple guide books for prescribed text books. When government introduced the Sanskrit teacher examination course, he came out with simple and well written books in Malayalam and Sanskrit for those students. These became an instant success with the learners as well as teachers of such courses.

After retirement from government service, he took to Astrology. As President of the Jyothisha Prachara Sabha, which he founded for the propagation of Astrology in Kerala, he started writing books on Astrology, when he found that the common man was unable to learn astrology due to the serious lack of books in Malayalam. With his extensive knowledge of Sanskrit, English, Tamil and Malayalam he started translating and editing classics in Sanskrit to Malayalam and they became the backbone of the learning process for the common man to learn Astrology.

His fundamental series Jyothisha Patamala was a favourite among the starters for learning Indian astrology. He wrote more than 70 books comprising the different areas of Indian astrology in simple Malayalam, understood by the common man. Though they were simple enough for the common man, they were scholarly as well and was well received by the elite scholars of Indian astrology. He went to the extent of publishing a Dictionary of Indian Astrology in Malayalam, for making available to the learners, the extant knowledge of Astrology.