Article by I.J. Kapani

Indian Astrology is approximately more than 8000 years old. Human beings right from the birth have strong yearning to know his future. So with the times many a methods have evolved to forecast the future.

Along with astrology, palmistry is equally adept to forecast the future. With times more than three hundred systems are practiced world over to know ones future. Some people foretell from tea leaves, some from signatures, some from hand writing, face reading etc. Each method has his or her own advantages & disadvantages which also depends on the practitioner. When man hears a bad prediction or he is going through tough times apart from prediction he needs to know how he can solve his problem. However, remedies are an integral part of Indian systems but most of them are tough to do which makes it non-usable for the common man who already has little will power left during times of crisis. Ofcourse the main hurdle being lack of money to do costly remedies or recite in Sanskrit. Here comes a new phenomenon that has become popular by the name of Lal Kitab Remedies. Lal Kitab when translated in English means the ‘Red Book’. Over the decades, this has become extremely popular among the masses for the simple & fast solutions that it provides. The Red Book which was published sometime in the 4^th decade of the last century is one of the most authentic books, which provides remedies for all ills i.e. mental, physical, commercial, social & so on. In early 1960s, a very famous literary figure Amrita Pritam wrote two articles on Red Book .This is how the people came to know about the Red Book.

The first woman recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956 for Sunehe (Messages), Amrita Pritam received the Bhartiya Jnanpith, India’s highest literary award, in 1982. She received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award, as well.

Before the 1947 partition the state of Punjab had present day Haryana, Himachal Pradesh & West Punjab. The later territory West Punjab became a province of present day Pakistan. The first language of undivided Punjab was ‘Urdu’, which traced its origin to Persia. ‘Pandit Girdharilal Sharma’ wrote this book in Urdu’ using “Persian” and local Punjabi language commonly spoken in “DOABA” that is the area of Punjab between river Satluj and Vyas, to be precise Jallander division. In the united Punjab, Jallander was known for the publication of books, magazines, textbooks mostly published in Urdu language. Pt. Girdharilal Sharma hailed from Jallandhar district. He was accounts officer in Ministry of Defense who got this book published some time after 1940. However, people came to know about this book only after 1960 thanks to Amrita Pritam as mentioned above.

People have misgivings about this book. Some people wrongly trace its origins from Middle East where as others link it to “Ravan Samhita”.

The “Rig Veda” has clearly linked the jyotish as the ‘Eye of the Vedas’. In the Hindu system according to Veda’s there are sixteen kalas. Lord Ram mastered fourteen kalas. Only lord Krishna mastered sixteen kalas.

Astrology is one of the kalas. Brighu, Bhardwaj, Garg Muni, and Narad Muni, were known to have mastered astrology. It was only Maharishi Parashar who laid the fundamentals of Vedic astrology more than 8000 years ago. These fundamentals are the basis of present day astrology. This system is derived from the motion of moon, the fastest planet on the earth. The Red Book only based its entire system on this system, which has been laid by Maharishi Parashar. The only variation is that Red Book refers to “Kal Purush lagna”. So to say that Red Book is based on Persian system of Ravan Samhita is a myth.

Let us take an example chart to see how Lal Kitab works

Bhaichandra Joshi

He is alive

The Red Book by I.J. Kapani