Asian Window

Priyanka P. Narain in Mint:

In the dusty village of Karoli, north of the tourist town of Udaipur, five German visitors, two Jain monks and three small-town boys longing to go to the US flicked flies off their tea cups, their eyes fixed on the door leading to a small, yellow room.

They were waiting to meet a bald, 76-year-old man who reads fortunes from the Bhrigu Samhita, Hinduism’s most esoteric and famous book of destinies. According to legend, Bhrigu, the son of Brahma, whom believers worship as the creator, wrote the book on palm leaves about 5,000 years ago. Samhita means a collection in Sanskrit.

The book supposedly outlines the destinies of millions of people. And in a testament to the human desire to know the future, Pandit Nathulal Vyas’ house that towers over the street is always full of visitors from India and abroad-some believing, some not so much. But they all leave behind something-dakshina (donation) or gifts-that Vyas, one of the most famousinterpreters of the Bhrigu Samhita, uses to run his home.

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