Two generations
One practice, handed from father to son.
The work began in a wartime barracks and has never left the family. What follows is not a legend — it is a record, and most of it is checkable.
El legado
Setenta años, y jamás pagó un anuncio.
- 1925
A birth on the 31st of May
Sethuraman is born in Tamil Nadu and educated at Tiruchirapalli. The date — a 31, reducing to 4 — will later be read by his own system as the number of the reformer.
- 1940s
The Defence Services, and an observation
He joins the Indian defence services under the British crown during the Second World War and rises quickly. Analysing the lives of hundreds of soldiers in his unit — their victories, their defeats, their deaths — he finds a pattern corresponding to their dates of birth and names.
- 1946
Sir M. Visvesvaraya is persuaded
On the 3rd of September, India's most celebrated engineer records that Pandit Sethuraman has shown him a fifth facet of mathematics. The endorsement travels further than any advertisement could have.
- 1954
Adhista Vingyanam
He resigns his post, forgoing rank and salary, and publishes the Tamil original. It is never advertised or promoted. Readers who were helped by it tell other readers, and the demand grows in leaps.
- 1997
The thirteenth edition, and a passing
After bringing out the thirteenth Tamil edition at the height of his reputation, Pandit Sethuraman dies. The practice does not.
- 2003
Science of Fortune, in English
V. S. Guruswamy — son, disciple and by now a numerologist of standing in his own right — translates the work, adds chapters and illustrations, and brings out the English edition. Telugu, Hindi and Chinese follow.
- 2013
Twenty-six printings
The Tamil original passes its twenty-sixth reprint. The English edition is in its tenth.
- Today
My Fortune, and the digital editions
The eBook editions place both works in seven languages within reach of readers in almost every country — the global readership Panditji wrote for but could not reach in his lifetime.