The legacy
A book that has never bought an advertisement.
Seventy years, twenty-six Tamil printings, fifteen English editions, seven languages — and every one of those sales made by a reader recommending it to somebody else.
Este pasaje está disponible por ahora solo en inglés. Se está preparando una edición traducida.
There are two ways a body of work survives its author. One is institutional — a school, a chair, a foundation. The other is simpler and much harder to arrange: the work keeps being useful, so people keep handing it on.
Science of Fortune has survived the second way. It has never been advertised. It has no marketing department behind it, and it never had one. Its twenty-six Tamil printings and fifteen English editions were bought by readers who heard about it from other readers.
Sri V. S. Guruswamy, son and disciple, has practised the profession for more than two decades and has kept his father's method intact rather than modernising it. His English translation of Adhista Vingyanam in 2003 fulfilled a stated wish of his father's — that the work should reach readers outside Tamil — and the Telugu, Hindi, Chinese, Spanish and French editions followed from the same intention.
The digital editions complete it. A book written in 1954 by a man who could reach only the readers a printing press could serve is now available in seven languages to almost anywhere with a connection. That is the whole ambition, and it is a modest one: to leave the argument where people can check it.
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.
Consulta
En persona, con cita previa, y en ningún otro sitio.
Panditji atendió cara a cara desde su primer año de ejercicio, y su hijo no ha cambiado nunca esa norma. No hay representantes ni sucursales: la correlación entre quiromancia, astrología y números solo puede hacerse con el cliente en la sala.
V. S. Guruswamy · "Sri Gayatri", No. 14, Srinivasan Street, Mandaveli, Chennai — 600 028, Tamil Nadu, India