1925 — 1997 · Founder
Pandit Sethuraman
He gave up a commission and a salary because a pattern in a regimental ledger would not leave him alone. Seventy years later the book he wrote about it has never been advertised, and has never been out of print.
By his own system
- Born
- 31 May 1925
- Birth number
- 4 — Rahu, the reformer
- Destiny number
- 8 — Saturn, the long ascent
- First published
- 1954, in Tamil
A 4 birth against an 8 destiny is a demanding combination — the reformer under Saturn's discipline. He wrote about it directly.
Este pasaje está disponible por ahora solo en inglés. Se está preparando una edición traducida.
Pandit Sethuraman was born on the 31st of May, 1925, and educated at Tiruchirapalli. He joined the defence services of India — then under the British crown — as a young man during the Second World War, and rose quickly on a combination of hard work and unusually sharp intellect.
His research-minded temperament and an existing interest in the occult sciences led him to do something no one had asked of him: he began analysing the lives of the hundreds of soldiers in his unit. Their victories, their defeats, their deaths. Set against those outcomes he placed two other facts — each man's date of birth, and the exact spelling of his name.
A definite pattern emerged. It was regular enough that he could not treat it as coincidence, and consistent enough that he could state it as a rule.
That revelation changed the course of his life. He concluded he had been born for a work that would be of use to people, resigned his post — forgoing both status and salary — and set about it. In 1954 he published ADHISTA VINGYANAM (Science of Fortune) in Tamil.
The book was an immediate success, and it is worth being precise about how. Its publication was never advertised. Its sale was never promoted. Readers who had been helped by it told other readers, and the demand grew in leaps. That is the entire marketing history of a book that has now been reprinted twenty-six times.
He was, in the phrase his readers still use, the first and only numerologist in the world to give interpretations for name numbers up to 108 — drawn from the wide array of scriptural and spiritual works in his own possession. Before him the classical texts stopped at 52.
His clientele came to include kings, presidents, ministers, scientists and industrialists, alongside a far larger number of ordinary people who had simply read the book. He kept the same rule for all of them: consultation in person, by prior appointment, at his own address.
After publishing the thirteenth Tamil edition in 1997, at the height of his reputation, Pandit Sethuraman died. The practice did not.
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.