Lakshana
A mark or feature the texts read: build, proportion, lustre, face, voice, gait, limbs, feet or a mole.
- Samudrika Shastra
- हिंदी: लक्षण
What is the rule behind Lakshana?
Samudrika Shastra reads lakshanas, the marks and features of the whole body: build, proportion, lustre, face, voice, gait, limbs, feet and marks. Varahamihira places it in the Samhita branch of Jyotish.
Source: Brihat Samhita
Where can you learn about Lakshana?
Related terms
- Samudrika ShastraThe old Indian study of lakshanas, the marks and features of the whole body. Varahamihira places it in the Samhita branch of Jyotish. It is a tradition of signs, not medicine and not a test of character or worth.
- Hasta SamudrikaThe hand as one part of Samudrika. The palmistry subject teaches the hand; a reader who reads both reads the body first, then the hand.
- Brihat SamhitaVarahamihira's 6th-century work, the main source of Samudrika, with chapters on the marks of men, the five great men and women. Editions number the chapters differently.
- KalapurushaThe person of time, on whose body Jyotish places the twelve signs, from Aries at the head to Pisces at the feet.
- AngulaThe breadth of a person's own finger, the unit for their height. Brihat Samhita gives 108 angulas as tall, 96 as medium and 84 as short.
- TalaThe length of the face, from hairline to chin, used by image-making texts such as Manasara to measure a figure. A living adult is about nine to ten talas tall.
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What does Lakshana mean in Samudrika Shastra?
A mark or feature the texts read: build, proportion, lustre, face, voice, gait, limbs, feet or a mole. Samudrika Shastra reads lakshanas, the marks and features of the whole body: build, proportion, lustre, face, voice, gait, limbs, feet and marks. Varahamihira places it in the Samhita branch of Jyotish.
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