Lal Kitab

LAL KITAB (Red Book Artrology)
Introduction: Among enormous systems of astrology in India, Lal Kitab, is gaining popularity day by day. Lal Kitab, as it seems to suggest, does not mean a book of red colour only. In fact, Lal Kitab is a school of vedic Astrology that has brought astrology to the common man. All the knowledge, the principes and the rules of this system have been placed in 5 books known as Lal Kitab itself. Therefore, we would prefer to say that Lal Kitab is a system of Astrology as well as a book on Astrology.
About Lal Kitab : Lal Kitab came to be known the year 1983 when an astrological journal namely the ‘Fate and fortune’ published the remedies (upayas) of Lal Kitab in one of its issues, soon, the market became flooded with enormous versions of Lal kitab authentic or unauthentic surprisingly none of the authors of these books those were named as Dalda.
Lal Kitabs on a very later stage has mentioned as to which authentic version of Lal kitab his work is based upon. While tracing the origin of this school of Astrology namely the Lal Kitab we have come across a number of views . Some trace its origin in ‘Arun’ the charioteer of lord sun while some others go to link it with Rawan and Rawan Samhita’. Some versions link it to the Arabs and Muslims. Still other go to suggest that Lat Kitab is based upon some prophesies made to one Pandit Rup Chand ji Joshi by God himself. With out going into the controversy or long debate on the issue we would prefer to accept the most popular view that Pt. Rup Chand ji Joshi of Pharwala in Punjab was the originator of this system of astrology. Pt.Rup Chand ji Joshi an accountant in Royal Indian Army during the British Rule , got some old manuscripts from one of his colleagues who could not reads and Wrote but often made predictions on the basis of the knowledge he aquired by the word of mouth during his childhood. He requested Pandit ji to reproduce his knowledge in written form so that it can go a long way to the posterity and benefit them. This laid the foundation of a great system of astrology, the Lal Kitab : Pandit ji compeiled this knowledge in five books in sequence, and also named them as Lal Kitab.
To note here, Pandit ji has added ‘Samudrik’ or ILM Samudrik’ with ‘Lal Kitab’ on each of his books. Assigning literal meaning to the word ‘Samudrik’ most of the writers on ‘Lal Kitab’ have described the Lal Kitab Knowledge as the “Oceanic Knowledge”or the Knowledge of ocean that does not appear to be a right meaning in context of the Lal Kitab .Here, we would like to place on record the correct meaning of the word ‘Samudrik’ . This word comes from the Sanskrit language. According to various Sanskrit –English dictionaries like that by a learned scholar V.S.Apte has two meanings first sea born ( oceanic) and the second “Relating to marks on the body which are supposed to indicate good or bad fortune. Also, According to Sanskrit grammer, when as samudrik is used in Pullinga ( masculine gender) it means one who knows has to interpret the various mark on the body.
Panditji wrote his Lal Kitab in a Series of 5 books in Urdu script the first in the series, ‘Samudrik kee Lal kitab ke Farman’ was published in 1939. followed by “Samudrik kee Lal Kitab ke Arman( 1940) , ‘Samudrik kee Lal Kitab, Teesara Hissa (1941). Ilm Samudrik kee Lal Kitab, Tarmeem shuda (1942) and ‘Ilm samudrik kee Buniyad par samudrik kee Lal kitab ‘(1952).
Urdu was the most prominent language in northern India where the books were compiled, and the caligraphed and published. Period in which these were compiled Though, Pandit ji had a good Knowledge of English language but he opted to write the books in Urdu to make them understandable to the comman people. But now, the circumstances have changed. These days the numbers of people who know to read, write or understand Urdu language is diminishing day by day. Lack of the Knowledge of Urdu language, every Tom, Dick and Harry interpreted the Lal Kitab as he liked it . This tendency hurt the very soul of the book and the knowledge lying there in . Such books on Lal kitab could do nothing but to create a lot of misunderstandings. The remedies which Pandit ji gave on scientific basis were named Totkas by these books. Hence, the need to transcript the Lal kitab in Hindi in Devnagari script was being felt deeply long.
Devanagari transcription of Lal kitab .
Lal Kitab had not been an unknown book or knowledge for our family, My grandfather Dr Giridhari Lal ji Goswami was a learned scholar of Vedic Astrology. He presented first ever thesis on astrology in the Dept of Sanskrit of Delhi University and got a Ph.D degree for the same . He also established and institution for the research in Astrology in the name of the ‘Akhil Bhartiya Jyotish Swadhyay Sansthan and published a number of books on astrology through the sansthan. Two of his publications were realeased none other than the presidents of India shri Gaini Zail Singh and Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed . Alongwith a lot of rare and precious books on Astrology he had lal kitab in his personal library. This copy of lal kitab was presented to him by Dr. P.B. Verma, working with the Ministry of Home Affairs. After his passing away from this world my father Pt Beni Madhav Goswami took charge of the work being done by Dr.Giridhari Lal ji Goswami . With his immense interest in lal kitab my father intended to produce the Devanagari transcripts of all the volumes of Lal Kitab : During last two decades my father worked hard to aquire the research based knowledge of Lal Kitab. During this period he wrote a lot of authentic books on astrology like “Lal Diary’ (published in 1996 with 4 of its subsequent editions till date ),Upay Martand(1996 with 3 subsiquent till date), Lal Kitab in English language ( 2003, with its 3 editions published later), Kaun Manglik Kaun Nahi (in 2006) and so on . But his Long desire to present Devanagari transcriptions of all the volumes of Lal kitab still remained unfulfilled. In fact, the lack of original manuscripts of lal kitab proved to a main hinderance in his way. He worked hard and used all his resources to collect the original manuscripts. The people who were supposed to possess the manuscripts were not ready to co-operate and provide the same to him .