Item Details

East Indian Astrology / Divination Cards.

Delhi, India: c.1900. First Edition. Loose sheets. A collection of divination cards from colonial South Asia, featuring predication using East Asian systems of divining. The illustrations show the nine celestial bodies (or navagraha) upon which Hindi/Vedic astrological readings feature. These are: Sun, Moon, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and the Dragon.
At the back of each cards appears a series of eight questions printed in vernacular languages to Northern India, Punjabi/Gurmukhi, Hindi, and Urdu. Most of the questions are common in divination, as: "How is my brother?" Will I travel? Why does my wife not give birth?" or deeper mortalistic in nature: "Who will die first from the couple?" or "What shall be the cause of my Death?"..... Given the subject nature of the prompts, it is deduced the querent answered these questions accordingly from the symbolism and representation on the distinct cards. Not unlike a Eurocentric method of reading, like Lenormand. These cards seemingly use astronomical correspondences combined with figurative intuition.
The print quality and subtle variants between the illustrations, multiple hand-carved lithographic stones were used to produce each card, and the production is unique to each set created. The cards were likely printed in Delhi, as the city of Delhi retained a generous print culture that created works in all four languages present on the cards. Hindi language was not widespread in the Punjabi states of the Northwestern provinces during the colonial period. While there are no comparable examples of these types of cards held institutionally, South Asian astrological scrolls are in collections at University of Pennsylvania. [Lanzillo, Amanda, "Translating the Scribe: Lithographic Print and Vernacularization in Colonial India, 1857-1915," 2019. Siervers, Gianni, "Learning How to Print in Colonial North India," 2023, Bayley, C.A. "Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communications in India, 1780-1870, chapter 7..."
A spectacular and very scarce set of non-Western form of divination and game. Very Good+. Lightly soiled and rubbed, some chipping, and short tears to margins, light even toning, modest quality printing, else bright and unmarred. Single sheet cardstock. 5x7.5" (each). Illus. (b/w). 22 cards. Text in Gurmukhi, Devanagiri (Hindi), English, and Urdu. Item #13879

Price: $3,000.00