The Story Behind the Story - The Book of Bhrigu

Like several others of my books, this one was written primarily to earn the necessary money for publishing more important books, for which I expected the readership to be narrower. The truth is, however, that this one has never sold particularly well. I suppose the reason is that the story it relates is simply beyond anything Westerners have experienced. Nevertheless it tells a true story, one with which Indians generally are familiar.

The Book of Bhrigu tells of an experience I had in November 1959, in the town of Barnala, Punjab. I’d been brought there by students of mine who told me they wanted to introduce me to an unusual phenomenon: an ancient treatise, purported to give prophecies concerning countless individuals, some of them living today; many more of them still to be born in the future.

For me, the particular fascination of this ancient manuscript was and remains (assuming it to be true) the testimony it gives to India’s ancient greatness. If it is true that sages who lived thousands of year ago in India could see so precisely into the future, then surely theirs was no civilization (as modern scholars aver) of mere cowherds!

I found that the manuscript actually contained a page about me, giving accurate information of a kind that no one present that day could have known.

Years later, an Indian who lived in Los Angeles visited me and spoke about this ancient manuscript. Blithely he told me that he’d printed copies of my booklet and given them out to several hundred of his friends. Authors of course have no objection to receiving royalties, even if they don’t earn the money for themselves. I said nothing, however. The fact that this chap had wanted to share my book with his friends was to me, if nothing else, gratifying. Financially, the book had never been profitable.

My visitor related to me several fascinating experiences he and some of his Indian friends had had in connection with the Book of Bhrigu. One account he related was of another Indian in Los Angeles who, during a return visit to India, had gone to the Bhrigu Samhita for a reading. The text said, ‘As this page is being read, there will be a thunderclap.’

‘The sky was completely cloudless,’ said my visitor. ‘There was blue everywhere above. Yet, just as this sentence was being read out loud by the pundit, there came a sudden, loud thunderclap!’

-From The Story Behind the Story