Also called: Structural differences between the traditions

Where on the hand: Not a palm feature: a comparison of the two systems that read the palm.

What it looks like: n/a — a doctrinal comparison.

The two traditions genuinely disagree on which hand to read, where children lines sit, what the Girdle of Venus means, and whether the Apollo ring is good or bad. The largest single difference is that Indian palmistry has a whole remedial doctrine and Western cheiromancy has none at all.

Western reading: Cheiromancy: standalone, historically fatalist until Benham, symbol-light, remedy-free, and increasingly interested in dermatoglyphics.

Read with care: Where the traditions disagree, this reference flags the disagreement rather than papering over it. The Indian remedial doctrine (gemstones, mantras, yantras, daan) is presented here as description of a tradition, not as advice. Context correction: Benham's “most inaccurate and unscientific” / “makes our science ridiculous” are real, but in Ch. IX he is condemning the practice of counting marriages off the affection lines — not delivering a verdict on Indian palmistry. Quoted here they read as the latter. RECONCILED. This reference contradicted itself on whether Indian palmistry reads skin ridges. It does: the shankh/chakra fingertip system is one of the most widespread pieces of Indian hand-lore and is explicitly dermatoglyphic. What CLASSICAL Sanskrit sāmudrika ignores is charma rekha. The flat statement that 'Indian palmistry does not use skin ridges at all' should be read as applying to the classical texts only.

most inaccurate and unscientificBenham