Also called: Nevus · Black mole · Til

Where on the hand: Anywhere in the skin of the palm, fingers or thumb — on mounts, on lines, above the marriage line, and on the Ketu mount at the base of the palm.

What it looks like: A pigmented, often slightly raised nevus in the skin, black or brown, unrelated to the line network. Distinguished from a dot, which is a depression in a line. Indian sources also speak of a black mole “distinct from an ordinary mole” — a dark spot that damages the energy of the place it sits.

In Samudrik Shastra the mole concentrates the character of the place it occupies — auspicious in some locations, damaging in others. Two broad rules recur: the upper right palm is highly auspicious and brings wealth, while on the upper left palm money earned is quickly spent. On a mount, the mole is said to damage the energy at its location.

Read with care: Left and right hand readings differ by gender in some Indian sources (“mole on right and left hand of women/men”), a further layer of inconsistency in an already inconsistent table. Separately: any changing, growing or irregular pigmented mark on the skin is a matter for a doctor, not a palmist.