Also called: Grading a mark · Form rules · Colour rule
Where on the hand: Any mark anywhere on the palm; colour is judged against the surrounding skin in good natural light.
What it looks like: The mark's own physical qualities: how big, how deep, how sharply cut, and what hue — red, white, blue, black, yellow, or the ordinary tone of the palm.
The traditions grade every mark by its form before assigning meaning. Size is proportional to duration or severity; depth and clarity show how established the condition is; colour tells the type of disturbance and, in several sources, whether it is past or future. A faint, blurry, fragmented mark is weak or fading and may not be permanent at all.
The four attributes
- **Size** — proportional to duration and severity. An island's “duration matches island length.” Chinese tradition: “severity correlates with size.”
- **Depth and clarity** — Benham: “the more evenly they run, the clearer they are… the better is the line.” Destiny Palmistry says faint trauma lines “may not be a permanent mark.”
- **Colour** — red = active, inflammatory, future (“deep red grilles pose greater danger”); white = mental, discovery; blue or black = grave, chronic or past. Benham: “Dots may be red, blue, white, or yellow,” the hue indicating the type of disturbance.
- **Proportion to hand** — Benham: line depth must match hand size; delicate lines in a large hand are a dangerous “overflow.”
Worked applications
- **Star** — Benham's corrective: a small, even, pale star is enhancement; a large, deep-red, ragged one is “a destructive explosion.”
- **Grille** — deep red grilles are more dangerous than thin, shallow ones.
- **Dot** — Benham on the heart line: severity by size, “tiny dots represent temporary disturbances.” Destiny Palmistry: reddish dots “tend to be temporary,” darker marks suggest “more permanent, profound experiences.”
- **Island** — an island that enlarges is worsening; one that narrows is recovering.
- **Break** — small breaks that rejoin cleanly carry little risk; wide breaks are serious; hooked breaks are worst.
- **Fork on the marriage line** — “the fork's size correlates with relationship severity.”
- **Knotting on the head line** — Saint-Germain: “pale means past, deep red means future.”
- **Rahu mount colour** — Muhurat Choghadiya: “healthy pink supports favourable meanings; dull or dark strengthens the warning”; yellowish, bluish or grey = “stressed Rahu.”
Palmistry is a traditional interpretive art, not a science. Offered for reflection and self-understanding — not medical, legal or financial advice.