Also called: Geometric marks · The universal marks

Where on the hand: Anywhere on the palm — on a line, where they date an event on that line; or on a mount, where they modify that mount's quality.

What it looks like: Small geometric figures formed by fine lines: enclosed squares, elongated loops, X-crossings, radiating stars, cross-hatched grilles, single dots, forked terminations, chained links, short crossing bars, and frayed tassels.

This is the shared vocabulary of marks that both traditions read in almost the same way. The one systematic divergence is over forks: Western palmistry tends to read a fork as division and diffusion, while Indian palmistry reads the trishul as multiplication and amplification.

Western reading: Confined to star, cross, square, island, grille, triangle and spot; reads forks as diffusion rather than amplification.

Read with care: "Disastrous on Saturn" for a star, and "scandal" for an island, are traditional formulas. Marks date and colour events in the tradition's own terms — they are not evidence of anything that has happened or will.