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Fortune Telling in Myanmar
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Fortune Telling (also known as Bedin in Burmese) is a huge part of the lives of many people in Myanmar and are often taken seriously.
Fortune Tellers are highly respected in Myanmar, being consulted daily by many people about their lives, naming a baby, buying and selling real estate, choosing a subject in university and many more. They are even respected by the government and military leaders to a point where the Military Dictator General Ne Win would switch the traffic from the driving on the left side to driving on the right side overnight and introduce 45 Kyats and 90 Kyats banknotes in Myanmar, from the advice of the fortune tellers. Former Senior General Than Shwe also constructed a new capital city, Naypyitaw on the exact time and date in 2005 based on the advice of his astrologer.
There are different types of fortune telling and the well known ones are:
1. Astrology
2. Numerology
3. Palm Reading
4. Tarot Card Reading
5. Psychic Reading
Among them, Astrology is the most popular type of fortune telling in Myanmar. Astrology is mainly about observing stars in the sky, understanding nature and the cosmic world. The type of Astrology mainly used in Myanmar is called "Mahabote" which originated from the more widespread Hindu astrological system and the Vedic Astrology.
In the Burmese Astrology system, there are eight zodiac signs, eight directions and eight planets for seven days a week.
Days |
Zodiac Signs | Planets | Cardinal Directions |
Sunday (တနင်္ဂနွေ) |
Garuda (ဂဠုန်) |
Sun |
Northeast |
Monday (တနင်္လာ) |
Tiger (ကျား) | Moon | East |
Tuesday (အင်္ဂါ) |
Lion (ခြင်္သေ့) | Mars | Southeast |
Wednesday Morning (ဗုဒ္ဓဟူး) |
Tusked Elephant (ဆင်) | Mercury | South |
Wednesday Afternoon (ရာဟု) |
Tuskless Elephant (ဟိုင်း) | Ascending Lunar Node | Northwest |
Thursday (ကြာသပတေး) |
Rat (ကြွက်) |
Jupiter | West |
Friday (သောကြာ) |
Guinea Pig (ပူး) | Venus | North |
Saturday (စနေ) |
Nāga (နဂါး) | Saturn | Southwest |