Compound Numbers, 10 to 70
What each compound actually does, which compounds share a single reading, and which of them are auspicious for a name.
Add the letters of a name and you get a compound number. That total, not the single digit it reduces to, is what Ank Vidya reads. Jawaharlal is 24, Nehru is 23, and the two together are 47.
The system has a feature that surprises people the first time: many compounds have no reading of their own. The book says of 33 that it "has no special power of its own, so its effect is to be read as that of 24", and it does the same for sixteen other numbers. So the 61 compounds are really 40 readings, and knowing which family a number belongs to is most of the work.
The auspicious compounds
These are the totals worth having in a name. Every number in a row reads the same.
Mixed, and neither auspicious nor inauspicious
Real gifts alongside real costs. The book withholds a verdict rather than rounding it up or down.
The compounds to avoid in a name
Where the book asks for a correction. A number here is not a fate; it is a spelling worth reconsidering.
Every compound, and the number that carries its reading
A number shown as 47 → 29 has no reading of its own: it is read as the number after the arrow.
The Sanskrit ground under all of this
Ojha does not begin with Cheiro. He begins with śabda-brahma, and the argument runs like this: of the five elements, the quality of ākāśa is śabda, sound. As ākāśa underlies every material thing, sound is the root quality of every material thing, and so sound is taken as the symbol of the Supreme. Every word is therefore a vibration, every vibration can be turned into a number, and a number is how a word gets measured. Zero stands for Brahman without attribute or action; one for Brahman in its undivided state.
That is the claim the whole system rests on, and it is Vedic rather than Chaldean. What follows are the places where the Sanskrit texts already count, in his own citations.
The japa count of each planet
Fixed by number, not by feeling. Ojha cites Mantra Mahodadhi (3rd and 11th taraṅga) and Puraścaryārṇava, part 3.
The mālā, bead by bead
Each count has its own end. Ojha cites Śāradā Tilaka, 23rd paṭala, with Rāghavabhaṭṭa's commentary.
Why 108. The Sun's circuit is 360°, and 360 × 60 = 21,600 kalā. Six months run north and six south, so half of that is 10,800. Count the day instead: 60 ghaṭī × 60 pala × 60 vipala = 216,000 vipala in a day and night, and half again is 108,000. The mālā is that number, told once.
Kaṭapayādi, the Sanskrit letter-number system
India has its own way of turning letters into numbers, older than anything Cheiro handled, and it is not the table this site uses. In kaṭapayādi saṅkhyā the consonants carry the digits in four series, vowels standing alone count zero, in a conjunct only the last consonant counts, and the digits are read right to left — aṅkānāṃ vāmato gatiḥ. It is the system Haridatta used for the Parahita reckoning in 683 CE, it is set out in the Sadratnamālā, and it is commonly credited to Vararuchi.
Vowels standing alone: 0. In a conjunct, only the last consonant is counted. na and ña may also stand for zero.
Where this comes from
अंक-विद्या (ज्योतिष) / Ank Vidya, Pt. Gopesh Kumar Ojha, Motilal Banarsidass, chapter 5. Ojha names his own sources in the footnotes: Cheiro's Book of Numbers and Sepharial's The Kabala of Numbers.
Cheiro's compound numbers run 10 to 52, so that range can be checked against a second authority. All 17 of the "read as" references are identical in both, and the verdicts agree on 38 of 43. Ojha reads five numbers more favourably than Cheiro does: 10, 28 and 32, plus 41 and 50, which only inherit 32. 53 to 70 has no Cheiro parallel and rests on Ojha alone; those cards say so.
The letter values are Cheiro's table as Ojha prints it, and every worked example in the book reproduces exactly on this site: Jawaharlal 24, Nehru 23, together 47, Gandhi 19, Kailas Chandra Goyal 47, Kailaschandra 32, Kailash Chandra 37.