The heart line is the highest of the large creases across the palm, starting under the little finger and running just below the fingers towards the index or middle finger. Samudrika tradition reads in it your emotional temperament: how you love and trust, how much you say and how much you keep inside. It is a traditional reading, not a forecast of any relationship.
Where the heart line runs
Look at the highlighted line in the diagram above. On your own palm, it is the first long horizontal crease a little below the roots of the fingers.
- Start: at the outer edge of the palm, under the little finger. Older Indian books say it rises beneath the mount of Mercury (budh parvat).
- Course: parallel to the fingers, under the ring and middle fingers, heading towards the thumb side.
- End: under the middle finger, between the middle and index fingers, under the index finger on the mount of Jupiter, or sometimes right to the edge of the palm.
Most of the reading rests on that ending, so look carefully at which finger the last clear stretch of the line sits under.
What samudrika tradition reads in it
Folk tradition treats the heart line as a mirror of feeling: how freely affection flows, how high one's expectations are, how quickly one is moved or steadies again.
| What you see | Traditional reading |
|---|---|
| Reaches under the index finger | Idealism in love, loyalty, high hopes of a partner |
| Stops under the middle finger | Practical affection; makes room for one's own needs |
| Ends between index and middle fingers | Balance: warm but sensible |
| Curving upwards | Expressive, openly affectionate |
| Straight, parallel to the fingers | Keeps feelings inside; shows care through deeds more than words |
| Deep and clear | Depth and constancy of feeling |
| Thin but clear | Full feeling with little display |
| Chained | A sensitive, easily moved nature |
| Small branches rising | Happy relationships and friendships |
| Small branches falling | Memory of past emotional knocks, not a warning of future ones |
| Forked end | Handles relationships with both heart and head |
| A break | An emotional change the person has moved through |
The space between heart and head lines
Tradition also looks at the band between the two lines. A wide space is read as an open, easy temperament; lines that crowd together as someone who finds it hard to separate feeling from calculation. When the two merge into a single crease it is called a simian line; the head line page covers it.
The girdle of Venus
Some hands have a small semicircular line above the heart line, curving around the middle and ring fingers. It is called the girdle of Venus (shukra valay), and tradition connects it with art, beauty and deep sensitivity. Many hands do not have it, and its absence is not a lack.
What the heart line cannot tell you
- Heart disease or blood pressure: the name refers to feeling. No line reports on the physical heart; with chest pain or any symptom, see a doctor at once.
- When, whom or how many times you will marry: neither the heart line nor any other line tells this with any certainty.
- Divorce or separation: breaks and falling branches are read as past experience; do not take them as predictions that a relationship will end.
- A score for success in love: temperament can be read, outcomes cannot. Relationships are made by how two people behave.
Indian and Western readings
Western palmistry since Cheiro has often read the heart line as starting at the index finger end, while Indian folk reading mostly treats it as starting under the little finger. That is why books contradict each other about the meaning of its "beginning" and "end". The simple way around the confusion: instead of calling either tip the start or the end, note which finger it sits under.
How to look at your own heart line
- Which hand: in the common teaching, the working hand shows karma and the other your inborn nature. For emotional reading, many people give both hands equal weight.
- Keep the fingers straight and together: it is then easy to see under which finger the line ends.
- Light and photo: side light from a window, camera flat above the palm, flash off. Make sure the roots of the fingers are in the frame, or the end of the line gets cut off.
Read next
Just above the heart line, on the edge of the palm, sit the marriage lines, and below it runs the head line. See the full palm lines guide, and our long article on the main lines for depth. If you would like your own palm read from a photo, there is an online palm reading.