Pālpustakam (Pāl: from the Persian fal, Lot pustakam: Malayalam, book - the Book of Lots, Ktaba d-Pal in Syriac, and Libro da sortes in the Portuguese texts) is a divinatory text, originally written in Syriac, which was used among the Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala, India. The earliest extant references to this text in Kerala are from the sixteenth century. For the divination, the eyes of the one whose fate is scrutinised were banded, and they had to point blindly to one of the 49 numbers, which was supposed to tell his/her fate. The ritual, accompanied by prayers, was administered by the priests. Following the Latinization attempts by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, the Pālpustakam and the practice of consulting it were repeatedly condemned as heretical. Despite these prohibitions, the text continued to be copied, translated, and used well into the twentieth century. I have identified six copies in Syriac and Malayalam, displaying considerable variations. This paper will explore how this divinatory manual became a medium to access sacred knowledge. The sacred is then activated in these texts first through detailed instructions for the performance of the divination, and through the person of the priest who interprets the divine will for the seeker. The translation of the text from Syriac to Malayalam, which might have happened in the nineteenth century, shows that, the repeated condemnations notwithstanding, in the popular imaginaire, divination continued to be an important part of sacred knowledge entrusted to the priests. However, it was now mediated by the vernacular language. This translation was probably necessitated by the waning influence, indeed knowledge, of Syriac. Drawing on manuscript evidence and letters of prohibitions, this paper will argue that divination was an important part of the everyday religious life and that the priests played the role of divinators, and of translators and transmitters of sacred knowledge to the community.