VASTU SHASTRA
What is Vastu Shastra?
Vastu Shastra is a traditional Indian body of architectural wisdom that reads the influence a home’s layout and orientation have on daily life and financial fortune. Grounded in the Vedic view of the cosmos, it is known as an environmental form-reading system alongside Chinese feng shui.
Overview
- System
- Form Reading (reads from the shapes of layout and orientation)
- Origin
- India
- What You Need
- Information about the type of floor plan
- Best For
- Money, environment, life
- Time Frame
- Near term, one year
Origins & History
Vastu Shastra is a body of wisdom concerning architecture and spatial arrangement that developed within the tradition connected to the ancient Vedic texts of India. It is built around a square diagram called the “Vastu Purusha Mandala,” and judges the fortune of a plot of land or a building by mapping each direction to a presiding deity and element, such as fire, water, wind, or earth.
This way of thinking is said to have been applied to the construction of temples and palaces as well, and even today the custom of consulting a Vastu expert when designing homes and commercial buildings remains firmly established in India. It is often compared to Chinese feng shui, functioning as India’s own version of environmental form-reading.
How It Works
- 01Select the type of floor plan of the home to be assessed.
- 02Check the orientation of the main rooms, such as the entrance, kitchen, and bedroom.
- 03Cross-reference these against the directional divisions of the Vastu Purusha Mandala.
- 04Read the influence on livability and financial fortune from the combination of layout and orientation.
What It Reveals
Vastu Shastra is well suited to reading how a home’s layout and orientation tend to influence financial fortune, domestic harmony, and livability, and as a reference for arranging one’s living environment. At the same time, interpretations differ between schools, and the system can be difficult to apply directly to the layouts of modern apartment buildings, so it should not be used to declare a home good or bad based on layout and orientation alone.
Related Methods
References
- Wikipedia: Vastu shastra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastu_shastra)