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Vastu glossary

Updated

The Vastu terms used on this site and in our reports, in plain words.

Vastu Shastra
The traditional Indian practice of arranging buildings and rooms by direction. Vastu means dwelling or site; shastra means a body of knowledge.
Vastu Purusha Mandala
The square diagram that maps a site to the directions, usually drawn as a grid of 8 by 8 or 9 by 9 squares. The zone systems used today derive from it.
Brahmasthan
The centre of the home. Both schools keep it open and light. Our check takes it as the middle cell of a 3 by 3 grid over the outline of the home. Toilet in the centre.
Ishanya
The north-east corner. Kept light, clean and open; the traditional place for prayer and water. North-east facing house.
Agneya
The south-east corner, linked to fire. The traditional place for the kitchen. Vastu for the kitchen.
Nairutya
The south-west corner. The traditional place for the master bedroom and heavy structures. Vastu for the bedroom.
Vayavya
The north-west corner, linked to air. An accepted place for toilets, guest rooms and the alternative kitchen. Vastu for the toilet.
Disha
Direction. The 8 dishas are the four cardinal directions and the four corners between them.
8-direction school
The traditional method. It divides the home into 8 directions of 45 degrees each, plus the centre. 16-zone vs 8-direction.
16-zone school
A finer method. It divides the home into 16 zones of 22.5 degrees each (N, NNE, NE, ENE, E, ESE, SE, SSE, S, SSW, SW, WSW, W, WNW, NW, NNW), plus the centre. Each zone carries its own meaning, so it can read a room differently from the 8-direction school. 16-zone vs 8-direction.
Vastu chakra
A circular chart of the zones, laid over a floor plan from its centre to show which zone each room falls in.
Zone
A slice of the home around its centre, named by its direction. A room takes the zone that holds the largest share of its area.
Facing
The direction you look towards when you stand at the main door and look out. A home that you look east from is east facing. East facing house.
Vastu dosh
A defect: a room in a zone that a school advises against. In our rule table each one has a severity from 1 to 5. Common Vastu defects.
Remedy
A step that reduces the effect of a defect. Ours start with free steps, then low-cost changes, then larger changes at plan stage. No products.
True North
Geographic North, the direction of the North Pole. Maps and satellite images use it.
Magnetic North
The direction a compass needle points. It differs from true North by the magnetic declination of the place.
Magnetic declination
The angle between magnetic and true North. About 1 degree or less in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, about 2 degrees in Dubai, and up to 15 degrees in parts of the USA. How to find North.
North confidence
Our rating of how sure a result is about North: high when the satellite match and the phone compass agree within 8 degrees, lower otherwise. Methodology.