Directions and the five elements

No direction is best for everything. Tradition gives each its own place: the east goes with the rising sun, the north-east with prayer and clarity, the south-west with weight and rest, and the south-east with fire. The old texts name no best side for a door, and modern guides disagree. Which direction suits a particular room depends on the plan and on how the people in it live.

In the tradition it does. The centre, the *Brahmasthan*, is held by Brahma in the mandala, and modern guides keep it open and uncluttered. Some also give a practical reason that stands apart from belief: an open middle is said to help air move through a home. You can test that without accepting the belief, by looking at what sits in the middle of yours: anything heavy, crowded or in constant use.

Tradition sets fire and water against each other. Some guides therefore ask that the stove, linked with fire and the south-east, and the sink, linked with water and the north-east, should not sit side by side or in line. One suggested correction is a partition between them, sometimes with a mirror, and the mirror rests on belief with no test behind it. Separately from Vastulogy, a little distance between hob and sink is ordinary kitchen planning.

Take a compass reading on site and mark it on a copy of the plan, or ask your architect or builder, who may have the drawing’s true north. A satellite map with north at the top also helps: match a road or a boundary on the map to the same line on your plan, and read north from the map. Say on the plan how you found it.

A reading can use either. Eight zones are broad, so most rooms sit well inside one. Sixteen are finer, which puts more rooms near an edge, where a degree or two of compass error can change the answer. The finer scheme gives more detail without giving more certainty, and no test is known that favours one over the other. Whichever you are given, ask which source it follows.