Vastu for your home, room by room

Vastu shastra is a body of traditional Indian texts on building, written for large houses on open plots. Many modern practitioners apply and extend it to flats and offices. Scholars describe it as a guideline rather than a rigid code, and critics, including the astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar, call modern Vastu claims unscientific. This guide sets out what the texts and practitioners recommend, and who says it.

The classical sources are texts such as the Brihat Samhita, the Mayamata, the Manasara and the Samarangana Sutradhara. They divide a site into a grid of squares (81 in the Brihat Samhita, 64 in the Mayamata), each governed by a deity, and assign rooms by direction. Many passages are graded by caste and were written for detached houses, so today's consultants adapt them rather than apply them word for word.

The Brihat Samhita doesn't simply say 'face east'. It gives a separate outcome for an entrance in each of the grid squares along a side, counted from the north-east corner. It also warns against a road, tree, well or pillar directly opposite the gate, but says such obstructions do no harm if they are more than twice the house's height away.

According to the Samarangana Sutradhara, as summarised by D. N. Shukla, a door should not sit in the middle of the house, and no two doors should be exactly opposite each other.

Today's practitioner guides usually say the main door should face north, east or north-east. Columnists in the Free Press Journal advise avoiding a south-west entrance and keeping shoe racks away from the front of the door.

Asian Paints' Beautiful Homes says the living room is ideally in the north-east or north. An academic review of Vastu (Rana and others, 2025) lists north or east, with furniture arranged for conversation.

Practical reason: Kapadia's own reasoning for an east-facing living room is daylight. He advises keeping curtains open, saying that closing them all day blocks natural light and leaves a room dull.

The Brihat Samhita places the kitchen in the south-east, the room for the gods in the north-east, utensils in the south-west and the granary and treasury in the north-west. Tribune columnist Madan Gupta Spatu puts the stove in the south-east corner so the cook faces east, and the sink towards the north-east, kept apart from the stove because 'fire and water repel each other'.

Where the sink and stove are already in one line, Kapadia says practitioners suggest a copper wire with yellow insulation wrapped round the sink under the counter. In a new kitchen, he says, avoid lining them up at all.

Practical reasons: Kapadia argues the south-east rule reflects India's prevailing west-to-east winds, which would carry cooking smells through the house from a west kitchen, and the morning sun. Fazeli and Goodarzi note the south-east gets light through the day. Keeping the sink apart from the stove also stops splashing near a flame.

Practitioners and the academic summaries put the master bedroom in the south-west, which they say should be the 'heaviest' and most closed part of the house. Beautiful Homes says bedrooms belong in the south-west or south, and that you should sleep with your head to the south or east.

Spatu warns against a master bedroom in the south-east and suggests a partition, or as a last resort a rose-quartz stone. These are practitioner remedies, not tested ones.

Children's and guest rooms get less attention in the sources. Rana and others say the afternoon sector (south-west and west) suits children's rooms and study, and that guest or little-used rooms are often placed in the north-west.

Practical reason: Rana and others link the south-west bedroom to the hot afternoon sun, and recommend few openings there, with heavy wardrobes against those walls as insulation.

The Brihat Samhita says 'the apartment for the Devas shall be built in the north-east'. Beautiful Homes gives north-east or east, and Rana and others say the altar should face north or east.

Kapadia advises against a home temple in a bedroom, next to a bathroom or plumbing shaft, or under a beam. For the exact direction of the idols, he defers to the family's priest rather than the Vastu consultant. Tribune columns add: never under a staircase, and never sharing a wall with a bathroom.

The old texts barely mention bathrooms: as Fazeli and Goodarzi note, they weren't part of the house plan. Today's rules are a modern extension, which may be why they vary the most.

Practical point: Mittal says bathroom floors should slope towards the east or north for drainage. Whatever the direction, a slope to the drain and a waterproofed floor matter more to the building than which corner it's in.

Spatu writes that a staircase should be in the west or south of the house and never in the north-east, with the space under it used only for storage: not a bathroom, kitchen or puja room. He favours an odd number of steps and is against spiral stairs. Consultant Nitien Parmar lists staircases and pillars that block movement among common Vastu defects.

In both the Brihat Samhita and the Mayamata, the central squares of the grid belong to Brahma. The Brihat Samhita tells the owner to 'take particular care' of them, and the Mayamata counts the centre among the sensitive points to avoid building on.

The texts aren't fully consistent: D. N. Shukla notes that some passages want the building centred on Brahma's squares while others keep that zone free. Modern practitioners agree on the practical version: keep the centre open, free of heavy furniture and never under an overhead tank. Fazeli and Goodarzi link this to the open courtyards of traditional Indian houses.

The Brihat Samhita wants the ground level on all sides, with the east or north slightly higher only if it can't be avoided, and warns against a higher north-east corner. Modern summaries say the north-east should be built lighter and lower than the south-west.

Spatu puts an overhead water tank in the west or south-west, never the north-east, south-east or centre, and recommends separate tanks for drinking and toilet water. He counts an underground tank or borewell in the south-west as a defect.

The load of a water tank on the roof, and the slope of a terrace, are matters for a structural engineer, whichever corner you choose.

Colour advice varies more than anything else. Beautiful Homes favours soft pastels and earthy tones, with blue in bedrooms. For kitchens, one Tribune column by Spatu lists soft pinks, oranges, yellows, rose and red and says to keep black out, while an unsigned Tribune Q&A recommends yellow. For bathrooms, Mittal advises white or light-blue tiles and no black or red.

The classical texts deal with timber, brick and stone for the structure, not interior finishes, so colour charts are a modern practitioners' addition. Pick the chart your consultant follows and use it consistently.

• Decide early how strictly you want to follow Vastu. Consultant Nitien Parmar writes that few modern homes are fully compliant and that most buyers accept 60–70% adherence.
• Ask your consultant which rules are essential to them and which are preferences, especially for bathrooms, the kitchen and colours, where sources differ.
• Share the consultant's notes with your architect or interior designer before the layout is fixed. Moving a toilet or kitchen later means moving plumbing.
• For the puja room, some consultants defer the exact orientation to the family's priest. Agree who decides.
• Ask whether any suggested remedies are objects you're expected to buy, and from whom.