Before a wall is planned, the ground has to be chosen, and the classical texts treat that as the heart of the subject. The Manasara gives three of its early chapters to the classification of sites, the examination of the soil and the selection of the plot. The Brihat Samhita fills a long stretch of its chapter on house-building with tests, cautions and small practical observations.
Much of this is ordinary good sense about land. Some of it reflects the assumptions of its age. A little is at odds with what is taught today. This page goes through it plainly, and says where a popular rule has no support in the verses we could read.
Choosing the soil
The Brihat Samhita describes the ideal plot as one where the ground is smooth and free of holes, the earth sweet and fragrant and of bright appearance, and where good crops, trees and creepers grow (53.88). The Manasara examines the soil for its shape, colour, smell, taste and touch, looks at the lie of the ground and at the trees and grasses growing on it (Acharya’s summary of chapters 3 to 5).
Both texts then give a hands-on test. Dig a pit a cubit deep, broad and long. Fill it again with the earth taken out. If the earth is too little to fill it, the site is poor; if it is just enough, middling; if it is more than enough, good (Brihat Samhita 53.92; Manasara). A second test fills the pit with water and looks again after a time. In the Brihat Samhita one walks away and returns, and the water should not have gone down; in the Manasara the pit is checked after twenty-four hours, and a site where all the water has drained is rejected.
What these tests measure is what a soil engineer would measure today: how compact the soil is and how well it drains. They are early site investigation and not superstition. They are also no substitute for a proper soil report where you are building something substantial.
The texts add the colour and smell of the soil, and the taste of the earth, and link them to the four social classes. This site leaves that part out. It is a statement of its time about who should live where, and it has no bearing on how a plot should be judged now.
Level ground and the question of slope
On slope the Brihat Samhita is clear and also internally tense, and this is where popular Vastu and the verses part company.
The text says that a man who wants prosperity should raise the house ground evenly on all sides, and that if any part is higher than the rest there will be misery; if it cannot be avoided, the east or the north may be slightly higher (53.116). It then says that if the east is higher there will be hatred among friends, if the south is higher there will be deaths in the family, if the west is higher a loss of wealth, and if the north is higher, grief (53.117). The Iyer translation of the preceding verse adds that a higher north-eastern corner brings loss of wealth and sons; the Sastri translation reads that verse as applying to the east or the north generally (53.115).
Read together, the text says four things. Level is best. Every raised side has a caution attached. A small rise to the east or north is the least bad. And the two translations do not quite agree about the north-east corner.
Popular Vastu teaches something different: the ground should fall towards the north-east, with the south-west highest and heaviest. That is a coherent rule and it drains water away from the heavy corner, but it is not what the Brihat Samhita says, which warns against a raised south and a raised west, and we were unable to check what the Mayamata and the Manasara say about slope in the original. The honest summary is that the tradition contains more than one view of slope, and that a slope down towards the north and east is a later, widely taught convention, not the Brihat Samhita’s own.
If you are choosing land, the practical question is simpler and worth more than either rule: where does the rainwater go, and does it go away from the house?
Plot shape
The Brihat Samhita’s verse on shape is short and severe. If the ground is irregular in shape, kinsmen will die; if its sides are irregular, there will be no pregnancy (53.115, Iyer). Sastri has the same verse saying that a plot that is not straight destroys kinsmen, and that one that faces no particular direction leaves a household without children.
The spirit is clear even if the wording is alarming: a regular plot, square or rectangular, squarely oriented, was the ideal. That suits the mandala, which is a grid, and it is also the most buildable kind of plot.
Popular Vastu has built a good deal on this. It grades plots as square, rectangular, round, triangular, L-shaped; it speaks of the cow-faced plot, narrow at the road and wide behind, as good for a home and the lion-faced plot, wide at the road, as better for a business; and it has rules for corners that extend or are cut away, with an extension to the north-east called favourable and a cut in the south-west called serious. Some of this may well be in the texts we did not read, and some of it is certainly in later manuals. We could not trace the cow-faced and lion-faced rule or the corner rules to a verse in the Brihat Samhita or in Acharya’s summary of the Manasara, so they are presented here as commonly taught, not as confirmed classical rules.
What can be said fairly is that an irregular plot is harder to lay out well, and the remedy in practice is to make the building itself regular within the plot and to put the uneven part to a simple use, as a garden or a passage.
Trees, water and neighbours
The Brihat Samhita has several observations that are plainly about livability.
- Thorny trees near a house bring a fear of enemies, milky trees a waste of wealth, and fruit trees the death of children (53.86). The first is a fair caution about thorns and the last reads oddly for a tree planted for fruit; we report it without endorsing it.
- If a tree cannot be removed, plant good trees between, and the text names seven (53.87).
- A house on low ground or near a ditch suffers from thirst, and a nearby anthill with many holes is a danger (53.90). Both are sensible.
- If the house of a minister or a cheat is near, or four roads meet at the site, there is loss of wealth, a bad name or a fear (53.89). A road opposite the gate is a misery unless it is farther than twice the height of the house (53.76).
- One verse cautions against a Buddhist temple nearby (53.90). It reflects the religious rivalries of its time, and this site does not repeat it as guidance.
The verses about trees also give directions, discussed in the page on directions. The verses on felling a tree before building, with an offering the night before and a cut from left to right, belong to the ritual side of the tradition and are not something the site asks anyone to do.
Beginning the work
The text asks that the ground be ploughed first, or sown with grain, or occupied by cows or Brahmins, and that an astrologer choose the hour for entering it (53.98). The first foundation stone goes in the north-east corner and the work proceeds clockwise (53.112). These are the ritual frame that surrounds the building rules and they are still observed in many households as a ceremony, which is a reasonable thing for a household to choose to do.
Classical and modern, in one place
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| Firm, sweet, well-drained soil; tests with a pit | Classical, Brihat Samhita and Manasara |
| Level ground is best; east or north may be a little higher | Classical, Brihat Samhita 53.116 |
| Ground should fall to the north-east, south-west highest | Later convention; not the Brihat Samhita’s rule |
| A regular plot is preferred | Classical in spirit, Brihat Samhita 53.115 |
| Cow-faced and lion-faced plots; extensions and cuts at corners | Commonly taught; not traced to the verses read |
| Care with neighbours, roads and low ground | Classical, Brihat Samhita 53.76 and 53.89 to 53.90 |
Frequently asked questions
↳ How did the classical texts test a plot?
By soil tests, mainly a pit a cubit deep. Refill it with its own earth and see whether it fills, heaps or falls short; or fill it with water and see how long the water stays. Both texts use these tests (Brihat Samhita 53.92 to 53.93; Manasara, chapters 3 to 5), and they measure compactness and drainage.
↳ Should the plot slope to the north-east?
That is the popular rule, but the Brihat Samhita says level ground is best and allows the east or north to be slightly higher, and warns against raising the south or west. The north-east slope is a later convention. The practical test is where the rainwater goes.
↳ Is an irregular plot unlucky?
The Brihat Samhita condemns irregular shapes in strong language (53.115). Read calmly, it prefers a regular plot, which suits both the mandala and a builder. An irregular plot is harder to lay out well, and an ordinary regular building inside it is the practical answer.
↳ What are cow-faced and lion-faced plots?
In popular Vastu, a plot narrow at the road and wide behind is called cow-faced and thought suitable for a home, and the reverse is called lion-faced and thought suitable for a business. We could not trace the rule to the verses read for this site, so it is presented as commonly taught.
↳ Do the old texts say anything about neighbours and roads?
Yes. The Brihat Samhita cautions against roads, trees and wells directly opposite the gate unless they are more than twice the house's height away, against low ground and ditches, and against a site where four roads meet (53.76, 53.89 and 53.90).
Sources
- Varahamihira, Brihat Samhita, chapter 53, verses 76, 85 to 90, 92 to 93, 98, 112 and 115 to 117. English translation by N. Chidambaram Iyer (1884) at wisdomlib.org, compared with V. Subrahmanya Sastri (1946), scanned at archive.org. The difference over verse 115 is between those two translations.
- Prasanna Kumar Acharya, Summary of the Manasara, chapters 3 to 5 (classification of sites, examination of soil, selection of site) and chapter 6.
- The Mayamata’s chapters on the site, which fall among its first ten, were not available to this site and are not reported here.