Somewhere in the middle of the standard Vastu guide is a chart of the home with every room in its proper corner. It is usually presented as one piece, as though it had come down from the texts in a single lump. It did not. Some of it is very old, a good deal of it is a convention of the last century, and the chart has been improved many times by people who wanted it to be complete.
This page goes through the rooms one at a time and says which statements we were able to find in the classical verses and which we could not. It is an account of the tradition as it can be checked, not a scheme for arranging your home. The individual rooms that people ask about most have their own pages: the kitchen, bedrooms, the puja room and toilets and water.
What the classical text actually names
The Brihat Samhita, in its chapter on house-building, names four rooms and their directions in one verse. The room for the gods is to be built in the north-east, the kitchen in the south-east, the room for household utensils in the south-west, and the treasury and the granary in the north-west (53.118). The Sastri translation says the verse is about a house of four halls, so it describes a particular kind of layout. Elsewhere the chapter tells a person to sleep with the head to the south or east and not to the north or west (53.124), and gives results for water in each direction (53.119).
That is nearly everything about rooms in the chapter as translated by Iyer and Sastri. Acharya’s summary of the Manasara adds that the central square is unfit for a residence and is where the family temple stands, with the houses for the master, his wife, the children, servants, animals, the kitchen and dining hall, guests, the study, the daily sacrifices and entertainment built round it (the chapter on houses in a compound), but it does not give a compass direction for each in the account we read.
The Mayamata and other treatises may say more. We did not have their text, and this page does not claim they are silent.
The table
| Room or feature | Common modern placement | What the verses read here say | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main entrance | North, east or north-east, avoiding the south-west | A result for each of 32 squares | Classical, finer than the modern rule |
| Puja room, room for the gods | North-east | North-east (53.118) | Classical |
| Kitchen | South-east, then north-west | South-east (53.118) | Classical for south-east; north-west as second choice is modern |
| Store for vessels and provisions | South-west or north-west | Utensil store south-west (53.118) | Classical in part |
| Treasury, granary, cash | North, or north-west | North-west (53.118) | Classical in part |
| Master bedroom | South-west | Not named | Modern |
| Children’s bedroom | North-west or west | Not named | Modern |
| Guest room | North-west | Not named | Modern |
| Sleeping head | South, or east | Not north or west (53.124) | Classical |
| Living room | North, east or north-east | Not named | Modern |
| Dining | West, or beside the kitchen | Not named | Modern |
| Study | West, north-east or north | Not named | Modern |
| Toilet and bathroom | North-west, west or south | Not named | Modern |
| Staircase | South, west or south-west | Not named | Modern |
| Water source, underground tank | North, north-east or east | Water in the north brings wealth, north-east sons (53.119) | Classical in part |
| Overhead tank | West or south-west | Not named | Modern |
| Centre of the house | Open, light, no toilet or stair | Care of Brahma’s squares (53.66); unfit for a residence (Manasara) | Classical in spirit |
| Heavy side | South-west | Not named | Modern |
“Not named” does not mean the rule is wrong or that no text states it. It means the verses we were able to read do not state it, and someone telling you it is “classical” owes you a verse number.
What that means in practice
Two things stand out. The four rooms the Brihat Samhita names are the four that every Vastu guide repeats, and they are consistent with each other: the gods in the north-east, where the morning light arrives; fire in the south-east; storage in the south-west and north-west. The rest of the chart fills in around them. A master bedroom in the south-west follows naturally from the idea of the south-west as the heavy, steady corner, and a toilet in the north-west follows from the idea of the north-west as the corner of movement and release. Those are reasonable extensions. They are extensions.
The second is that the texts describe houses that were mostly single-storey, freestanding, and set in a compound. They did not describe a two-bedroom flat with the kitchen fixed beside the lift core by an architect who never heard of Vastu. The pages that follow try to keep that in mind.
Where the sources differ
- The position of the kitchen. The south-east is the classical place, and the north-west is commonly offered as the second choice. We found the second choice only in modern guides.
- The central square. Varahamihira asks that it be cared for (53.66) and the Manasara, as summarised, calls it unfit for a residential building. Modern guides simply say the centre should be open. None of the verses read mention staircases, lifts or toilets at the centre.
- The head of the Vastu Purusha. Brihat Samhita: north-east. Manasara, as summarised: the central square of the east side. The “north-east is the head, so keep it light” rule follows only the first.
- Planets. Some guides assign rooms by planet. Two planet schemes exist and they disagree, as the directions article shows.
If your home does not match the chart
Almost no home matches it. The chart is an ideal for a plot on which one can choose everything, and few people can. A sensible way to read it is as a set of preferences, not a verdict: the quiet, light part of the house for worship and study, the warm part for the kitchen, the heavy part for storage and sleeping. Read like that, it is easy to live with and rarely makes anyone anxious. Where a layout cannot follow it, the page on remedies without demolition is the next stop, and the page on apartments covers what changes in a flat.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Which rooms does the Brihat Samhita assign to directions?
Four: the room for the gods in the north-east, the kitchen in the south-east, the store for household vessels in the south-west, and the treasury and granary in the north-west (53.118). It also gives a direction for sleeping and results for water in each direction.
↳ Is the master bedroom in the south-west a classical rule?
We could not find it in the verses read for this site. It is a convention of modern Vastu, consistent with the south-west as the heavy, steady corner. The Brihat Samhita names the south-west for the store of vessels, not for the master bedroom.
↳ Where do the old texts put the toilet?
The verses we read do not mention one. The placements usually quoted, north-west, west or south, are later or modern. A toilet in the north-east is commonly warned against, and the warning is modern convention too.
↳ Why should the centre of the house be empty?
The Brihat Samhita asks for care of the central squares, which belong to Brahma (53.66), and the Manasara, as summarised, calls the centre unfit for a residential building. Modern guides turn this into an open, light centre. The texts we read do not mention stairs or toilets there.
↳ Does my flat have to match the chart?
No. The chart describes freestanding houses with a free choice of layout. A flat has fixed services and a fixed plan, so the chart is at most a set of preferences. The apartments article covers this.
Sources
- Varahamihira, Brihat Samhita, chapter 53, verses 66, 118, 119 and 124. English translation by N. Chidambaram Iyer (1884) at wisdomlib.org, and by V. Subrahmanya Sastri (1946), scanned at archive.org, which describes verse 118 as applying to a four-halled house.
- Prasanna Kumar Acharya, Summary of the Manasara, the chapter on the location and measurement of houses (chapter 36) and chapter 7 on the ground plan.
- Modern placements in the table are taken from the common teaching of present-day Vastu and are not attributed to any verse.