An open manuscript under the night sky.

Vāstu — the science of dwelling · door 3 of 10

The mandala — the site as a grid

64 squares, 81 squares, and Brahmā at the centre

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Three questions to seal this door

  1. 1. Paramaśāyika is a grid of —

  2. 2. Who holds the centre of the mandala?

  3. 3. How many devatas sit on the outer boundary ring?

64 squares, 81 squares, and Brahmā at the centrePractise it live →
The rishi's scroll — read more, if you wish

The texts draw Vāstu Puruṣa as a square divided into padas. Two grids are used most: Maṇḍūka, 8 × 8 = 64 padas, and Paramaśāyika, 9 × 9 = 81 padas. The Mayamata lists many more, from a single square to 1,024, each for its own kind of building.

Whatever the grid, Brahmā holds the centre, a block of squares called the Brahmasthāna. Around him sit 12 inner devatas, and on the outer ring the 32 devatas of the boundary, eight to each side. Brahmā, the inner ring and the outer ring together make the 45.

The grid is not decoration. It is how a builder locates the parts of a site exactly: which squares stay open, where a door may fall on the boundary, where the lines of the grid cross and nothing heavy should stand. The nine-zone mandala on VEDAUM's Vaastu page is this grid at its simplest: eight directions and the centre.

The tables on this page are drawn from the same data VEDAUM reads charts with.