Vastu Slope and Surroundings Checker

This checker takes the highest part of a plot and the way the ground falls, or four measured corner levels, and what stands around it: tall buildings, roads, low ground, water and hills. It sets each against what our pages on plot shape, slope and surroundings and neighbouring buildings and slopes found. The plain answer on slope is that the classical text and the popular rule disagree. The Brihat Samhita puts level ground first and allows the east or north to be slightly higher if it cannot be avoided (53.116). The popular rule, that the land should fall to the north-east with the south-west highest, is a later convention. The checker shows both.

How it works

You choose the highest part of the plot and the way rainwater runs, or open the box and type the level at each corner in centimetres from any one mark. With the levels, the checker works out the rest. The highest part is the highest corner; two neighbouring corners equally high make their side the highest; three corners equally high, with one lower, make the two sides between them the highest. Each side’s height is the mean of its two corners. The direction of fall comes from the plane through the four corners: the east-west slope is the difference between the mean of the two east corners and the mean of the two west corners, the north-south slope the same for the north and south corners, each divided by the plot’s length in that direction. If you give the two lengths in metres, it also gives the average slope in per cent; without them it works out the direction as if the plot were as long as it is wide, and says so.

For example, corners of 30 cm at the south-west, 20 cm at the south-east and the north-west, and 10 cm at the north-east, on a square plot, give a fall towards the north-east with the south-west highest: what the popular rule asks for, and a raised south and west, which the verse cautions.

The surroundings are ticked from a short list. Each is matched to the verse that speaks to it, if any, or labelled as a popular rule.

Reading the result

The result lists every point under its own heading, practical first, with a count for each kind. The count is a tally and not a grade.

The classical row reads the highest part against the verse. Level lines up. A slightly higher east or north is shown as a note: it is the least bad case the verse describes, and the next verse still attaches a result to every raised side, east, south, west and north alike (53.117). A higher south or west is outside the verse’s allowance. A higher north-east differs as well: the Iyer translation of 53.115 cautions a higher north-eastern corner, and Sastri reads the verse as applying to the east or the north generally, which takes in the north-east too. The two translations differ on how far the verse reaches, not on whether a raised north-east is cautioned. The verse does not say how much is “slightly”, and the checker does not invent a figure.

When three corners stand equally high and one is lower, the two sides between the high corners are raised and are read together. A lower north-east, for example, leaves the south and west raised, which the verse cautions, as in the example above; a lower south-west leaves the north and east raised, both within the allowance, and is shown as a note. When only two opposite corners are highest, no side or corner is highest and the result says so.

The results the text attaches to raised sides and to neighbours are not repeated as forecasts.

Where traditions differ

On slope, the two views point opposite ways. The Brihat Samhita warns against a raised south and a raised west; popular Vastu wants the south-west highest. We were unable to check what the Mayamata and the Manasara say about slope in the original, so the honest summary is that the tradition holds more than one view, and that the north-east fall is a later, widely taught convention.

On neighbours, the verses read for this site say nothing about tall buildings. The popular rule accepts one to the south or west and dislikes one to the north or east. This site’s own climatic reading is that across most of India a tall neighbour to the south or west gives shade when shade is welcome, and that in the southern hemisphere the shadows reverse, though the Vastu directions do not.

The verses do name a few neighbours: a road opposite the gate (53.76), four roads meeting and a temple near (53.89), low ground or a ditch and an anthill (53.90). Lists of unwelcome neighbours such as hospitals and cremation grounds were not traced to the verses, and the checker says they are no basis for judging a neighbourhood.

What it does not do

It does not ask for land to be reshaped. No verse read for this site asks for it, and cutting, filling or a retaining wall is serious work that needs a qualified structural or geotechnical engineer and the local permissions. It cannot see your plot: water settles most of these questions, so watch where the rain goes, look for silt lines on walls, and ask whether the road has been raised.

It makes no prediction about the people who live on a plot. You cannot change the height of the block next door or the fall of land across a neighbourhood; planting, drainage, a raised threshold and which rooms face which side are within reach. See remedies without demolition.

Frequently asked questions