Almost everyone irrespective of religion and cast are now aware of importance of Vasthu in designing and building a house.Some people think of Vasthu as a superstitious belief.Vasthu is not superstition or blind belief.It is basically a science which deals with effect of polarity on human beings developed by old sages of India.
Like many sciences developed by old Indian sages, several aspects of Vasthu are also lost especially those dealing with why certain effects happen.Such loss has happened mainly because of reluctance of our old sages to teach the knowledge they acquired till they find a student good enough for teaching.Sometimes they will never find that good student and the knowledge acquired by the sage will die with him.All science and other knowledge oceans we have are passed on to next generation through books and in normal case,next generation after studying and understanding knowledge already acquired try to improve upon that.
One area where there is no clear cut written information is available is on House construction In Kerala.That is why I started writing these blogs using my experience in designing and building houses in Kerala.
During my years in designing and building houses,I have seen and heard the influence of Vasthu factors in the life of people living in houses.With these first hand knowledge I can tell that Vasthu as written in books are completely correct and it influences life of people.But Vasthu is one area where there are so many crooks with little or no knowledge in Vasthu but pretends to be experts in Vasthu .They emphatically tell people totally wrong ideas as vasthu factors.Most of them belong to old “Asaries”of Kerala.
As Per Vasthu there are four sections in a house.North East portion is called Eesanya.This is ideal for Pooja room and this area should be kept neat and tidy.This is the only area where there can be well for the plot.Our old asaris used to keep Kitchen in North East and some of those crooks who call themselves as experts of Vasthu insists on advising people to put Kitchen at North East which is not correct and it will give bad effects to people staying in the house.
Second zone is South east. It is called Agni kone and it is ideal for Kitchen.If you have a Bed room at South east it will give very bad effects.South West is called Nairudhi and North West is called Vayu corner.Ideal position for Bed room is at South west.In an office the Chief should sit at south west.North West can be second option for Kitchen.If you want to study Vasthu get book on Vasthu available at The Avenue Press,25,D’Silva Road,Mylapore.Chennai-600004.Please do not simply believe all those self proclaimed experts on Vasthu who will definitely misguide you.
I had several experiences of these crooks misguiding my clients as I do not wear a Kaavi mundu and sport a long beard to look like a Vasthu expert like these crooks.While designing house for a Marine Engineer at Edappally I have kept all rooms at Vasthu correct positions.But the owner of the house wanted to cross check with a Namboodiri who is the self proclaimed expert of Vasthu in Kerala and he get the maximum business for Vasthu consultation In Kerala.Almost everyone desirous of Vasthu compliance simply believes him and he due to his ignorance advice them wrong positions.Whatever plan of the house you take to him ,he will say that Vasthu is wrong.He has got a drawing section who will redraw the plan and will charge for redrawing the plan.Only if you redraw then only you can get money from the client.So he make money by misguiding people.
This Marine Engineer client of mine got the plan redrawn by the Namboodiri resulting in wrong Vasthu positions.After few years he started getting wrong effects in the house and then he called another Vasthu expert who fortunately was knowledgeable on Vasthu.He told my client about wrong positions of rooms and then he called me.Fortunately I had copy of original plan with me untampered by the great Vasthu Namboodiri.So the new expert told my client that all changes made by the Namboodiri was wrong.I had several clients who go to him after getting plan from me and then he changes positions of rooms.Luckily in the recent past he made only dimension changes for a Plan and kept room positions as I kept.I do not know What happened to him.
Then there is this so called story of “Chuttalavu” and “Maranachuttu” talked about by our local Asaris which do not have any mention in Vasthu books.My attempts to learn this from old Asaris was not producing any effect as none of them was willing to part with the secret.Finally I got a fellow who after making me promise not to tell the secret to any one told me the great story of Marana Chuttu.I have not told anyone this secret even after years.This deals with chuttalavu or perimeter of plan of the house.Take this measurement in meters.Convert the measurement into old measurement system in Kerala.Instead of feet introduced by British people and meter introduced in India after independence,they used Kol as measurement unit.One kol is 0.72 meters.If you convert perimeter of a house into kol and divide it by a certain number, the result should not be a whole number.If it is so the owner of the house will die immediately after completing the house.This is called Maranachuttu.If it is exactly in between two numbers say something like 3.5,then the perimeter of the house is supposed to be highly auspicious.
I do not understand the logic of this.It is as good as assigning divinity to the measurement system called Kol and Angulam which cannot be true and hence this story of maranachuttu does not have any scientific basis and can only be a lie by these crooks.These local self proclaimed experts of Vasthu insists on having this safe perimeter for each room also and I do not follow these as in my opinion,this has no justifiable basis of correctness.
Hi Thomas,
ReplyDeleteI am Joby, an architect now practicing abroad.
Vastu - yes a mystery to common man and can not be taken out from their minds as it clubs with the myths that has no definite scientific base. Arguments can be made for either side because all is based on the intuitions and notions. Let us leave the 'belief' part away as it is highly relative.
As far as I understand regarding the ‘maranachuttu’, it can be highly dangerous for the inhabitants to live in a structure that falls into ‘maranachuttu’ category. WHY? Earlier, when the vaastu was developed, only a few people had the opportunity to learn the scientific part of it which was based on mathematics. They could develop the length and proportions of the structural members used in roof construction of earlier buildings. As you may be aware, all the members used to be pre fabricated and only the assembly used to be done at site working high. So, the prefabricated members required to be highly accurate in their dimensions and the locations of the holes (vala) they require to join the other adjoining member as no fasteners were used those days. All these dimensions and proportions must have developed from the foot print, and being rectangular/square, they had a definite length x width ratio. The scholars of the ancient times could figure out this relation and the dimensions of the roof members had a direct relation to the foot print ratio. So, any deviation from the set ratio of the foot print would result in bad assembly of roof and would not be stable. That’s how the ‘maranachuttu’ works. And to implement this in the society, the easier way was to make the people scared and thus ‘maranachuttu’ came into picture.
Now, concrete being the major roof construction element, the ‘maranachuttu’ no longer exist. And with highly developed mathematics and technology, you can easily make the dimensions and proportions for roof for any kind of structure using conventional material.
Well, that’s what I feel.
Have a nice day
A workeable measurement of room sizes?Ok
ReplyDeleteVasthu does not allow rooms in circular or part of circular form.Rooms has to be in rectangular shape and also cannot be square in shape