Vaastu Purush

 ‘Vastu Purusha Mandala’ is an indispensable part of Vastu Shastra and constitutes the mathematical and diagrammatic basis for generating design. ‘Purusha’ refers to energy, power, soul or cosmic man. ‘Mandala’ is the generic name for any plan/chart, which represents the cosmos metaphysically/ symbolically, a microcosm of the Universe.

In Hindu Cosmology, the surface of the Earth is represented as a square, the most fundamental of all Hindu forms. The Earth is represented as four cornered with reference to the horizon's relationship with Sunrise and Sunset, the North and South direction. It is called ‘Chaturbhuji’ or ‘Four Cornered’ and represented in the symbolic form of the ‘Prithvi Mandala’. The astrological charts or horoscopes (‘Rashi’, ‘Navamsa’ etc.) also represent in a square plan the ecliptic, the positions of the Sun, Moon, Planets and Zodiacal Constellations with reference to a specific person's place and time of birth.

The ‘Vastu Purusha Mandala’ is a specific type of ‘Mandala’ used in Vastu Shastra. It is the metaphysical plan of a building/temple/site that incorporates the course of the heavenly bodies and supernatural forces.

The legend of the ‘Vastu Purusha’ is related to that once a formless being blocked the heaven from the Earth and ‘Brahma’ with many other Gods trapped him to the ground. This incident is depicted graphically in the ‘Vastu Purusha Mandala’ with portions allocated hierarchically to each God based on the contributions and positions in performing this act. ‘Brahma’ occupied the central portion, the ‘Brahmasthana’ and other gods were distributed around in a concentric pattern. There are 45 gods in all including 32 outer gods.

The ‘Vastu Purusha’ is the presiding deity of any site. Usually he is depicted as lying on it with the head in the North-East and the legs in the South-West but he keeps changing his position throughout the year. The Vastu Purusha is said to be the spirit of the site and is super imposed in the form of a human male into the enclosure to indicate the birth of a structure from Nature. He is depicted as a man lying with his head pointing North-East, in a grid of usually 64 squares. (Chess was inspired by this Vastu-Mandala, which symbolizes existence as a ‘field of action’ of the divine powers, the game thus representing the combat of the ‘devas’ with the ‘asuras’, of the gods with the titans/demons). His height extends from the South-West corner (‘Pitrah’) to the North-East corner (Agni). The Vastu Purusha is visualized as lying with his face and stomach touching the ground; to suggest as it were that he is carrying the weight of the structure. His head is at North-East which (balanced thinking) and his legs are at the South-West corner (strength and stability). In the centre is his navel, (cosmic awareness), and his hand face North-West and South-East (energy and movement).