Directions & Spatial Order: the eight quarters of a plan

यह पृष्ठ अभी हिन्दी में अनूदित नहीं है। अंग्रेज़ी पाठ दिखाया जा रहा है।

Dik and Disha divide a site into eight quarters, each carrying a presiding quality and, in the treatises, a recommended use. The reasoning underneath is solar, seasonal and social.

Orientation is the first drawing the texts describe: a gnomon in the ground, a shadow traced through the day, a true east–west line struck from it. Every later assignment of room and threshold is measured against that line, not against a street or a boundary wall.

The cardinal quarters

East takes the morning sun and, with it, entry and study. West holds the long heat of afternoon and is given mass and storage. North is even, indirect light — treasury and water in the texts, workspace today. South is shielded: heavy walls, few openings, private rooms.

The intercardinals

The four corners carry the sharpest instructions. South-east belongs to fire and the kitchen; north-east to water and the household's quiet corner; south-west to weight, stability and the principal sleeping room; north-west to movement, guests and grain that must turn over.

Set the line by the shadow, not by the road.

Reading the rules as climate

On the Indian subcontinent these assignments track the sun and monsoon closely enough that they read as sound passive design. Transplanted to another latitude they need re-deriving rather than copying — which is precisely the distinction between the principle and the prescription.