East, North, West or South Facing House: What Vastu Actually Says About Each

In Vastu, a house is usually called east, north, west or south facing after the direction you face when you step out of its main door. Property listings often use the road side instead, and on a corner plot the two can differ. The classical texts do not rank one facing above another: they name a main-door position on each of the four sides. What really changes with facing is the sun on your front wall and where the door should sit along it.

About this guide: Vastu Shastra is a traditional Indian system of design. What the texts say comes from translations of the Manasara and the Brihat Samhita listed under Sources. Where a text links a door or room to luck, health or wealth, there is no scientific evidence for it; people follow it as tradition. The sun figures come from a Bureau of Indian Standards handbook. Practitioners differ on several points below, and we say where.

For the wider basics, see our practical guide to Vastu for a new home.

What "facing" means, and the three conventions

You will meet three ways of naming a home's facing:

The door rule. Stand in the main doorway, look out, and take a compass bearing. If you face east, the house is east-facing. Many practitioners use this.
The road rule. The side of the plot that meets the road. Plot listings and layouts usually mean this.
For flats, people variously use the flat's own front door, the building's entrance or the direction of the main balcony.

On a typical plot with one road and the door on the road side, all three agree. They part ways on corner plots, on plots where the door is on a side wall, and in apartment buildings.

Turning a compass bearing into a facing

The usual eight-direction system gives each direction a 45° slice centred on it. East-facing means a bearing from 67.5° to 112.5°, south-facing 157.5° to 202.5°, west-facing 247.5° to 292.5°, and north-facing 337.5° to 22.5°. Bearings in between are the corner directions: north-east, south-east, south-west and north-west. Practitioners differ on how to treat a bearing close to a boundary, such as 25° or 65°.

Magnetic north is close enough to true north in India for this. NOAA's calculator (World Magnetic Model 2025) gives a magnetic declination of about +1.3° in Delhi, 0.0° in Mumbai and −1.1° in Bengaluru and Chennai for October 2026. That shifts no house from one 45° slice to another unless it sits right on a boundary. Steel gates, cars and electrical panels can throw a compass off more than that, so take the reading a few steps clear of them.

Left: a compass rose split into eight 45 degree sectors, each labelled with its direction, Sanskrit name and bearing range, such as East 67.5 to 112.5 degrees, with an arrow at 100 degrees marked east-facing. Right: a corner plot with roads on the north and east sides and the house's main door on the north wall. — Facing is read from the main door with a compass; on a corner plot, the road side can suggest a different answer. Diagram: MOA

What the texts say: no bad facing, a right door on every side

The idea that a south- or west-facing home is unlucky is widespread. We did not find it in either classical text we read. Both give a main-door position on every side.

The Manasara (P.K. Acharya's 1934 translation, chapter XXXVIII) says that temples, houses and palaces should have main doors on the four sides (lines 2 to 4). For houses it names one place on each side for the large door: Mahendra on the east, Grihakshata on the south, Pushpadanta on the west and Bhallata on the north (lines 15 to 30).
The Brihat Samhita (N. Chidambaram Iyer's 1884 translation, chapter 53, verses 71 to 75) lists a result for a main entrance in each of the 32 padas around a house. It describes some favourably on every side: two on the east, two on the west, three on the north, and one with a mixed result on the south.

So in both texts, facing alone settles nothing. What matters is where along the wall the door sits. In the 32-pada grid, each named main-door position above is the fourth pada from the corner, counted clockwise around the house. On a 24 ft front wall, each pada is 3 ft, so that is 9 to 12 ft from the starting corner.

Room placement the texts and practitioners suggest

The Brihat Samhita places the shrine in the north-east, the kitchen in the south-east, the store for household goods in the south-west, and the treasury and granary in the north-west (verse 118). Practitioners today commonly put the master bedroom in the south-west and keep the centre, the Brahmasthan, open and uncluttered. Texts are not uniform here either. In its chapter on siting dwelling houses, the Manasara places kitchens in the north, the north-east or the Parjanya quarter (ch. XXXVI, line 26). Because these zones are tied to the compass, not to the road, the same room layout works for every facing. Only the door moves.

Four plans of the same 30 by 40 ft plot with north at the top, with the road on the east, north, west and south in turn. Each shows a faint nine-zone grid with pooja in the north-east, kitchen in the south-east, master bedroom in the south-west and guest room or store in the north-west, and the main door in the fourth pada of the road-side wall, 9 to 12 ft from the starting corner. — The same plot facing four ways: the room zones stay with the compass and only the door moves, to the fourth pada of the road-side wall. Diagram: MOA

Each facing, plan by plan

The diagram above uses the same 30 x 40 ft plot four times, with the road on a different side each time.

East-facing house

The door goes in the fourth pada from the north-east corner, Mahendra (or Indra), which sits just north of the middle of the east wall. The front wall takes morning sun, so a deep verandah is less critical than on a west front. The north-east corner, where many families want the pooja room, is at the front of the house beside the entrance.

North-facing house

The door goes in the fourth pada from the north-west corner, Bhallata, just west of the middle of the north wall. A north front wall gets little direct sun: some on summer mornings and evenings, none in winter. That makes it easy to glaze generously for daylight without much heat.

West-facing house

The door goes in the fourth pada from the south-west corner, Pushpadanta (Kusumadanta in the Brihat Samhita), just south of the middle of the west wall. The front wall takes afternoon sun. Plan a verandah, a deep chajja or screens on this side, and keep the main living spaces shaded on summer afternoons. Placed this way, a west-facing house is well within what the texts describe.

South-facing house

The door goes in the fourth pada from the south-east corner, Grihakshata (Brihatkshata in the Brihat Samhita), just east of the middle of the south wall. In much of India, the south wall gets almost no direct sun in summer and the most in winter, as the table below shows. A simple overhang can shade it in summer while letting the low winter sun in. In climate terms, that is a good wall to have as a front.

The sun on each front wall, by the numbers

The Bureau of Indian Standards' Handbook on Functional Requirements of Buildings (SP 41, 1987) tabulates the daily direct sun on walls facing each direction (Table 12). A few of its figures, in the handbook's units of W/m² per day:

Wall facing	13°N (Bengaluru, Chennai): 16 May / 22 Dec	19°N (Mumbai): 16 May / 22 Dec	29°N (Delhi): 16 May / 22 Dec
North	1,625 / none	962 / none	536 / none
East	2,697 / 2,019	2,795 / 1,830	2,950 / 1,467
South	none / 4,385	none / 4,574	741 / 4,543
West	2,697 / 2,019	2,795 / 1,830	2,950 / 1,467

Two things stand out. East and west walls receive the same daily total, and in summer they get the most. The difference is timing: a west wall gets its sun in the afternoon. The handbook advises choosing orientation for the least summer heat, using overhangs or verandahs on exposed walls, and placing living rooms where other parts of the building shade them on summer afternoons (clauses 6.0 to 6.2). For most Indian cities, none of this makes south or west fronts unusable. It tells you what to shade.

Corner plots are where conventions clash most. Lacuna House by Varun Garg, shown below, sits on a corner plot in Mohali, with a street along its front.

Photograph of a white three-storey contemporary house with stacked, projecting white boxes, dark recessed glazing with sheer curtains, and a hedge and trees along a paved street in front, under a blue sky. — Lacuna House, on a corner plot in Mohali. On corner plots the door and the road can name different facings. Image: Varun Garg on MOA

Flats: what you can and cannot change

In a flat, the facing is fixed when you buy. Practitioners disagree on whether to read it from the flat's own door, the building's entrance or the balcony, so ask which one a consultant is using. The main door's position is set by the building's structure and usually needs the society's permission to change. What you can still decide:

Before you buy, take a bearing at the flat's door and on the balcony, and check where the door sits along its wall.
Inside, the room uses that follow the compass, such as where the pooja unit and the main bed go, apply in any facing.
For the sun, blinds, external screens and planting on a west balcony do more for comfort than the facing label.

Buying a plot? Check these first

Take your own compass bearing on site, and look for the north arrow on the approved layout plan.
Note which side or sides meet the road, and whether the listing's "facing" means the road or the door.
Check the front setback on the road side, since it decides how much of the frontage the house can use. Our explainer on setbacks, FAR and height limits covers this, and what you can build on a 30 x 40 plot shows typical layouts.
Run the legal and access checks in our plot due-diligence checklist before you pay a token amount.

FAQ

How do I know if my house is east facing or north facing?

Stand in the main doorway facing out and take a compass bearing. A bearing between 67.5° and 112.5° is east-facing; between 337.5° and 22.5° is north-facing. Some listings use the road side instead, so check which convention is meant.

Is a south facing house bad as per Vastu?

Not in the two classical texts we read. The Manasara names a main-door position on the south wall, Grihakshata, the fourth pada from the south-east corner. The belief that south-facing homes are unlucky is common, but practitioners differ, and there is no scientific evidence either way.

Is a west facing house good?

The Manasara names Pushpadanta, the fourth pada from the south-west corner, for the main door on the west, and the Brihat Samhita describes two west padas favourably. In practice, plan shade for the afternoon sun on the front wall.

Which facing is best for a house in India?

The texts do not rank facings. For comfort, a south or north front is the easiest to shade, and east and west fronts need more shading. Choose the plot for location, access and the plan it allows, then place the door well.

Comparing plots, or planning a house on one? Find an architect on MOA or an interior designer on MOA who can plan the layout with Vastu in mind.

Sources

P.K. Acharya (trans.), Architecture of Manasara, vol. IV (Oxford University Press, 1934), via Internet Archive: ch. XXXVIII, ll. 2 to 30 (pp. 410 to 412); ch. VII, ll. 127 to 154 (pp. 42 to 43); ch. XXXVI, l. 26 (p. 399) (accessed 16 Oct 2026)
N. Chidambaram Iyer (trans.), The Brihat Samhita of Varaha Mihira (1884), via Internet Archive: ch. VI (53), On House-building, vv. 71 to 75 and 118 (accessed 16 Oct 2026)
Bureau of Indian Standards: SP 41 (S&T) 1987, Handbook on Functional Requirements of Buildings, via Internet Archive: Part 2, clauses 6.0 to 6.3 and Table 12 (pp. 50 to 51) (accessed 16 Oct 2026)
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information: Magnetic Field Calculators (World Magnetic Model 2025) (accessed 16 Oct 2026)