You say tomato, I say vastu shashtra

   I received a call from an architect saying that the out-of-state daughter of an Indian client had expressed concern about the placement of a garage in the plan for a proposed home. I said to myself, vastu shastra, for that is what the Indian way of assessing whether a living space (or a temple) is in harmonious relationship with nature is called. I don't have enough exposure to V.S. to know much about where it is congruent with feng shui and where it differs.

 I am aware that in vastu shashtra the five elements of creation are air, water, earth, fire and space, whereas in feng shui the view is that the constituent parts are water, wood, earth, fire, metal. I also know that prana in the Indian conceptual framework is the equivalent of chi or qi in the Chinese tradition. Both mean life force energy, though there may well be important differences in the understanding of that energy in the two cultures.

I have also learned that while their approaches are largely derived from feng shui, the Japanese talk about fusui when they are discussing similar issues and energies and the Koreans speak of pung yu. Again, though I am looking forward to a trip to Japan with my husband this fall, I know virtually nothing about the Japanese, Korean or Indian variants on the traditional methodologies for attempting to harmonize living spaces with nature. I'm intrigued, though, by the evidence that most Asian cultures apparently have a systematic way of gauging how their dwellings are or are not in accord with natural principles.

I know also that indigenous peoples around the world have similar systems and that ancient European tribes used geomancy for the same purpose. Feng Shui, at least as we receive it in Western popularizations, isn't free of superstition . Nonetheless, from my experience, respectful interdependence with nature and common sense are at the center of so much of feng shui and, I assume, of vastu shashtra, fusui and pung yu.