The main entrance: facing, pada and threshold

The main door is where the tradition starts reading a home, and the question people ask most is the wrong one. "Which way does it face?" matters less than "which pada is it in?" Every side of a house has favourable padas; the facing is the frame, the pada is the reading.

Facing

A home's facing is the direction you look when you step out of the main door: a door on the north wall gives a north-facing home. Measure it with the compass from just inside the door, pointing out. The eight facings each have their traditional reading, north for wealth and opportunity, east for health and growth, south for fame and discipline, west for gains and satisfaction, with the corners carrying the elements of lesson 3.

The texts prefer north and east for a main door because those sides are the ones they want open and light. They do not reject south and west; they ask for the right pada.

Pada

Lesson 6 gave the 32 padas of the outer ring, eight per wall. The favourable ones for a main door in the common lists:

Wall	Favourable padas (counting from the left, seen from outside)
North	3 Mukhya, 4 Bhallat, 5 Soma
East	3 Jayant, 4 Indra, 5 Surya
South	3 Vitatha, 4 Grihakshat
West	3 Sugriva, 4 Pushpadanta, 5 Varuna

The pattern is that the middle-left of every wall is favoured and the two corner padas on each side are avoided. A door in the exact centre of a wall is in the fourth or fifth pada and almost always acceptable.

Measuring your door

1. Stand outside, facing the wall with the door.
2. Measure or pace the wall from its left corner to its right, and the position of the door's centre.
3. Divide the wall into eight; the door's pada is the part its centre falls in.

The House facing checker asks for the bearing and, optionally, the door's position along the wall as a fraction, and names the pada. Counting conventions differ between schools, so the result also shows the pada's name, which is what to compare with any other reading you have.

Threshold rules

Around the door the tradition adds a handful of consistent habits: a raised threshold, so the door is a step rather than a continuation of the floor; a door that opens inward and clockwise; the main door larger than the other doors; light at the entrance and a clear approach, no shoe rack or dustbin in front; and no door facing the door of a toilet or directly in line with the back door. These are the practical half of Vastu, keeping the entrance clean, lit and deliberate, and they apply whatever the pada.

Worked example

A flat whose door is on the east wall, with the door's centre 5 m along a 12 m wall from the left corner, is at 5/12 = 0.42 of the wall, which is the fourth pada, Indra: a favourable entrance. The same flat's neighbour, whose door is 1 m from the corner, is in Shikhi, which the tradition avoids. Both are east-facing; only the pada differs.

Calculate yours

Try the calculator this lesson explains.

Door bearing (standing in the doorway, looking out)

°Use my phone's compass

Degrees clockwise from north. Use the compass button from the doorway, or type it.

Where the door sits along that wallNot surePart 1 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)Part 2 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)Part 3 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)Part 4 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)Part 5 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)Part 6 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)Part 7 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)Part 8 of 8 from the left corner (seen from outside)

Divide the wall into eight equal parts from the left corner as you face the house from outside.

Calculate