ABSTRACT
It is unthinkable today to study the architecture and planning of India without considering the relevance of vastu shastra. This vast body of Sanskrit texts describe with precision how a wide variety of objects should be constructed. Because studies and translations of vastu shastra have sought to define them as treatises on architecture and planning, art historical studies pay closest attention to those passages pertaining to those two topics. Application of their complicated formulae to studies of Indian architecture and planning have become popular lines of research. In post-independence India, it has even become fashionable for practising architects to apply the planning principles found in vastu shastra to contemporary architecture. 14
