What it does
To identify the kind of bone (shalya) buried in a plot.
When
At the moment the question about the land is asked
Cautions
Explanation and notes
Ashtang nimitta is the eight-limbed science of signs and omens. The presence of a bone can also be judged from a prashna lagna chart made for the question. A student pointed out that the neck and head signs lie above the navel. The answer was that for an animal the itching shows at both places: first below the navel, for example in the legs for a dog, and then at the specific spot such as the head.
Locates bones and other shalya (harmful objects) buried in a plot. A dowsing rod or pendulum turning anti-clockwise over a spot, or the breath (swar) shifting into sushumna while standing there, confirms that something negative is buried at that point.
A bone buried in a plot is the biggest land defect (shalya). It changes the chemistry of the surrounding soil, becomes a home for spirits and slowly destroys the peace, health and business of whoever builds there.
The full purification done where a bone has been dug out, the land's equivalent of the rites after a death: vastu registry with five coconuts, removal of the affected soil, agni sanskar with mango wood, water, gomutra and cow-dung purification, lime and sulphur, a 24-hour lamp and mercury.
When bones remain under a plot, mercury mixed into the soil changes its chemistry and can remove up to 75 percent of their harmful effect, including the spirit trouble attached to them.
If at least 6 ft of soil is filled above the place where a bone lies, even a cremation ground beneath causes no trouble, provided the 16 sanskars of the land are then performed on top.
Besides bones, coal, ash, some animal fossils and kaudi in the ground act as shalya. A furnace (bhatti) left buried under a building ruins the family and the business, and kaudi must never be buried, although gomti chakra can be.
The corners of a plot are its biggest sources of energy, and energy flows diagonally from corner to corner through the brahmasthan like a highway. Piling or filling a huge mass over a whole corner zone creates a serious defect.
On tilted plots, directions and zones must be read in degrees with a compass. Vedic vastu never says to treat any corner as Ishaan or to accept a direction however tilted it is, and a wrong reading leads to costly and harmful changes.