Also known ascow dungkandauplacow dung cake
In earlier times, when someone at home fell ill, people put ghee and a little rice on a cow dung cake (kanda); this was a method of activating the vastu devtas.
Cow dung cake (kanda)
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.
Cow dung (gobar)
The spot where the bone was found, the surrounding soil, and the four corners of the plot
Removing the bone is not enough; the land needs its rites, just as a house is purified after a death. Do a vastu registry with five coconuts (four corners and the bone spot), remove the affected soil, do agni sanskar with mango wood, ghee and camphor in 16 places and float the ash in flowing water, purify with water and mantra, sprinkle gomutra and plaster with cow dung, put lime and sulphur in the pit, keep a lamp burning there for 24 hours, and mix a little mercury into the soil and the four corners. If the shilanyas had already been done, it is broken and must be redone after purification.
The teacher left it to the students; their suggestions, a mango leaf swastik toran and a toran of cow-dung cakes, were both called correct. He then gave his best (Kohinoor) bandhanwar for any wrongly placed door: make round discs of desi cow dung, draw a swastik on each, fix them on a bandhanwar strip and hang it on the main door, and the defects end. The alternative, a daily desi cow-dung lepan in front of the main door with a rangoli in the colour of its zone, is hard to keep up every day, so the permanent bandhanwar is better.