Vṛkṣāyurveda: Trees Around the House
Vṛkṣāyurveda is the Sanskrit science of plants; Surapāla’s treatise on it is the best known. This chapter sets out the tree rule the engine holds in a located verse, the clearance from a plinth it applies for safety, the Pañcavaṭī and the fermented manure the texts describe — and marks what is a text’s, what is the engine’s and what is not settled.
Cited for: Four large trees are read well on one side of a house and ill on the opposite side, and thorny, milky and fruiting trees close to the house are read unfavourably.
1. Which tree on which side
The Bṛhat Saṃhitā (52.83) names plakṣa, vaṭa, udumbara and aśvattha, and reads each auspicious on one side of a house and inauspicious on the other. This is the only directional tree rule the engine has found in a located verse, and it is a rule about a dwelling.
| Tree | Read auspicious on the | Read inauspicious on the |
|---|---|---|
| Plakṣa | North | South |
| Vaṭa (banyan) | East | West |
| Udumbara | South | North |
| Aśvattha (peepal) | West | East |
Verses 52.84–85 read thorny, milky and fruiting trees close to the house unfavourably, and say that where they are not cut, punnāga, aśoka, ariṣṭa, bakula, panasa, śamī and śāla are planted between them and the house. The rest of the engine’s tree catalogue, the trees it lists for each direction, is practice and not a located rule.
2. How far from the plinth
The engine records a minimum distance from a plinth for each species in its catalogue, from 4 metres for the campaka to 12 for the banyan and 15 for the peepal, and applies it in the studio’s tree setback check. These are the engine’s figures for keeping roots off footings and drains, not a text’s, and they are a guide only: a structural engineer decides what a foundation can take. A species the catalogue does not hold is reported as not assessed, never as safe.
3. The Pañcavaṭī
The five trees are attested: aśvattha, bilva, vaṭa, dhātrī (āmalakī) and aśoka, as Monier-Williams and Apte give them. Where each stands is not. No primary edition fixing the positions was located, and the published layouts disagree with one another: one attributed to the Skanda Purāṇa (aśvattha east, bilva north, vaṭa west, dhātrī south, aśoka south-east) could not be traced to a citable edition; a village programme as it is reported puts the peepal in the east, the banyan in the north, the bael at the centre, the amla in the west and the aśoka in the south. The engine’s own layout matches neither, has no source, and says so in the plan it produces. The question stays open until a primary text settles it.
4. Kuṇapa jala
Surapāla’s Vṛkṣāyurveda describes a liquid manure, kuṇapa jala, made by fermenting animal matter, oilcake and other ingredients in water and applied to plants. The locus was not checked against an edition, and no analysis of the preparation is cited here; it is listed as a tradition of the texts and not as a finding.