prana-bodydraftschool: pan-indian· Bṛhat Saṁhitā
Veins of the earth (water-veins)
bhūmi-śirā / udaka-śirā
pra-bhumi-siraDefinition
The earth's water-channels, treated by BS 54.2 as strictly parallel to the veins (sira) of the human body — some higher, some lower — running in eight directions named for the quarter-lords, with a ninth Great Vein (mahasira) at the center and hundreds of named branch-veins.
Classical
Prāṇa relevance
THIS IS A LOAD-BEARING PRANA-AXIS ENTITY. BS makes the body↔earth homology explicit and bidirectional in figure: "just as there are veins (sira) in the human body, so do they exist in the earth" (54.2). Where ch. 53 mapped building→body via the Vastu Purusha's limbs, ch. 54 maps EARTH→body via shared vein-anatomy. The same word, sira, names both. The tradition thus reads the dwelling-site as a living body whose water-channels parallel the resident's — the cleanest textual warrant the project has for treating place and body as one anatomy. The siras here are gross water-channels, not the nadis of yoga; the identification with subtle-body nadis would be a Phase 3 move, not made by BS [gap, do not force].
Cross-book attributes (1) — fill / concur / diverge
Nadi IdentificationFilledper txt-svoboda-vastu
⚑ Svoboda calls the earth's prāṇa-channels 'terrestrial nāḍīs' (not 'water-veins/siras'), 'ethereal vessels in which prāṇa moves', whose intersections form land-marmas. Where BS 54.2 made the earth-veins (bhūmi-śirā) gross WATER-channels strictly parallel to body water-veins, Svoboda reads them as SUBTLE prāṇa-vessels (nāḍī) — the very gross-vein↔subtle-nāḍī identification BS withheld and the project flagged for Phase 3.Connections (1)
corresponds-to · 1
- BS 54.2 states the homology directly and uses the same word, sira, for both: 'just as there are veins in the human body, so do they exist... in the earth.' The correspondence licenses reading the site as a living body whose water-channels parallel the resident's.
Sources
- txt-brihat-samhita54.2Classical✓ verifiedearth-veins parallel body-veins (the homology)
- txt-brihat-samhita54.3–5Classical✓ verifieddirectional naming, great vein, branch count, auspiciousness by direction
- txt-sarasvata-dakargalavia Utpala on 54.2–5Classical✓ verifiedunderlying doctrine
Notes from other books
- txt-svoboda-vastuThis is the concrete instance of the gap pra-bhumi-sira's own prana_relevance flagged: 'the identification with subtle-body nadis would be a Phase 3 move, not made by BS.' Svoboda MAKES that move (modern). Recorded as his identification; the BS 'water-vein' reading is untouched and surfaced side-by-side per the §3.2 diverge rule.
Other attributes
- System Of Origin
- vastu
- Structure
- {"directional_veins":"eight, named after the dikpalas (54.3–4)","great_vein":"the ninth, mahasira, in the center (54.4)","branches":"hundreds, with distinct names (54.4)","auspicious":"a vein rising from the nether-world; veins in the four cardinal points (54.5)","inauspicious":"veins in the intermediate (corner) quarters (54.5)"}