Aaya Calculator: Most Vastu advice is about direction: where the kitchen, bedroom or main door should go. Aaya is about size. It comes from the Ayadi Shadvarga, a set of six calculations in the traditional building texts that test whether the dimensions of a building or room are well formed. The best known of them compares Aaya, income, with Vyaya, expenditure, and looks at the Yoni, the nature and direction of the building. Enter a length and breadth in feet in the calculator below and it works out all of them, shows every multiplication and remainder, and, if the result is not fully auspicious, suggests the nearest sizes that are.
This page is also unusually frank about the method. There is no single Ayadi formula: some traditions work from the length and breadth separately, some from the perimeter, some from the area, and they use different units, from feet to angulas to hastas. The same room can pass in one method and fail in another. We checked the rules this calculator follows across thousands of sizes, and found that some popular advice, such as keeping the length at 1.5 times the breadth, makes no difference at all under this formula. Treat Aaya as a traditional check you can use at the drawing stage, not as a verdict on a home.
Aaya Calculator Online Free
Aaya Calculator (Ayadi Shadvarga)
Enter the length and breadth in feet. This calculator counts whole feet, takes Aaya from the length and Vyaya and Yoni from the breadth.
Please enter a valid length and breadth in feet.
What Is Aaya in Vastu?
Ayadi Shadvarga means the six-fold group beginning with Aaya. It is set out in the Shilpa Shastra literature, the traditional texts on architecture and sculpture, with the Mayamata and the Manasara the texts most often cited, and it survives in the working methods of sthapatis, the traditional architects, particularly in South India. Its job is narrow and mechanical. Once a plan is drawn, Ayadi asks whether the dimensions, expressed in a traditional unit, produce favourable remainders when multiplied and divided by fixed numbers. Nothing about the site, the direction of the door or the owner’s horoscope enters the core calculation.
The six values are Aaya (income), Vyaya (expenditure), Yoni (the nature and direction of the building), Nakshatra (the star of the building), Vara (the weekday) and Tithi (the lunar day). In everyday domestic practice, Aaya, Vyaya and Yoni carry most of the weight. The last three are more often used for matching the building to its owner or timing the foundation than for rejecting a plan.
How This Calculator Works
This calculator follows the length-and-breadth convention used in many Indian guides, working in whole feet. A remainder of zero is read as the full divisor, which is the usual convention.
| Value | Formula used here | What is looked for |
|---|---|---|
| Aaya (income) | Length × 8, divided by 12, take the remainder | Greater than the Vyaya |
| Vyaya (expenditure) | Breadth × 9, divided by 10, take the remainder | Smaller than the Aaya |
| Yoni (nature and direction) | Breadth × 3, divided by 8, take the remainder | An odd number: 1, 3, 5 or 7 |
| Nakshatra | Length × 8, divided by 27, take the remainder | Often compared with the owner’s birth star |
Here is the worked example you can try: a room 15 ft long and 9 ft wide.
- Aaya. 15 × 8 = 120, and 120 ÷ 12 leaves 0, which is read as 12.
- Vyaya. 9 × 9 = 81, and 81 ÷ 10 leaves 1.
- Yoni. 9 × 3 = 27, and 27 ÷ 8 leaves 3: Simha, the lion, linked with the south.
- Nakshatra. 15 × 8 = 120, and 120 ÷ 27 leaves 12: Uttara Phalguni.
- Verdict. Aaya 12 is greater than Vyaya 1, and the Yoni is odd, so both traditional checks pass: auspicious.
Two things this calculator does not do. It does not compute Vara and Tithi, because they are used mainly for timing and for matching with a birth chart, which is a practitioner’s job. And it works only in whole feet: if you enter 15.4 ft, it counts 15 ft and tells you so. That matters, because a change of a few inches will not change the result here unless it moves the figure to the next whole foot.
Three Simple Rules Behind the Result
Because the formulas are fixed, the whole calculation boils down to three rules you can apply in your head. We checked each of them for every size from 1 to 200 feet, and they never fail on this formula set.
- The Aaya depends only on the length, and only on its remainder when divided by 3. A length that divides exactly by 3 (12, 15, 18, 21, 24 ft and so on) always gives Aaya 12. A length one more than a multiple of 3 (13, 16, 19 ft) gives 8, and one two more (14, 17, 20 ft) gives 4. No other Aaya value is possible.
- The Vyaya is 10 minus the last digit of the breadth. A breadth ending in 9 gives Vyaya 1, ending in 5 gives 5, and ending in 0, such as 20, 30 or 40 ft, gives the maximum, 10.
- The Yoni is odd, and so auspicious, exactly when the breadth is an odd number of feet. Every even breadth gives an even, inauspicious Yoni.
Put together, the easiest route to a fully auspicious result is a length that divides by 3 and an odd breadth, because Aaya 12 beats every possible Vyaya. With a length one over a multiple of 3, the breadth also needs to end in 3, 5, 7 or 9; with a length two over, it needs to end in 7 or 9.
| Length | Aaya | Breadths that make the dimensions fully auspicious |
|---|---|---|
| Divides by 3 (12, 15, 18, 21…) | 12 | Any odd breadth |
| One over (13, 16, 19, 22…) | 8 | Odd breadths ending in 3, 5, 7 or 9 |
| Two over (14, 17, 20, 23…) | 4 | Odd breadths ending in 7 or 9 |
Does the Length Need to Be 1.5 Times the Breadth?
Not on this formula. Many guides say the length should be about 1.5 times the breadth, or at least 1.375 times, for the Aaya to beat the Vyaya; one property forum quotes the lower limit as 1.357 instead, so even the figure varies. We tested it directly on every whole-foot size from 5 to 100 ft, 4,656 combinations with the length at least equal to the breadth:
| Length ÷ breadth | Fully auspicious | Aaya greater than Vyaya |
|---|---|---|
| Square (1.0) | 36.5% | 66.7% |
| 1.01 to 1.24 | 37.3% | 67.2% |
| 1.25 to 1.37 | 36.1% | 66.6% |
| 1.375 to 1.49 | 40.1% | 66.3% |
| 1.50 to 1.74 | 35.3% | 67.8% |
| 1.75 to 1.99 | 36.0% | 66.4% |
| 2.0 and above | 38.2% | 68.3% |
The pass rate hardly moves with the ratio. A square room is no worse than a long one: a 15 × 15 ft room is fully auspicious here (Aaya 12, Vyaya 5, Yoni 5, Vrishabha), while a 10 × 10 ft room is not (Aaya 8, Vyaya 10, Yoni 6, Khara). What decides the result is the length’s remainder by 3 and the breadth’s last digit and oddness, as the three rules above explain. The ratio rule may come from other conventions or from general proportion guidance, but it does not follow from the formula this calculator uses.
Why Another Calculator May Give a Different Answer
Ayadi has several working versions, and online calculators rarely say which one they use. These are the main ones we found:
| Method | How it works | Where you will see it |
|---|---|---|
| Length and breadth separately (this calculator) | Aaya from the length; Vyaya and Yoni from the breadth | Many Indian guides, including a Marathi Vastu guide and a property forum |
| Perimeter | All six values from the perimeter, 2 × (length + breadth) | Several English calculators |
| Perimeter in angulas | The perimeter converted to angulas, commonly 1 angula = 3/4 inch, before dividing | A detailed calculator that prints its working |
| Hastas | Dimensions converted to hastas; one calculator defaults to a 33-inch hasta | Some South Indian practice and calculators |
| Area | Length × breadth × 9, divided by 8, gives the eight classes from Dhwaja to Kaka | Many Hindi sources, which call the result aay or aayam |
The unit alone can flip a verdict. The same 15 × 9 ft room that is fully auspicious here comes out only partly favourable if you run exactly the same formulas in inches (180 × 108), in angulas at three-quarters of an inch (240 × 144) or in centimetres (457 × 274). One detailed calculator points out another trap: any rectangle measured in whole feet or whole inches, converted to angulas, gives a perimeter that is a multiple of 8, which forces the Yoni to 8, Kaka, every time. That is a property of the conversion, not of your plan, and it is why traditional setting-out was done in angulas and hastas.
Names differ too. In many Hindi sources, aay or aayam is the name for the eight classes from Dhwaja to Kaka, worked out from the area, which is what this calculator, following South Indian usage, calls the Yoni. One well-known Hindi guide explicitly notes that its “aayam” means Yoni, its “dhan” means Aaya and its “rin” means Vyaya, and then uses different multipliers from the ones above. Some calculators online even publish divisors that differ from every formula set above. Before comparing results, check which method a site is using.
The Eight Yonis
The Yoni places the building in one of eight classes, each with an emblem and a direction. The four odd Yonis are traditionally favourable for homes, and the four even ones are avoided.
| Yoni | Emblem | Direction | Traditional reading for homes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Dhwaja | Flag | East | Favourable, often called the best |
| 2. Dhumra | Smoke | South-East | Avoided |
| 3. Simha | Lion | South | Favourable |
| 4. Shwan | Dog | South-West | Avoided |
| 5. Vrishabha | Bull | West | Favourable |
| 6. Khara | Donkey | North-West | Avoided |
| 7. Gaja | Elephant | North | Favourable |
| 8. Kaka | Crow | North-East | Avoided |
Notice that the favourable Yonis are exactly the four that point to the cardinal directions. Some lineages also assign Yonis by building type, preferring, for example, Gaja for warehouses or Vrishabha for halls, and some Hindi sources attach dramatic predictions of illness and poverty to the even Yonis. There is no evidence for predictions like these, and we do not repeat them as advice.
What Our Own Calculation Shows
These are our own calculations, using this calculator’s formulas on whole-foot sizes, not a survey of buildings.
- Overall: of 4,656 size combinations from 5 to 100 ft, 37.5% are fully auspicious, 43.2% partly favourable and 19.4% not favourable. About two in three pass the Aaya-over-Vyaya test on its own.
- The length’s remainder matters most: lengths that divide by 3 give a fully auspicious result 50.5% of the time, against 40.8% for lengths one over and 20.6% for lengths two over.
- Squares are ordinary: 36.5% of square sizes are fully auspicious, almost exactly the overall rate.
The most practical finding concerns standard Indian plot sizes. Because a width of 20, 30, 40 or 60 ft is even, its Yoni is even and its Vyaya is the maximum, 10, so on this method such plots can never be fully auspicious:
| Plot (width × depth) | Aaya | Vyaya | Yoni | Result here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 × 30 ft | 12 | 10 | Shwan | Partly favourable |
| 20 × 40 ft | 8 | 10 | Shwan | Not favourable |
| 25 × 40 ft | 8 | 5 | Simha | Auspicious |
| 25 × 50 ft | 4 | 5 | Simha | Partly favourable |
| 30 × 40 ft | 8 | 10 | Dhumra | Not favourable |
| 30 × 50 ft | 4 | 10 | Dhumra | Not favourable |
| 30 × 60 ft | 12 | 10 | Dhumra | Partly favourable |
| 40 × 60 ft | 12 | 10 | Kaka | Partly favourable |
Of the twelve common plot sizes we checked, only 25 × 40 ft was fully auspicious. This is not a reason to worry about your plot, which was sold in round numbers for surveying, not for Ayadi. It is the reason traditional practice applies Ayadi to the building and rooms you design inside the plot, where a foot either way is easy to adjust on paper.
How to Adjust Dimensions That Are Not Favourable
- Work on the building, not the plot. Apply Aaya to the outer dimensions of the house or to important rooms while the plan is still on paper.
- Use the three rules. Try a length that divides by 3 and an odd breadth; that combination always passes here.
- Use the nearest-size suggestions. When a result is not fully auspicious, the calculator lists the closest sizes within 3 ft that are, such as 40 × 29 ft instead of 40 × 30 ft.
- Keep the order right. Enter the longer side as the length. On this method the Aaya comes from the length and the Yoni from the breadth, so swapping them can change the verdict; the calculator warns you if you do.
- Do not chase inches on site. In angula-based methods, a change of one angula in the perimeter can mean well under half an inch on a wall, finer than most construction actually holds. Settle the numbers in the drawing, with your sthapati if you follow one, and build to the drawing.
Where Aaya Is Applied
Traditionally, Ayadi is used at every scale, from temples and town plans to single houses. For a home, it is most often applied to the outer footprint of the building and to important rooms such as the main hall, the master bedroom and the pooja room; some practitioners apply it to doors and windows as well. It works alongside direction, not instead of it: the 16-zone map says where a room should go, and Aaya checks the room’s size. Our Vastu Directions Guide covers the directions, and its Aaya section summarises the formulas in one place.
A Note on Units and Accuracy
Traditional Ayadi uses traditional units, and they are not fixed. The angula is commonly taken today as three-quarters of an inch, and a hasta as 24 angulas, which would make it 18 inches; yet one calculator’s default hasta is 33 inches, and regional lineages use other values. Texts and regions also differ on the multipliers, on whether the perimeter is measured to the outer wall, the inner wall or the plinth, and on which weekdays count as unfavourable. This calculator uses whole feet because that is how most people know their dimensions. It is a consistent, checkable first test; where a local sthapati uses a different convention, theirs is the one traditionally followed for a real building.
Common Misconceptions About Aaya
- “There is one standard Aaya formula.” Length-and-breadth, perimeter, area and hasta-based methods all exist, with different units.
- “A square room is bad for Aaya.” Not on this formula: squares pass at the same rate as other shapes, and 15 × 15 ft is fully auspicious.
- “The length must be 1.5 times the breadth.” The ratio makes no difference here; the length’s remainder by 3 and the breadth’s last digit do.
- “Changing a few inches fixes the result.” Not on a whole-foot calculator; change by a foot, or work in angulas with a practitioner.
- “My plot is unlucky because its Aaya fails.” Most standard plot sizes fail on this method simply because their width is a round even number. Apply Aaya to the building you design.
- “An even Yoni brings illness or poverty.” Such predictions appear in some sources, but there is no evidence behind them.
- “Aaya is scientifically proven.” It is traditional arithmetic, useful as a design check if you follow the tradition, not a prediction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Aaya in Vastu?
Aaya means income or gain. It is one of the six Ayadi Shadvarga values worked out from a building’s dimensions, and the traditional test is that it should be greater than the Vyaya, the expenditure value.
How is Aaya calculated?
On this calculator, multiply the length in feet by 8, divide by 12 and take the remainder, reading 0 as 12. For a 15 ft length: 120 ÷ 12 leaves 0, so Aaya 12. Other methods use the perimeter or the area instead.
What are the only possible Aaya values?
With the multipliers 8 and 12, only 12, 8 and 4 can occur, because 8 and 12 share a factor of 4. On this calculator, a length that divides by 3 gives 12, one more gives 8 and two more gives 4.
What does it mean if Aaya is less than Vyaya?
It means that check fails on this method. The simplest fix is usually a length that divides by 3, which gives Aaya 12 and beats any Vyaya. The calculator also suggests the nearest sizes that pass.
Which Yoni is best?
The four odd Yonis, Dhwaja, Simha, Vrishabha and Gaja, are traditionally favourable for homes, with Dhwaja often called the best. On this calculator, the Yoni is odd whenever the breadth is an odd number of feet.
Is a square room or plot bad in Aaya?
Not on this formula. Square sizes pass at almost exactly the same rate as other shapes; 15 × 15 ft is fully auspicious while 10 × 10 ft is not, for reasons that have nothing to do with being square.
Why does another Aaya calculator give me a different result?
Because it probably uses a different method or unit, such as the perimeter, the area, angulas or hastas. The same 15 × 9 ft room passes here in feet but only partly passes when the same formulas are run in inches or angulas.
Should I check the plot or the house?
Both are possible, but traditional practice applies Ayadi mainly to the building and its important rooms, which you can still adjust on paper. Most standard plot sizes do not pass on this method simply because their widths are round even numbers.
Does the calculator use inches?
No. It counts whole feet and tells you when it has rounded your figures. If you need inch-level precision, that belongs to angula-based methods best done with a practitioner.
Does the Aaya calculator really work?
It applies one traditional formula set correctly and shows every step, so you can check it. Whether dimensions influence prosperity is a matter of tradition and belief, not established science, so use it as a design check rather than a prediction.
Related Vastu Tools and Guide
Aaya checks size; these tools check placement and direction:
- Vastu Directions Guide: the right direction for every room, with an Aaya summary.
- Plot Vastu Calculator: your plot’s shape, slope and roads.
- Vastu Direction Calculator: your building’s facing and zones.
- Main Door Vastu Calculator: the entrance direction and its position.
- Vastu Score Calculator: a checklist score for the whole home.
You can also browse all our Vastu calculators in one place.
Aaya is one of the few parts of Vastu you can check with a pencil, and the calculator shows every step so you can. Use it while your plan is still on paper, keep the three simple rules in mind, and remember that the method and unit matter as much as the numbers themselves.
This information is based on traditional Vaidik Vastu Shastra principles and is intended for general guidance and self-reflection, not as a substitute for professional architectural or Vastu consultation. Read our full Disclaimer for more.