Why was the kitchen traditionally called chauka?
Chauka means the place of four kinds of purity: of mind, speech, body and food (man, vachan, kaya and aahar). The kitchen was the place where the one cooking kept all four pure; today hardly any of these purities remains.
Related questions
A bone was found on a plot meant for an industry. What must be done before building there?
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.
A consultant had 2.5 kg of yellow mustard kept under a bed in the South-West; a year later dowsing showed strong negativity and there were daily quarrels. Can yellow mustard create negativity?
Yellow mustard that was washed, energised and commanded cannot give negativity. Mustard simply bought from the market and placed without purification and command does not work, even a ton of it in a shop, and it may bring negativity from wherever it came. Incomplete knowledge is very dangerous.
A refrigerator is cold, so why can it be placed in the fire zone, and where should it go?
Cold is produced from heat and a refrigerator cannot run without fire, so it can be placed in the South-East of the kitchen. Using the kitchen's own grid, it can also go in the West, and the North-West is ideal according to astrology.
After placing sweets and later chanting the mantra 27 times at a devta place, I felt strong heat in my body. Why?
It shows a defect or imbalance at that pad. When an offering reaches a defective place the defect tries to come out, as when granite tiles at one devta pad cracked during a group havan, and the body reacts. The uneasiness is a signal: the pad must be purified and activated with the method being taught (havan samagri, bhog samagri, mantra or the samagri to hang), so wait for the full method before trying again.
Apart from gridding the house, should the kitchen be gridded separately?
Yes. Interior vastu means zoning each room separately with its own grid and then designing its interior accordingly.
Ashopalav leaves look like mango leaves and are widely used in bandhanwars in Rajasthan. Can they be used instead?
No. What counts is composition and quality, not appearance; ashopalav leaves have a different composition, so they do not carry the properties of mango leaves. Mango leaves have many special qualities: their juice is used for purifying land, and where marriage is not happening or auspicious functions keep failing, mango leaf juice is applied as a lepan beneath the place where the girl or boy sleeps, after which the auspicious events take place.