South Across the Traditions

South, a bearing of 180 degrees, is in the northern hemisphere the quarter of the midday sun, which never passes north of the zenith at temperate latitudes; it is therefore the direction of maximum light and heat, and buildings from Roman villas to Chinese courtyard houses are turned toward it. Chinese cosmology gives the south the fire phase, summer, the Vermilion Bird and the trigram Li, and the ruler faces south, so that in Chinese maps and diagrams south is conventionally placed at the top, the reverse of the modern convention.

In Hindu Vastu the south belongs to Yama, lord of the dead, and is treated with caution; the same association appears in Indian funerary orientation. In Mesoamerican and in some Andean schemes south is yellow. The hemispheric point should be kept in view: south of the equator the midday sun stands to the north, and the symbolism reverses with it.