atipravṛtti: what the term means and how it is translated
atipravṛtti अतिप्रवृत्ति is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 5 different ways, which is the reason this page exists: the renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken to mean.
| Transliteration | atipravṛtti |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | अतिप्रवृत्ति |
| Also written | atipravṛttiḥ, ati-pravṛtti, atipravritti / ativrutti / atipravrutti (Romanisation variants), atisṛṣṭa (cognate usage in Ca.Vi.5/8) |
| Category, as gathered | srotas-concept |
| Grouped here under | Body: tissues, wastes and channels |
| Classical citations | 3 |
| Citations checked | 2026-10-08 |
How it is translated, and whether the translation holds
Each rendering is given with the source that uses it. The assessment is ours.
Body channel dysfunction involving excess activity
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · Entry ITA-4.8.5, section 4.8, p. 115; Sanskrit atipravṛttiḥ / अतिप्रवृत्तिः; description "Excessive activity with increase and overflow of contents in the body channels." · standards-body
WHO chooses 'excess activity' rather than 'excess flow', and adds 'overflow of contents'. The activity framing is broader than the flow framing most textbooks use.
Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda, which is what that licence permits. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
Excessive generation (or flow, of food-juice, blood, and other ingredients of the body)
Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (public domain) · Vimana Sthana Lesson V, aphorism 31 (= Ca.Vi.5/24) · public-domain-translation
Kaviratna leads with 'generation' and only parenthetically offers 'flow'. That is a meaningful divergence: pravṛtti is 'setting forth, proceeding, activity', closer to flow/emission than to production. His reading makes atipravṛtti an over-production, which is not the standard understanding.
Atipravritti stands for "excessive flow."
Sharma S et al., Int. Res. J. Ayurveda & Yoga 6(12):98-102 (2023) · DOI 10.47223/IRJAY.2023.61218, section 3.11.1 · modern-journal-review
The dominant textbook rendering. Its worked example is bahumutrata (polyuria) in prameha as medovaha srotodushti.
excessive flow / hyperfunction / increased activity
Standard BAMS-textbook usage · ubiquitous · textbook-convention · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
Recorded as convention. 'Hyperfunction' is the commonest one-word gloss in Indian teaching material.
not verified
NAMASTE portal / ICD-11 TM2 · registration wall · standards-body · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
Unretrieved.
The classical passages
Each citation gives its address so a reader can check it in a printed edition, our account of what the passage establishes, and the result of reading it against its source.
Charaka SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:24 · checked against the source
अतिप्रवृत्तिः सङ्गो वा सिराणां ग्रन्थयोऽपि वा| विमार्गगमनं चापि स्रोतसां दुष्टिलक्षणम्||२४||
atipravṛttiḥ as the first-named of the four signs of srotodushti. This is the only verified classical occurrence of the term in this technical sense that I found.
Charaka SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:8 (pranavaha and mutravaha sections) · checked against the source
तद्यथा- अतिसृष्टमतिबद्धं कुपितमल्पाल्पमभीक्ष्णं वा सशब्दशूलमुच्छ्वसन्तं दृष्ट्वा प्राणवहान्यस्य स्रोतांसि प्रदुष्टानीति विद्यात्|
Charaka's channel-specific signs use the paired terms atisṛṣṭa (over-released) and atibaddha (over-bound) rather than atipravṛtti and saṅga. The same pairing recurs verbatim for the mutravaha srotas. This shows the excess/obstruction polarity is worked out in the prose BEFORE the summary verse names it, and under different vocabulary.
Charaka SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:Kaviratna's aphorism 12 (= part of Ca.Vi.5/8) · checked against the source
Beholding the stoppage of sweat, pr copiousness of sweat, or roughness ( of the skin ), or excessive oiliness ( of the skin ), or burning sensation ( all over the body ), or a general horripilation ( of the skin ), the physician should understand that the sweat-bearing ducts of the individual have become vitiated.
A public-domain English example of the excess-versus-stoppage polarity as Charaka actually applies it channel by channel ('stoppage of sweat, or copiousness of sweat'). OCR artifact 'pr' for 'or' is in the source.
Where this term does work in the theory
One concept record names this term as one of its components, and glosses it there as follows.
- Srotas (the channel system) and srotodushti as Atipravritti
- Excessive or unchecked flow through the channel (first mode of srotodushti)
Not to be confused with
- atisṛṣṭa (अतिसृष्ट)
- Charaka's own prose word for the same phenomenon in Ca.Vi.5/8, paired with atibaddha. atipravṛtti is the term of the summary verse. A lexicon that indexes only atipravṛtti will fail to find the passage where the concept is actually deployed.
- vṛddhi (वृद्धि)
- Increase in the QUANTITY of a dosha or dhatu. atipravṛtti is excess of FLOW or activity through a channel. A dhatu can be increased without its channel being in atipravṛtti, and vice versa.
- atiyoga (अतियोग)
- Excessive administration of a therapy (e.g. over-purgation), a treatment-outcome category in the panchakarma context. Shares the ati- prefix and the sense of excess but is iatrogenic and procedural, not a channel sign.
- vega / pravṛtti in the sense of natural urges
- pravṛtti also names the natural urges (mutra-pravṛtti etc.). 'atipravṛtti of the urges' is not the srotodushti sense.
Renderings that do not hold
- excessive generation / over-production. Kaviratna's own lead rendering, but pravṛtti is proceeding/flowing, not producing. Over-production is closer to vṛddhi or to dhatu-vṛddhi and should not be carried forward as the primary gloss.
- diarrhoea / polyuria / haemorrhage. These are instances in particular channels, not the meaning. The term is channel-neutral.
- hypersecretion. Imports a glandular/endocrine reading. Atipravṛtti applies equally to purishavaha and pranavaha channels where secretion is not the operative function.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Whether Chakrapani glosses atipravṛtti against atisṛṣṭa, and whether he treats them as identical.
- Whether any classical source gives a threshold or criterion for 'ati-', or whether it is left entirely to clinical judgement. Nothing I retrieved supplies one.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, atipravṛtti
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/atipravritti/, CC BY 4.0.
The whole lexicon is downloadable from the index.
Machine-readable source: Markdown.
Data exported 2026-10-08.
Educational reference only. A term entry explains what a word means and how it has been translated. Nothing here is advice, and nothing here describes how any condition should be treated.