doṣagati: what the term means and how it is translated
doṣagati दोषगति is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 7 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 | doṣagati |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | दोषगति |
| Also written | doṣa-gati, gati, doṣagatiḥ, trividhā gatiḥ, prākṛta gati / vaikṛta gati, ūrdhva-adhaḥ-tiryak gati, koṣṭha-śākhā-marmāsthisandhi gati |
| Category, as gathered | dosha-dynamics |
| Grouped here under | Dosha and its subtypes |
| Classical citations | 6 |
| 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.
Movement of dosha
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.19 (doṣagatiḥ) · standard
Full description: 'When it is not physiological, the movement of dosha within the body is a pathogenic mechanism which results in the manifestation of disease in different tracts.' WHO's phrasing concedes that doṣagati is often physiological, but the English headword does not.
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.
Transit destinations of dosha
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.20 (sañcārasthānam) · standard
'Spread or migration of vitiated dosha.'
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.
Shifting of dosha from gut to structual components
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.21 (śākhāgatiḥ) · standard
Quoted exactly as printed, including the typo 'structual'. This is WHO's rendering of koṣṭha-to-śākhā movement.
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.
Shifting of dosha
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.22 (madhyamagatiḥ) · standard
'A movement of dosha towards the vital parts, including the head and various junctures and junctions of the body.' Note WHO gives śākhāgati and madhyamagati near-identical English headwords ('Shifting of dosha from...' and 'Shifting of dosha'), which is a standardisation weakness worth recording.
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.
Gait
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.1.1.12 (gatiḥ), listed among the functions of vata · standard
Recorded as a HOMOGRAPH TRAP, not as a rendering of this term. In the same standard, bare gatiḥ means gait, i.e. walking, as a normal function of vāta. A search on 'gati' in WHO ISTA returns this first.
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.
Spreading of vata pattern (TM2)
ICD-11 MMS v2026-01, Traditional Medicine Module 2 · SR13 (also SR18 pitta, SR1D kapha) · classification
ICD-11 codes only prasara-type movement; it has no code for the kṣaya/sthāna/vṛddhi, ūrdhva/adhaḥ/tiryak or koṣṭha/śākhā triads.
Reproduced unaltered and attributed from WHO ICD-11, 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.
courses / course of the humours
Sushruta Samhita, tr. Bhishagratna (1907) · Sutrasthana XXI, on prasara and sthāna-saṃśraya · translation · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
Bhishagratna has no single term for gati; he uses 'expansion', 'over-run', 'coursing' and 'slanting or downward course' as occasion requires.
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 SamhitaSutrasthana 17:112-113 · checked against the source
क्षयः स्थानं च वृद्धिश्च दोषाणां त्रिविधा गतिः| ऊर्ध्वं चाधश्च तिर्यक्च विज्ञेया त्रिविधाऽपरा||११२|| त्रिविधा चापरा कोष्ठशाखामर्मास्थिसन्धिषु| इत्युक्ता विधिभेदेन दोषाणां त्रिविधा गतिः||११३|| / kṣayaḥ sthānaṁ ca vr̥ddhiśca dōṣāṇāṁ trividhā gatiḥ| ūrdhvaṁ cādhaśca tiryakca vijñēyā trividhā'parā||112|| trividhā cāparā kōṣṭhaśākhāmarmāsthisandhiṣu| ityuktā vidhibhēdēna dōṣāṇāṁ trividhā gatiḥ||113||
The core passage. THREE distinct threefold gatis are given: (1) kṣaya, sthāna, vṛddhi; (2) upward, downward, transverse; (3) koṣṭha, śākhā, marma-asthi-sandhi. 'Dosha gati' is a family of three unrelated classifications, not one concept, and only the second and third are movement in any spatial sense.
Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana 17:7 · checked against the source
दोषाणां त्रिविधा चोक्ता गतिर्विस्तरतः शृणु||७|| / dōṣāṇāṁ trividhā cōktā gatirvistarataḥ śr̥ṇu||7||
Charaka announces the three gatis of doṣa in the chapter's opening list of topics, confirming that Sutrasthana 17 (Kiyantaḥśirasīya) is the locus classicus.
Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana 17:114-115 · checked against the source
गतिः कालकृता चैषा चयाद्या पुनरुच्यते|११५| गतिश्च द्विविधा दृष्टा प्राकृती वैकृती च या||११५|| / gatiḥ kālakr̥tā caiṣā cayādyā punarucyatē|115| gatiśca dvividhā dr̥ṣṭā prākr̥tī vaikr̥tī ca yā||115||
Two further gatis beyond the three threefold ones: the time-made (seasonal caya-prakopa-praśama) gati, and the twofold prākṛta/vaikṛta gati. Five classifications in total in this one chapter. Any definition of doṣagati as 'the movement of vitiated dosha' captures at most one of them.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 21 · checked against the source
As a vast and mighty expanse of water, which has been divided into two expanses by a dam or barrier, will sweep away the latter and unite again to form one sheet of water; so the deranged humours, sometimes singly, sometimes in combination with two or all of their species, or in unison with blood, expand and over-run the organism in all directions.
Sushruta's account of prasara, the movement stage, in lawfully quotable English. Note Sushruta frames doṣa movement through the kriyākāla scheme rather than through Charaka's gati classifications; the two texts organise the same phenomenon differently.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 21 · checked against the source
The deranged and aggravated Vayu, having moved into any specific seat of Pitta, should be medicinally treated as a case of Pittaja aggravation. Similarly, the deranged and aggravated Pitta, or Kapha, changing their respective places with each other, should be medicinally treated as the humour in whose location it is found.
The therapeutic consequence of doṣa movement: treat by the site occupied, not by the doṣa that moved. This is the clinical payload of the gati doctrine and it is quotable.
Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana 11 (Tistraishaniya):48 (translator's footnote, pp. 127-128) · corrected against the source
‘Cakha’ literally means branch. As a techinacal word in medical science, it implies, as explained in the text, blood and the like, the humours and the skin. Of course, it includes flesh, marrow, fat, bones, and seminal fluid. ... ‘Asthi-sandhi’ is, literally, bone-joints.
Kaviratna's own gloss on mārga, śākhā and asthi-sandhi, in his footnote to the three pathways of disease (Sutrasthana 11.48). The same terms name the third gati in Sutrasthana 17/113. Quotable in English and useful because it shows śākhā means the dhātus and skin, not 'the limbs' as is often assumed.
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.
- Roga-marga (the three pathways of disease) as Doshagati
- The movement of doshas between pathways. Ca.Su.28/31: from koshtha to shakha through exercise, the sharpness of internal heat, and neglect of what is beneficial, driven by the quickness of vayu. Ca.Su.28/32: once there they may lie dormant, not stirred, awaiting a further cause. Ca.Su.28/33: they leave shakha and return to koshtha by increase, liquefaction, digestion, clearing of the channel mouths, and the restraining of vayu. Chakrapani's Ayurvedadipika on 28/31 glosses the destination as rasa and the rest, 'rasadinam shakharupatvat', which identifies shakha here with the dhatus, the same sense as Ca.Su.11/48.
Not to be confused with
- gati = gait
- In WHO ISTA itself, bare gatiḥ (ITA-2.1.1.12) means gait, a normal function of vāta. A search for 'gati' in the standard hits this before doṣagatiḥ.
- prasara
- Prasara is the third kriyākāla stage (WHO ITA-4.6.9); doṣagati in Charaka's sense is a classification scheme that is not stage-indexed. ICD-11 codes prasara ('Spreading of vata pattern', SR13) and does not code gati at all.
- sañcārasthāna
- WHO ITA-4.8.20, the destinations rather than the movement. Separately standardised.
- roga-mārga
- The three disease pathways (śākhā, marmāsthisandhi, koṣṭha) look identical to Charaka's third gati but are a classification of DISEASES by site, not of doṣa movement. The overlap in vocabulary is total and the referents differ.
- āśaya-apakarṣa
- The pulling of one doṣa from its seat by another, dealt with at Charaka Sutrasthana 17/45-47 per the retrieved chapter page. A specific mechanism, not a gati class.
- the kṣaya/sthāna/vṛddhi gati
- This 'gati' involves no movement at all, it is the three quantitative states. Calling it a movement is a translation artefact of rendering gati as 'movement' across all three of Charaka's triads.
Renderings that do not hold
- movement of dosha (as the whole meaning). WHO's headword. It fits two of Charaka's five gatis and actively misdescribes the kṣaya/sthāna/vṛddhi triad, which is about quantity, and the prākṛta/vaikṛta pair, which is about normality.
- dosha circulation. Implies a continuous transport system analogous to blood circulation. Nothing in Charaka Sutrasthana 17 supports it.
- dosha migration to the limbs. Takes śākhā as 'limbs'. Kaviratna's own footnote gives śākhā as blood, the doṣas, skin, flesh, marrow, fat, bone and semen, the tissue compartment, not the extremities.
- upward/downward/sideways movement (as the definition). This is one of five gatis. Presenting it as the meaning of doṣagati is the commonest error in secondary literature.
- the path of disease. Conflates doṣagati with roga-mārga, which is a classification of diseases rather than of doṣa states.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Charaka Sutrasthana 17/113 has 'trividhā gatiḥ' twice in two lines while enumerating three separate threefold schemes; whether the commentators read this as three parallel classifications or as a single one with three aspects was not established and materially affects the entry.
- The Kaviratna footnote on śākhā and asthi-sandhi could not be located to a sthana and chapter in the OCR; a human should find the corresponding passage in a paginated copy.
- Whether Sushruta anywhere uses gati as a technical term, or organises this material solely through kriyākāla, was not established.
- Neither WHO ISTA nor ICD-11 has any term for the kṣaya/sthāna/vṛddhi gati or the prākṛta/vaikṛta gati. Whether this is deliberate scope limitation or an omission is unknown.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, doṣagati
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/dosha-gati/, 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.