# doṣa (दोष)

> Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/dosha/

An Ayurvedic technical term, rendered into English in 6 different ways.
The renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken
to mean.

## Identification

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Transliteration | doṣa |
| Devanagari | दोष |
| Also written | dosa, dosh, dosham, doṣaḥ, śārīra-doṣa |
| Category, as gathered | dosha |
| Grouped under | Dosha and its subtypes |
| Classical citations | 5 |
| 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.

### Dosha

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.1.1, section 2.1 'Three regulatory functional factors' · standard

WHO leaves the headword untranslated and carries the explanatory gloss in the section heading rather than the term. Its description is 'The regulatory functional factors of the body formed by the synchronized interplay between the five basic elements within any living system.' Recorded as a fact about WHO ISTA; not adopted as this entry's definition (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO).

Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda, which is what that
licence permits, and deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is CC BY 4.0.

### humour / bodily humour / vital humour

Sushruta Samhita, tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907) · Sutrasthana XV and XXI · translation

Public-domain Edwardian translation. Bhishagratna uses 'humour' throughout but appends his own disclaimer that the terms 'differ in their meaning from their usual English synonyms'. Period document; the Galenic framing is the translator's, not the text's.

### fault (of the body)

Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · e.g. p. 755 of the Kaviratna edition; also 'faults of the body' at p. 592 · translation

Kaviratna renders doṣa by its ordinary-language Sanskrit sense 'fault/defect'. Lexically defensible, clinically misleading: doṣa in its normal (prakṛta) state is constitutive of the body, not a fault.

### Derangement of dosha

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-5.2.1, doṣavaiṣamyam; section heading 5.2 · standard

WHO's term for the pathological state, distinct from doṣa itself.

Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda, which is what that
licence permits, and deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is CC BY 4.0.

### humoral derangement pattern

ICD-11 MMS v2026-01, Traditional Medicine Module 2 · block SR10-SR2Z, 'Functional elements and humoral derangement patterns (TM2)' · classification

ICD-11 retains 'humoral' at block level while using untranslated 'vata/pitta/kapha' at code level. The block is pan-ASU (Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani share it), so the English was chosen to cover three systems at once.

Reproduced unaltered and attributed from WHO ICD-11, which is what that
licence permits, and deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is CC BY 4.0.

### three factors determining the state of health

Chauhan M, Srivastava VK, Patwardhan K, Indian J Med Ethics 2024 · PMID 39183608, abstract, gloss on 'Tridosha' · paper

A contemporary Indian academic gloss, given parenthetically rather than as a proposed standard.

## The classical passages

### Charaka Samhita Sutrasthana 1:57, checked against the source

> वायुः पित्तं कफश्चोक्तः शारीरो दोषसङ्ग्रहः| मानसः पुनरुद्दिष्टो रजश्च तम एव च||५७|| / vāyuḥ pittaṁ kaphaścōktaḥ śārīrō dōṣasaṅgrahaḥ| mānasaḥ punaruddiṣṭō rajaśca tama ēva ca||57||

tr. none quoted (Sanskrit mula only) · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Deerghanjiviteeya_Adhyaya

The doṣa set is explicitly partitioned: vāyu, pitta and kapha are the bodily (śārīra) doṣas, while rajas and tamas are the mental ones. 'Dosha' therefore does not mean 'the three humours' without qualification.

### Charaka Samhita Sutrasthana 1:57 (Kaviratna prints this as aphorism 56), checked against the source

> Wind, bile, and phlegm have been said to be the causes of all bodily diseases. The qualities of Passion and Darkness have, again, been indicated to be the causes of mental diseases.

tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · https://archive.org/stream/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt

The only lawfully quotable English rendering of the foundational Charaka doṣa verse. Shows Kaviratna translating the triad as 'wind, bile, and phlegm' and narrowing doṣa to 'causes of disease', which the Sanskrit does not do.

### Charaka Samhita Sharirasthana 4:34, checked against the source

> tatra trayaḥ śarīradoṣā vātapittaśleṣmāṇaḥ, te śarīraṁ dūṣayanti; dvau punaḥ sattvadoṣau rajastamaśca, tau sattvaṁ dūṣayataḥ| tābhyāṁ ca sattvaśarīrābhyāṁ duṣṭābhyāṁ vikr̥tirupajāyatē, nōpajāyatē cāpraduṣṭābhyām||34||

tr. none quoted (Sanskrit mula only) · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Mahatigarbhavakranti_Sharira

Repeats the bodily/mental doṣa partition in prose and introduces the doṣa-dūṣya relation: the doṣas are what vitiates (dūṣayanti), not what is vitiated.

### Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 21, checked against the source

> The Vayu, Pitta and Shleshma should be considered as the primary and the most essential factors in the constitution of human organism. These fundamental and vital humours, occupying respectively the lower, middle, and upper parts of the body, maintain its integrity. The human body is supported by the three fundamental humours in the same way as a dwelling house is propped up by three supporting poles or stays; from which fact, the body is called the three-supported one (Tristhuna) by certain authorities.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-1-sutrasthana/d/doc122917.html

Sushruta treats the doṣas as constitutive supports of the healthy body, not as pathogens, and adds blood as a fourth factor. Wisdomlib's Sushruta is Bhishagratna and is quotable; it does not carry verse numbers, only chapters.

### Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 21, checked against the source

> The terms Vata (Vayu), Pitta and Shleshma (Kapha) are respectively derived from the roots ‘Va’, to move or smell, ‘Tapa,’ to burn or to heat, and “Shlisha,” to embrace, with the suffix ‘Ta’ thereto added.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-1-sutrasthana/d/doc122917.html

The text's own etymology of the three names, grounded in function (moving, burning, cohering) rather than in substance.

## 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.

- **[Dosha-dushya-sammurchana (a modern Ayurvedic term for the meeting of disturbed dosha and susceptible tissue)](https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/concept/dosha-dushya-sammurchana/)** (as dosha): The disturbed functional factor (vata, pitta or kapha, and in Sushruta's scheme also rakta) that has already accumulated, aggravated and spread.

## Not to be confused with

- **dūṣya.** The doṣas vitiate; the dūṣyas (dhātus, malas, srotas) are what gets vitiated. Charaka Sharirasthana 4/34 states this directly ('te śarīraṁ dūṣayanti'). Treating dosha as 'the thing that is diseased' inverts the grammar of the system.
- **mānasa doṣa (rajas, tamas).** Charaka Sutrasthana 1/57 makes rajas and tamas doṣas too. 'Dosha' unqualified in English writing almost always means śārīra doṣa only; the classical term is broader.
- **prakṛti.** Prakṛti is the individually fixed proportion of doṣas at conception; doṣa is the factor itself. 'Vata type' is a prakṛti claim, not a doṣa claim, and the two are routinely collapsed in popular writing.
- **vikṛti.** Vikṛti is the current deviation from one's prakṛti. A doṣa reading taken today is a vikṛti observation unless explicitly constitutional.
- **doṣa in general Sanskrit / Nyaya usage.** Outside medicine doṣa means fault, blemish, or a flaw in an argument. This is the sense Kaviratna translated by, and it is why 'fault' entered English Ayurvedic writing.
- **mala.** Malas are the excreta (faeces, urine, sweat). Sushruta Sutrasthana 15 treats doṣa, dhātu and mala as three parallel categories, so 'dosha = waste product' is a category error, though Charaka Sutrasthana 17/117 does call vitiated kapha a mala.

## Renderings that do not hold

- humour. Imports the Galenic four-humour scheme, which has different members, a different number, a different theory of mixture and a different pathology. The public-domain translator who used it most, Bhishagratna, himself appended a note that the terms 'differ in their meaning from their usual English synonyms'.
- wind, bile and phlegm. Kaviratna's rendering. Substitutes three material substances for three functional factors; it cannot accommodate prāṇa-vāta governing cognition or sādhaka-pitta governing decision-making.
- fault / defect. Etymologically the ordinary Sanskrit sense, but in the medical texts the doṣas in their normal state constitute and maintain the body (Sushruta Sutrasthana 21). Only the vitiated state is a fault.
- toxin. Conflates doṣa with āma and with viṣa. No classical text equates them, and the conflation is the main route by which 'detox' marketing language enters translated Ayurveda.
- energy / bio-energy / life force. Popular-wellness rendering with no classical or standardised warrant. WHO ISTA, ICD-11 and both public-domain translators all avoid it.

## Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved.

- Kaviratna's aphorism numbering in Sutrasthana runs one behind the Jamnagar/ITRA numbering (his 43 = Cha.Su.1/44, his 56 = Cha.Su.1/57). Is the offset constant across all sthanas, or only in Sutrasthana 1?
- Does any WHO ISTA entry define doṣa in its normal state as against its deranged state, or does the standard rely wholly on the 5.2 'Derangement of dosha' block for that contrast?
- NAMASTE's English headword for doṣa itself could not be retrieved.

## Citation

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, "doṣa", https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/dosha/, CC BY 4.0.
Whole lexicon: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon.json and https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon.csv.

Educational reference only. A term entry explains what a word means and how it has been
translated. Nothing here is advice.