indriyārtha: what the term means and how it is translated
indriyārtha इन्द्रियार्थः (pl. इन्द्रियार्थाः) 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 | indriyārtha |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | इन्द्रियार्थः (pl. इन्द्रियार्थाः) |
| Also written | indriyartha, indriyārthāḥ, artha (in context), viṣaya, bhūta-guṇa (śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa, gandha as qualities of the mahābhūtas) |
| Category, as gathered | sharira / manas |
| Grouped here under | Body: tissues, wastes and channels |
| Classical citations | 5 |
| Citations checked | 2026-10-07 |
How it is translated, and whether the translation holds
Each rendering is given with the source that uses it. The assessment is ours.
object of cognitive organ(s) (indriyartha)
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-1.8.1.2 sannikarṣaḥ 'Contact', description text · standard
COMPARATOR. No standalone indriyārtha headword was found by string search of the extracted PDF text ('indriyārth' in the IAST column: 0 hits); the term appears only inside this description. PDF text extraction can break hyphenated terms, so absence is not certain.
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.
The objects of sense organs like sound, touch, vision, taste and smell, which are perceived through the sense organs.
National Institute of Ayurveda terminology list · BP0113 indriyārthāḥ · standard
COMPARATOR. The NIA list also has BP0114 indriyārthasannikarṣaḥ 'sequential interaction between the sensory organ with object'.
Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the National Institute of Ayurveda terminology list, 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.
objects of the senses / the objects of those senses
Charaka Samhita tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Sūtrasthāna 1 (his 53), Sūtrasthāna 8 (his 1, 6) · translation
Public domain. His standing equivalent.
properties
Charaka Samhita tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · Sūtrasthāna 1, his aphorism 48 (= standard 49, sārthā) · translation
Public domain. His footnote: 'The word rendered properties is artha. They are, as explained by the commentator, the sensations, viz., vision, taste, touch, scent, and hearing, corresponding to the five elemental objective existences.' Note he reads artha as the sensation rather than the object.
sense objects
Charak Samhita Online translation (CC BY-NC-SA) · Sū.8.11, Sū.1.54 · edition
In-copyright, recorded as rendering only.
the subjects of the five intellectual (Vuddhi) organs
Sushruta Samhita tr. Bhishagratna (1911) · Śārīrasthāna 1, section 7 · translation
Public domain. 'Hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell respectively form the subjects of the five intellectual (Vuddhi) organs'; Bhishagratna lists the faculties, not the objects, as 'subjects'.
sense objects / sensory objects / objects of perception
common textbook renderings · other · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
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 SamhitaSūtrasthāna 8:11 (standard; within Kaviratna's aphorism 6) · checked against the source
Pañcēndriyārthāḥ- śabdasparśarūparasagandhāḥ||11||
The canonical list: śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa, gandha. Kaviratna: 'The five objects of the five senses are sound, touch, form, taste, and scent.'
Charaka SamhitaSūtrasthāna 8:12 (standard; Kaviratna's 6) · checked against the source
tāḥ punarindriyēndriyārthasattvātmasannikarṣajāḥ, kṣaṇikā, niścayātmikāśca
Indriyārtha is one of the four factors (indriya, indriyārtha, sattva, ātmā) whose sannikarṣa produces the indriya-buddhi. Kaviratna: 'These perceptions spring from a union of the senses, the objects of the senses, mind, and the soul.'
Charaka SamhitaSūtrasthāna 1:54 (standard; Kaviratna prints 53) · checked against the source
kālabuddhīndriyārthānāṁ yōgō mithyā na cāti ca| dvayāśrayāṇāṁ vyādhīnāṁ trividhō hētusaṅgrahaḥ||54||
Indriyārtha as one of the three things whose mis-, under- or over-conjunction causes disease; the basis of asātmyendriyārtha-saṃyoga.
Charaka SamhitaSūtrasthāna 11:37 (standard) · checked against the source
त्रीण्यायतनानीति- अर्थानां कर्मणः कालस्य चातियोगायोगमिथ्यायोगाः| तत्रातिप्रभावतां दृश्यानामतिमात्रं दर्शनमतियोगः, सर्वशोऽदर्शनमयोगः, अतिश्लिष्टातिविप्रकृष्टरौद्रभैरवाद्भुतद्विष्टबीभत्सनविकृतवित्रासनादिरूपदर्शनं मिथ्यायोगः;
Here artha alone stands for indriyārtha, and the verse works through each of the five objects giving ati-, a- and mithyā-yoga (only the rūpa clause reproduced). Shows 'artha' is used elliptically for indriyārtha in the etiological context.
Charaka SamhitaŚārīrasthāna 1:27 (standard) · checked against the source
mahābhūtāni khaṁ vāyuragnirāpaḥ kṣitistathā| śabdaḥ sparśaśca rūpaṁ ca rasō gandhaśca tadguṇāḥ||27||
The five indriyārthas are the guṇas of the five mahābhūtas (śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa, gandha of ākāśa, vāyu, agni, ap, pṛthivī), which is why Sū.1.56 can list them as bhūta-guṇa. Kaviratna (his 34-35): 'The great primal elements are ether (space), air, fire (or light), water, and earth. Their (respective) attributes are sound, touch, form (vision), taste, and scent.' His footnote to Sū.1 (his 48, pp. 4-5) glosses artha, following the commentator, as 'the sensations, viz., vision, taste, touch, scent, and hearing', and matches each to one of 'the five elemental objective existences, viz., light, water, air, earth, and space': that phrase is his name for the bhūtas, not for the arthas.
Not to be confused with
- indriya
- The faculty that grasps; indriyārtha is what is grasped.
- manortha / mano'rtha
- The objects of the mind (cintya, vicārya, ūhya, dhyeya, saṅkalpya; Ca.Śā.1.20; WHO ITA-1.9.3.3.7 'Objects of the mind'). Caraka keeps the two object-classes apart in Sū.8.5 (svārtha vs indriyārtha).
- artha (as 'meaning' or 'purpose' or 'wealth')
- Artha is polysemous; Sū.11.37 uses bare artha for sense-object, while the same chapter's title (tisra eṣaṇā) and Sū.11.45 use artha for wealth/aims. Kaviratna renders artha 'properties' at Sū.1.49.
- viṣaya
- The Nyāya/Yoga word for the same five objects; Caraka uses viṣaya in Śā.1.23 ('jāyate viṣaye tatra yā buddhiḥ'). Treated as synonymous in textbooks.
- tanmātra
- In the Sāṃkhya 24-tattva scheme (Suśruta Śā.1; Kaviratna's footnote to Ca.Śā.1.17) the subtle sensibles are tanmātras, counted within the eightfold prakṛti, whereas Caraka's Śā.1.17 counts the five arthas among the sixteen vikāras. The two schemes place 'objects' on opposite sides of the prakṛti/vikāra line.
Renderings that do not hold
- properties (of vision, taste, scent, touch, and hearing). Kaviratna, Sū.1.49, following a commentarial reading that artha = the sensation. The Sanskrit list in Sū.8.11 is of objects (śabda, sparśa ...), not sensations.
- subjects of the five intellectual organs. Bhishagratna, Su.Śā.1: 'subjects' in Edwardian English meant 'topics', and he lists the faculties (hearing, touch) where the Sanskrit has the objects.
- sensory stimuli. Modern paraphrase; imports a physiological causal model (stimulus-response) absent from the sannikarṣa account.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Whether Cakrapāṇi at Sū.1.49 reads sārthā as 'together with the arthas' (objects) or as Kaviratna's 'properties/sensations'.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, indriyārtha
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/indriya-artha/, 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.