karmendriya: what the term means and how it is translated
karmendriya कर्मेन्द्रियम् 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 | karmendriya |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | कर्मेन्द्रियम् |
| Also written | karmendriyam, karmendriyāṇi (pl.), the five: vāk, pāṇi, pāda, pāyu, upastha, vāgindriya (speech, named as an indriya in Ca.Śā.1.25-26) |
| Category, as gathered | sharira / manas |
| Grouped here under | Body: tissues, wastes and channels |
| Classical citations | 3 |
| 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.
Motor faculty
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-3.10.2 karmendriyam · standard
COMPARATOR. Description: 'The five faculties of action: speech faculty (vak), hands (pani),,legs (padaḥ), anus (payu) and genitalia (upastha).' (double comma sic). ITA-3.10.3 vāgindriyam 'Speech faculty'. Elsewhere WHO writes 'organs of physical action, i.e. hands, legs and tongue (karmendriya)' (pāṇḍurogaḥ description).
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.
organs of action
Charaka Samhita tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Śārīrasthāna 1, his aphorisms 24 (footnote) and 32-33 · translation
Public domain. 'the five organs of action, viz., the organ of speech, the two arms, the two legs the organ of generation, and the anal canal' (footnote); 'The arms and legs, the anus, the organ of generation, and the tongue, are the five organs of action' (text).
operative (Karma-Indriya) [organs]
Sushruta Samhita tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1911) · Śārīrasthāna 1, sections 4-5 and 7 · translation
Public domain. 'the next five being operative (Karma-Indriya)'; 'the faculty of speech, handling, pleasure, ejections or evacutation, locomotion successively belong to the (remaining) five operative (Karma-Indriya) ones'. Note 'pleasure' for upastha.
motor organs
Charak Samhita Online translation (CC BY-NC-SA) · Śā.1.25-26 heading 'Functions of karmendriya (motor organs)' · edition
In-copyright; recorded as rendering only.
motor organs / organs of action / action senses
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 SamhitaŚārīrasthāna 1:25-26 (standard; Kaviratna prints 32-33) · checked against the source
hastau pādau gudōpasthaṁ vāgindriyamathāpi ca| karmēndriyāṇi pañcaiva pādau gamanakarmaṇi||25|| pāyūpasthaṁ visargārthaṁ hastau grahaṇadhāraṇē| jihvā vāgindriyaṁ vāk ca satyā jyōtistamō'nr̥tā||26||
The five karmendriyas and their functions: feet for locomotion, anus and genitals for discharge (visarga), hands for grasping and holding, tongue as the speech-faculty, with the ethical rider that true speech is light and false speech darkness. Kaviratna (his 32-33): 'The arms and legs, the anus, the organ of generation, and the tongue, are the five organs of action. The legs are used for locomotion. The anus and the genital organ are for the discharge of secretions. The two arms are for seizing and holding. The tongue is the organ of speech. It should be noted that that speech which is truthful is represented as light; while that speech which is false is represented as darkness.' English at https://archive.org/stream/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt. Caraka names the tongue (jihvā) as the seat of vāgindriya; WHO's list gives 'vak' and omits jihvā.
Charaka SamhitaŚārīrasthāna 1:17 (standard; Kaviratna prints 24) · checked against the source
punaśca dhātubhēdēna caturviṁśatikaḥ smr̥taḥ| manō daśēndriyāṇyarthāḥ prakr̥tiścāṣṭadhātukī||17||
The karmendriyas are five of the daśendriya in the 24-fold puruṣa.
Sushruta SamhitaŚārīrasthāna 1:Bhishagratna's sections 4-5 and 7; Sanskrit verse number not established · checked against the source
They are the ears, skin, eyes, tongue, nose, speech, hands, genitals, anus, feet and the mind (Manah). Of these foregoing organs the first five are intellectual or sense organs (Vuddhi-Indriya); the next five being operative (Karma-Indriya). ... the faculty of speech, handling, pleasure, ejections or evacutation, locomotion successively belong to the (remaining) five operative (Karma-Indriya) ones.
Suśruta's list, in the order speech, hands, genitals, anus, feet, derived from ahaṃkāra. Bhishagratna renders the function of upastha as 'pleasure' where Caraka has visarga (discharge).
Not to be confused with
- jñānendriya / buddhīndriya
- The cognitive five. Both are indriyas; the division is by function (grasping objects vs acting).
- karma (action) in the prajñāparādha definition
- Ca.Sū.11.39 defines karma as vāk-manaḥ-śarīra-pravṛtti, a different threefold scheme; the karmendriyas are the five Sāṃkhya organs of action, and the two are not the same taxonomy.
- the anatomical limbs
- Hands and feet as karmendriya are faculties (indriya) inferred from action, on the same logic as Ca.Sū.8.14 and Śā.1.24; the limb is the adhiṣṭhāna.
- vāgindriya and jihvā/rasanā
- The tongue is the seat of both rasanendriya (taste, a jñānendriya) and vāgindriya (speech, a karmendriya), Ca.Śā.1.26. One organ, two indriyas, which is itself an argument that indriya is not the organ.
Renderings that do not hold
- motor organs. Imports the motor/sensory neurology distinction; pāyu and upastha (excretion, generation) are not 'motor' in that sense, and 'organ' again names the seat.
- pleasure (for upastha's function). Bhishagratna, Su.Śā.1. Caraka Śā.1.26 gives visarga (discharge) for both pāyu and upastha; 'pleasure' is the translator's substitution.
- action senses. Oxymoronic in English; a sense does not act.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Why WHO ITA-3.10.2 lists the speech faculty as 'vak' without naming jihvā, when Ca.Śā.1.26 explicitly makes the tongue the vāgindriya.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, karmendriya
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/karmendriya/, 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.