kaṭu: what the term means and how it is translated
kaṭu कटु is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 4 different ways across 5 sources, 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 | kaṭu |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | कटु |
| Also written | kaṭuka, katu, katuka, ūṣaṇa (Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya's synonym in Su. 1.14) |
| Category, as gathered | rasa (taste); one of the six rasas |
| Grouped here under | Pharmacology and the action of substances |
| 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.
Pungent
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022), entry DG0115 kaṭu · DG0115: '1. Pungent; One among six rasa. 2. Synonym of Katuki(Picrorrhiza kurroa) and Rajika(Brassica juncea).' Also AF0995 kaṭu rasatā: 'Pungent taste or Taste of Chillies' · comparator standard
Comparator; WHO treats kaṭu primarily as the rasa and secondarily as a plant-name synonym. Text taken from the NIA-hosted copy of the WHO PDF (nia.nic.in/pdf/TERMINOLOGIES.pdf).
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.
Pungent
Kaviratna, Charaka Samhita (1890-1908), Sutrasthana Lesson XXVI · archive.org BIUSante_47357, printed pp. 296-297 and 312 · public-domain translation
Consistent 'pungent' throughout; he lists the six as 'sweet, sour, saltish, pungent, bitter, and astringent'.
Pungent (Katuka)
Bhishagratna, Sushruta Samhita (1907), Sutrasthana ch. XLII · wisdomlib doc141672 · public-domain translation
Also 'pungent' in the dosha-property passages: 'Heat, pungency, dryness, lightness, and non-sliminess form the specific properties of the Pitta.'
pungent, acrid, sharp (one of the six kinds of flavour, rasa)
Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), p. 244 · Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon, key kaṭu · dictionary
Lexical range includes 'bitter, caustic (as words)', which is the root of the katu/tikta confusion in English.
Pungent / spicy / hot (chilli-like)
Common textbook and popular usage · textbook · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
'Hot' conflates kaṭu rasa with uṣṇa vīrya; 'spicy' is a culinary gloss, not a doctrinal one.
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 26:9 (standard Trikamji numbering, read on carakasamhitaonline.com) · checked against the source
षडेव रसा इत्युवाच भगवानात्रेयः पुनर्वसुः, मधुराम्ललवणकटुतिक्तकषायाः|
Atreya's settled position that there are exactly six rasas, kaṭu fourth in the list.
Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana 26:43 sub-paragraph (4) in standard numbering; Kaviratna prints his own number after the passage, OCR reads '68' which is doubtful (sequence suggests 63); not established · checked against the source
कटुको रसो वक्त्रं शोधयति, अग्निं दीपयति, भुक्तं शोषयति, घ्राणमास्रावयति, चक्षुर्विरेचयति, स्फुटीकरोतीन्द्रियाणि, ... लघुरुष्णो रूक्षश्च|
Actions of kaṭu rasa and its guṇas: laghu, uṣṇa, rūkṣa. Kaviratna's rendering of the same passage: 'The Pungent Taste corrects (the dulness of) the mouth ; provokes the digestive fire ; dries up the food that has been eaten ; causes nasal discharges ; purges the eye ; clears all the senses ; ... It is light, warm, and dry.'
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 42 (Rasa-Vishesha-Vijnaniya):Bhishagratna prints no verse numbers; Sanskrit verse number not established · checked against the source
A taste, which produces a burning sensation at the tip of the tongue attended with a tingling of the part and headache, and is instantaneously followed by a running at the nose (fluent coryza) is called pungent (Katuka).
Sushruta's recognition criterion for kaṭu. Same chapter: 'A pungent taste is largely possessed of attributes, which mark the elementary principles of air and fire.' and 'A pungent taste is endued with appetising, resolving (Pacana) and purifying properties in respect of ulcers etc.), and destroys obesity, languor, deranged Kapha and intestinal parasites.'
Not to be confused with
- tikta (bitter)
- English 'acrid/bitter' glosses of kaṭu (and the Monier-Williams 'bitter, caustic as words') blur the two; Charaka and Sushruta list them as separate rasas with different bhautika composition (kaṭu: vāyu + agni; tikta: vāyu + ākāśa per Bhishagratna's Su. 42).
- uṣṇa (hot vīrya)
- Kaṭu rasa is said to be uṣṇa in guṇa (Ca.Su. 26.43), but kaṭu is a taste and uṣṇa a potency; Charaka's own counter-examples in 26 show rasa and vīrya can diverge.
- kaṭu vipāka
- The post-digestive transformation also called kaṭu (Kaviratna: 'Of the Pungent, the Bitter, and the Astringent, the change, upon assimilation, is generally Pungent'); same word, different level of analysis.
- kaṭukī / kaṭu as plant name
- WHO DG0115 sense 2 and Monier-Williams record kaṭu as a synonym of Picrorhiza and Brassica juncea; in materia medica contexts the word may be a drug name.
Renderings that do not hold
- bitter. Lexical overlap in English; kaṭu is pungent/acrid, tikta is bitter; the two have opposite effects on agni and on fat.
- hot / spicy. Imports uṣṇa vīrya (potency) or a culinary category into a rasa; Charaka separates rasa from vīrya explicitly.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, kaṭu
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/katu/, 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.