kiṭṭa: what the term means and how it is translated
kiṭṭa किट्ट is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 5 different ways across 6 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 | kiṭṭa |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | किट्ट |
| Also written | kiṭṭam, kitta, kittam, āhāra-kiṭṭa, anna-mala (Kaviratna's gloss), sāra-kiṭṭa / prasāda-kiṭṭa (paired usage) |
| Category, as gathered | mala |
| 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.
Waste product
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.4.2 kiṭṭam; description: 'The by-products of either digestion or metabolism which are to be eliminated from the body.' · standard
WHO distinguishes kiṭṭam ('Waste product', ITA-2.4.2) from malaḥ ('Excretory products', ITA-2.4.1) only by headword; the two descriptions overlap almost completely. The 'either digestion or metabolism' wording matches Charaka's use of kiṭṭa at both the food level (Su 28/4) and the dhātu level (Chi 15/18-19).
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.
waste product
NAMASTE Portal, Standardised Ayurveda Terminologies (ayu_sat_table_combined.xlsx) · SAT-B.458 kiṭṭam; definition: 'by-products of metabolism which are to be eliminated from the body' · standard
NAMASTE drops WHO's 'digestion' and keeps only 'metabolism', which is narrower than Charaka Su 28/4, where kiṭṭa is first of all the waste fraction of digested food.
Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the Government of India NAMASTE terminology, 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.
Refuse; dregs or dross
Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Sutrasthana Lesson XXVIII, p. 392 of the scan (archive.org BIUSante_47357) · translation
Kaviratna's running rendering is 'Refuse' (capitalised, paired with 'Substance' for prasāda); at first mention he glosses 'a Refuse called dregs or dross'. In Chikitsa Lesson XV he keeps the Sanskrit and glosses it 'Kitta (refuse)'.
Kitta (refuse)
Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Chikitsasthana Lesson XV, his aphorisms 14, 17-19 · translation
Here he retains the Sanskrit as a technical term, which he does not do in Sutrasthana 28.
kitta or dross
Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Vimanasthana, list of items to be examined (OCR line 57676: 'whether the result is abundance of kitta or dross') · translation
Incidental use; shows 'dross' is his settled equivalent.
the waste form / waste part (of food)
Charak Samhita Online (ITRA Jamnagar), Vividhashitapitiya Adhyaya, translation of Su 28/4 · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Vividhashitapitiya_Adhyaya, verse 4 · edition
CC BY-NC-SA; cited as a comparator rendering only, not reproducible.
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 28:4 (standard/Trikamji numbering as printed on carakasamhitaonline, the whole prose unit is ||4||) · checked against the source
तत्राहारप्रसादाख्यो रसः किट्टं च मलाख्यमभिनिर्वर्तते| किट्टात् स्वेदमूत्रपुरीषवातपित्तश्लेष्माणः कर्णाक्षिनासिकास्यलोमकूपप्रजननमलाः केशश्मश्रुलोमनखादयश्चावयवाःपुष्यन्ति| / tatrāhāraprasādākhyō Rasaḥ kiṭṭaṁ ca malākhyamabhinirvartatē| kiṭṭāt svēdamūtrapurīṣavātaPittaślēṣmāṇaḥ karṇākṣināsikāsyalōmakūpaprajananamalāḥ kēśaśmaśrulōmanakhādayaścāvayavāḥ puṣyanti|
The defining passage. Food yields two products: rasa 'called āhāra-prasāda' and kiṭṭa 'called mala'. From kiṭṭa are nourished sweat, urine, faeces, AND vāta, pitta, śleṣman, plus the secretions of ear, eye, nose, mouth, hair follicles and genitals, and hair, beard, body hair, nails. Kiṭṭa is thus the source-fraction; mala is its name/class; the doṣas themselves are listed among what kiṭṭa nourishes.
Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana 28:4 (standard); Kaviratna's printed aphorism numbers here are unreadable in OCR (the passage is bracketed by a '4', a '3' and another '4'), so his number is NOT established · checked against the source
From that, (viz., the food thus taken), arises a juice which is called Aharaprasdda or food-substance, as also a Refuse called dregs or dross. From the Refuse arise urine, sweat, faeces* wind, bile, and phlegm ; as also those excrements which have for their sources the ears and eyes and nose and mouth, the hair-cells of the body and the genital organs, and such limbs of the body as hair, beard, bristles, nails, &c.
The lawfully quotable English of Su 28/4. 'Aharaprasdda' is an OCR artefact for Aharaprasada. Kaviratna renders kiṭṭa as 'Refuse ... dregs or dross' and the derived malas as 'excrements'. Note that he, like the Sanskrit, lists 'wind, bile, and phlegm' among the products of the Refuse.
Charaka SamhitaChikitsasthana 15:18-19 (standard, as printed on carakasamhitaonline); Kaviratna prints 17 and 18 for the same two units, i.e. one behind here · checked against the source
किट्टमन्नस्य विण्मूत्रं, रसस्य तु कफोऽसृजः| पित्तं, मांसस्य खमला, मलः स्वेदस्तु मेदसः||१८|| स्यात्किट्टं केशलोमास्थ्नो, मज्ज्ञः स्नेहोऽक्षिविट्त्वचाम्| प्रसादकिट्टे धातूनां पाकादेवंविधर्च्छतः ||१९|| / kiṭṭamannasya viṇmūtraṁ, rasasya tu kaphō'sr̥jaḥ| Pittaṁ, māṁsasya khamalā, malaḥ svēdastu mēdasaḥ||18|| syātkiṭṭaṁ kēśalōmāsthnō, majjñaḥ snēhō'kṣiviṭtvacām| prasādakiṭṭē dhātūnāṁ pākādēvaṁvidharcchataḥ ||19||
Kiṭṭa is used at the dhātu level too: faeces and urine are the kiṭṭa of food; kapha of rasa; pitta of rakta; the orifice-wastes (khamala) of māṁsa; sweat of medas; hair of asthi; the unctuousness of eyes, faeces and skin of majjā. Verse 18 uses kiṭṭa and mala interchangeably within one line.
Charaka SamhitaChikitsasthana 15:Kaviratna's printed 17 and 18 (= standard 18-19) · checked against the source
That which Is called the ‘Kitta’ (refuse) of the food taken, consists of stools and urine ; the ‘Kitta’ of ‘Rasa is phlegm ; that of blood is bile ; that of flesh are the filths of the body, including the secretions (from the nose, the ears, &c.) ; while sweet forms the ‘Kitta’ of adeps, [17] The ‘Kitta’ of bones is hair (of the head and the body) ; that of marrow is the oily-substance in the body ; that of the skin is the secretions flowing from the eyes. From digestion (of the food eaten) thus arise, it is said, both ‘Prasfida’ and ‘Kitta’ of the ‘Dhatus.’ [18]
Public-domain English of the dhātu-mala list. 'sweet' is a misprint/OCR error for 'sweat'; 'Prasfida' for Prasada. His 'that of the skin is the secretions flowing from the eyes' does not match the Sanskrit 'majjñaḥ snēhō'kṣiviṭtvacām' (the unctuousness of eyes, faeces and skin comes from majjā); flag before relying on his construal of verse 19.
Ashtanga HridayaSharirasthana 3:61, 63-64 (GRETIL numbering, Das and Emmerick e-text) · checked against the source
kiṭṭaṃ sāraś ca tat pakvam annaṃ saṃbhavati dvi-dhā | tatrācchaṃ kiṭṭam annasya mūtraṃ vidyād ghanam śakṛt || 61 || ... kaphaḥ pittaṃ malāḥ kheṣu prasvedo nakha-roma ca || 63 || sneho 'kṣi-tvag-viṣām ojo dhātūnāṃ krama-śo malāḥ | prasāda-kiṭṭau dhātūnāṃ pākād evaṃ dvi-dharcchataḥ || 64 ||
Vāgbhaṭa pairs kiṭṭa with sāra (not prasāda) for the two products of digested food, and specifies that the liquid (accha) kiṭṭa of food is urine and the solid (ghana) kiṭṭa is faeces, a distinction Charaka 28/4 does not make. Verse 64 then reverts to prasāda-kiṭṭau.
Not to be confused with
- mala
- Charaka Su 28/4 makes kiṭṭa the waste FRACTION of digested food and mala the CLASS NAME ('kiṭṭaṁ ca malākhyam'); the malas (sweat, urine, faeces...) are nourished FROM kiṭṭa. WHO (ITA-2.4.1 vs 2.4.2) and NAMASTE (SAT-B.457 vs 458) keep two headwords but near-identical definitions, and Charaka Chi 15/18 itself uses the two words interchangeably, so the distinction is real but soft.
- sāra / prasāda
- The complementary nutritive fraction. Charaka Su 28/4 says prasāda; Charaka Chi 15/15 says kiṭṭa-prasāda; Ashtanga Hridaya Sha 3/61 says sāra. Same pair, three labels.
- āma
- Āma is incompletely digested food that has not undergone pāka; kiṭṭa is a normal product of completed pāka. WHO separately codes sāmamalaḥ (ITA-5.4.8) for waste associated with incomplete digestion, which is the pathological overlap of the two.
- dhātumala
- WHO ITA-2.4.6 'Metabolic waste'. In Charaka Chi 15/18-19 the dhātu-level wastes are also called kiṭṭa, so kiṭṭa is the broader word and dhātumala a subclass.
Renderings that do not hold
- toxin(s). Popular rendering; no classical source calls kiṭṭa toxic. Charaka Su 28/4 says kiṭṭa nourishes (puṣyanti) the malas and, by Kaviratna's footnote, restores them to measure. 'Toxin' imports a modern biochemical claim and contradicts the nutritive verb.
- excrement / excreta (for kiṭṭa itself). Kaviratna reserves 'excrements' for the malas that arise FROM the Refuse; kiṭṭa is the pre-excretory fraction. Using 'excreta' for kiṭṭa collapses the source and its products.
- metabolic by-product only (NAMASTE SAT-B.458). Drops the primary sense: in Su 28/4 kiṭṭa is first the waste of FOOD digestion (āhāra), and only secondarily dhātu-level waste. WHO's 'either digestion or metabolism' is the more faithful comparator.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Kaviratna's printed aphorism number for Su 28/4 could not be read from OCR (the passage shows '4', then '3', then '4'); a human should check the page image (archive.org BIUSante_47357, scan p. 392-393).
- Whether Chakrapāṇi treats 'kiṭṭaṁ ca malākhyam' as making kiṭṭa and mala synonyms or as naming a class was not checked; Kaviratna's footnote reads it the latter way.
- Dalhana / Arunadatta on accha-kiṭṭa vs ghana-kiṭṭa (AH Sha 3/61) not checked.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, kiṭṭa
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/kitta/, 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.