kledaka-kapha: what the term means and how it is translated

kledaka-kapha क्लेदककफ 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.

Identification
Transliteration	kledaka-kapha
Devanagari	क्लेदककफ
Also written	kledaka-śleṣmā, Kledakam, Kledaka Kapha, Kledak Kapha
Category, as gathered	kapha-subtype
Grouped here under	Dosha and its subtypes
Classical citations	4
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.

Moistening kapha

WHO international standard terminologies on Ayurveda (2022), term ID ITA-2.1.3.3 · ITA-2.1.3.3; printed p. 36 (PDF p. 54). Sanskrit term 'kledaka-kaphaḥ'. Description: 'Subtype of kapha seated in the stomach which helps to moisten and loosen food particles and thus aid digestion.' · standards-body

WHO's description is VĀGBHAṬA's (anna-saṅghāta-kledana in the āmāśaya), not Suśruta's. In Suśruta the āmāśaya-kapha's stated function is to support the other kapha seats by udaka-karma; the 'moistening the food bolus' framing is AH Sū 12.16. WHO does not flag that it is choosing between authorities.

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.

Kledakam

Suśruta Saṃhitā tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (public domain) · Sūtrasthāna ch. 21, Wikisource text: 'The Kledakam:—The Kapham, even though principally located in the stomach, permeates its four other distant localities with its peculiar watery or humid essence in virtue of its inherent attributes.' · public-domain-translation

CRITICAL: the NAME 'Kledakam' here is Bhishagratna's supplied section heading. The Sanskrit mūla at Su.Sū. 21.14 does not contain the word kledaka. Bhishagratna is importing the commentarial name onto an unnamed passage, helpfully, but a reader who quotes this as 'Suśruta calls it kledaka' is over-reading the translation.

Kledaka

Suśruta Saṃhitā tr. Bhishagratna, footnote at Sūtrasthāna ch. 15 · 'They are known as Shleshmaka, Kledaka, Vodhaka, Tarpaka, Avalamvaka.' · public-domain-translation

Bhishagratna's footnote naming the five kaphas, again supplied because the mūla at Su.Sū. 15.4 says only 'śleṣmā pañcadhā pravibhaktaḥ' without names.

food lubrication

J Ayurveda Integr Med (2026), IBS/Grahani Roga case report · PMID 42492167; 'Kledaka Kapha (food lubrication)' · peer-reviewed-journal

Wrong gloss. Kledana is moistening/liquefying; lubrication (snehana/saṃśleṣa) is śleṣaka kapha's domain. A published example of the confusion this record's distinguishFrom section documents.

J Ayurveda Integr Med (2025), atherosclerotic CVD review · PMID 40972327; cites 'Ashtanga Hridaya Sutra Sthana 12/16' · peer-reviewed-journal

The source's rendering runs to a full definition and is not reproduced here, because this project has not cleared that source for quotation.

Correctly cites AH rather than Suśruta for this function, and correctly keeps the Sanskrit. The '~mucous secretions' equation is the paper's own modern correlate.

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.

Suśruta SaṃhitāSūtrasthāna 21 (Vraṇapraśna Adhyāya) · checked against the source

The Kledakam:—The Kapham, even though principally located in the stomach, permeates its four other distant localities with its peculiar watery or humid essence in virtue of its inherent attributes.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna · source

The āmāśaya kapha supports/permeates the other four kapha seats. Note what is ABSENT: no mention of moistening the food bolus. The heading 'Kledakam' is the translator's supplied name.

Suśruta Saṃhitā (Sanskrit mūla)Sūtrasthāna 21:14 · checked against the source

स तत्रस्थ एव स्वशक्त्या शेषाणां श्लेष्मस्थानानां शरीरस्य चोदककर्मणाऽनुग्रहं करोति;

Sanskrit mūla · source

MAJOR FINDING: the word 'kledaka' does NOT occur here. The mūla identifies this kapha only by location (implicitly āmāśaya, from 21.12-13) and by function, 'anugrahaṃ karoti' to the remaining kapha seats by udaka-karma. The name kledaka is supplied by commentary and by Vāgbhaṭa. Verified by reading the full ||१४|| sentence on the retrieved page, which names none of the five kaphas.

Suśruta Saṃhitā (Sanskrit mūla)Sūtrasthāna 15:4 · checked against the source

सन्धिसंश्लेषणस्नेहनरोपणपूरणबलस्थैर्यकृच्छ्लेष्मा पञ्चधा प्रविभक्त उदककर्मणाऽनुग्रहं करोति ||४||

Sanskrit mūla · source

Kapha is fivefold and its listed functions are sandhi-saṃśleṣaṇa, snehana, ropaṇa, pūraṇa, bala and sthairya. Note that KLEDANA is not among them. The fivefold division is asserted without names.

Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya (Sanskrit mūla; no public-domain English translation exists, so no translation is quoted)Sūtrasthāna 12 (Doṣabhedīya):16

Quotation withheld: nobody has yet read this quotation against its printed source, and an unchecked quotation is not published here. The passage is at this address.

Vāgbhaṭa is where the NAME and the moistening function both come from: seated in āmāśaya, called kledaka FROM anna-saṅghāta-kledana (moistening the compacted food mass). Vāgbhaṭa moves the 'supports the other kapha seats' role to AVALAMBAKA (12.15-16a). Corroborated: PMID 40972327 cites 'Ashtanga Hridaya Sutra Sthana 12/16'.

Not to be confused with

avalambaka-kapha: THE central confusion for this term, and it is a genuine textual conflict, not a reader's error. Suśruta gives the āmāśaya kapha the job of supporting the remaining kapha seats (Su.Sū. 21.14); Vāgbhaṭa gives that same job to avalambaka in the chest (AH Sū 12.15-16a) and gives the āmāśaya kapha the moistening job instead. So 'the kapha that supports the other kaphas' means kledaka in Suśruta and avalambaka in Vāgbhaṭa.
śleṣaka-kapha: Kledana (moistening, liquefying) is not snehana/saṃśleṣa (unctuousness, binding, lubrication). PMID 42492167 glosses kledaka as 'food lubrication', which is śleṣaka's function applied to the wrong subtype.
pācaka-pitta: Co-located in the āmāśaya and both act on ingested food, with opposite qualities. Kledaka prepares (moistens, loosens the bolus); pācaka transforms (cooks, splits sāra from kiṭṭa). Grahaṇī/agnimāndya discussions invoke both.
āma: Āma is undigested/improperly processed residue, a pathological product. Kledaka is a physiological doṣa subtype. Excess kledaka is implicated in āma formation, but the two are not the same thing and English texts sometimes slide from one to the other.
kleda (the mala): Kleda is the watery waste/moisture as a substance; kledaka is the agent that produces the moistening. Same root, different grammatical role.

Renderings that do not hold

"gastric mucus" / "mucin" / "the mucous lining of the stomach". A proposed correlate, not a meaning. Gastric mucus is protective; kledaka's classical role is preparative (loosening the bolus) and, in Suśruta, supportive of the other kapha seats. No paper has operationalised or measured the equation.
"lubricating kapha" / "food lubrication". Published in PMID 42492167 and wrong. 'Lubricating kapha' is WHO ISTA's English term for ŚLEṢAKA (ITA-2.1.3.6). Using it for kledaka collides head-on with the standards terminology.
Citing Suśruta for 'kledaka moistens the food bolus'. Su.Sū. 21.14 does not say this, and does not use the word kledaka at all. The moistening function and the name are both Vāgbhaṭa's (AH Sū 12.16).

Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.

Does Dalhaṇa name the five kaphas in his gloss on Su.Sū. 21.14, and is he the proximate source of Bhishagratna's supplied section headings? This would settle how the names attached to Suśruta's unnamed passage.
Do any classical or commentarial sources attempt to reconcile the Suśruta/Vāgbhaṭa swap of the 'supports the other kaphas' function between kledaka and avalambaka?
Whether NAMASTE or ICD-11 TM2 carries any kledaka-kapha entry.

How to cite this entry

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, kledaka-kapha, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/kledaka-kapha/, 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.