# mala-parīkṣā (मलपरीक्षा)

> Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/mala-pariksha/

An Ayurvedic technical term, rendered into English in 4 different ways across 5 sources.
The renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken
to mean.

## Identification

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Transliteration | mala-parīkṣā |
| Devanagari | मलपरीक्षा |
| Also written | purīṣa-parīkṣā, mala pariksha, purisha pariksha, jala-nimajjana-parīkṣā (water-immersion stool test, a sub-method) |
| Category, as gathered | pariksha (stool examination; third member of the Yogaratnakara's eightfold examination) |
| Grouped under | Examination and treatment |
| Classical citations | 2 |
| 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.

### excreta (domain 3 of aṣṭasthānaparīkṣā, ITA-4.7.4)

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.7.4, p.115 (PDF page 133) · comparator

WHO says 'excreta', not 'stool'; mala in WHO's broader usage covers all waste products.

Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda, which is what that
licence permits, and deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is CC BY 4.0.

### 'The waste products of the body formed during various stages of digestion and metabolism. Mala is one of the fundamental constituent of the human body along with Doṣa and Dhātu. They are of two classes: Āhāramala and Dhātumala. Āhāramala are: Mūtra (Urine) and Purīṣa (faces).' (mala, SK0121)

NIA Jaipur / WHO-APW 'Standardization of Non-Clinical Terminologies of Ayurveda' draft (2011) · entry SK0121 · comparator (draft terminology, NOT the 2022 WHO book)

Shows that 'mala' alone is ambiguous (all wastes); in the eightfold scheme it means stool because mūtra is listed separately.

Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda, which is what that
licence permits, and deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is CC BY 4.0.

### Mala (faecal matter); Mala (Stool)

Shekhawat, JVWU BAMS e-notes · textbook/teaching

### (the source's rendering is a full definition and is not reproduced here)

IJARSCT review on Ashtavidha Pariksha · journal review (non-indexed)

The source's rendering is not reproduced here, because this project has not cleared that source for quotation.

### Purisha Pariksha / 'Stool examination ... included in Ashtasthana Pariksha'

Uikey & Kar, Ayu 2015 (PMID 27011711) · peer-reviewed review

## The classical passages

### Yogaratnakara Pūrvārdha, section 'atha rogiṇām aṣṭasthāna-nirīkṣaṇam' Nirnaya Sagar Press edition, text pp. 2-3:verse 1 of the section, checked against the source

> रोगाकान्तञ्मरीरस्य स्थानान्यष्टौ निरीक्षयेत्‌ । नाडीं मूं मलं जिह शब्दं स्पश दगाङरृती ॥

tr. none (Sanskrit OCR) · https://archive.org/download/yogaratnakarakrishnasharmanavrenirnayasagarpress_366_b/Yoga%20Ratnakara%20Krishna%20Sharma%20Navre%20Nirnaya%20Sagar%20Press_djvu.txt

mala is the third of the eight sites, listed after mūtra (so here mala = stool, not wastes generally).

### Yogaratnakara Pūrvārdha, section headed 'atha mala-parīkṣā' (OCR 'मरपरीक्षा') Nirnaya Sagar Press edition, text pp. 5-6 per OCR headers ('६ योगरलाकरे ।' running header):mala-pariksha verses 1-10, plus one unnumbered half-line after verse 7; Nirnaya Sagar ed. printed pp. 5-6 = archive.org leaves n33 (last 3 lines) and n34 (top block), confirmed against Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 1889 printed p. 6 = leaf n44, checked against the source

> अथ मलपरीक्षा । रुद्रतन्त्रात्—वातान्मले तु दृढता शुष्कता चापि जायते । पीतता जायते पित्ताच्छुक्लता श्लेष्मतो भवेत् ॥ १ ॥ संनिपाते च सर्वाणि लक्षणानि भवन्ति हि । त्रुटितं फेनिलं रूक्षं धूमलं वातकोपतः । वातश्लेष्मविकारे च जायते कपिशं मलम् ॥ २ ॥ बद्धं सुत्रुटितं पीतश्यामं पित्तानिलाद्भवेत् । पीतश्यामं श्लेष्मपित्तादीषत्सान्द्रं च पिच्छिलम् ॥ ३ ॥ श्यामं त्रुटितपीताभं बद्धश्वेतं त्रिदोषतः । दुर्गन्धः शीतलश्चैव विष्ठोत्सर्गो यदा भवेत् ॥ ४ ॥ तदा जीर्णं मलं वैद्यैर्दोषज्ञैः परिभण्यते । कपिलं गुटियुक्तं च यदि वर्चोऽवलोक्यते ॥ ५ ॥ प्रक्षीणमलदोषेण दूषितः परिकथ्यते । सितं महत्पूतिगन्धं मलं ज्ञेयं जलोदरे ॥ ६ ॥ श्यामं क्षये त्वामवति पीतं सकटिवेदनम् । अतिकृष्णं चातिशुभ्रमतिपीतं तथाऽरुणम् ॥ ७ ॥ मरणाय मलं किंतु भृशोष्णं मृत्यवे ध्रुवम् ॥ अन्यच्च—वातस्य च मलं कृष्णं ततः पित्तस्य पीतविट् । रक्तवर्णं मलं किंचिन्मलं श्वेतं कफोद्भवम् ॥ ८ ॥ आमं वा श्लेष्मजं प्राहुर्मिश्रितं द्वंद्वजं वदेत् । अपक्वं स्यादजीर्णे तु पक्वं स्वच्छमलं भवेत् ॥ ९ ॥ अत्यग्नौ पिंडितं शुष्कं मन्दाग्नौ तु द्रवीकृतम् । दुर्गन्धं चन्द्रिकायुक्तमसाध्यं मललक्षणम् ॥ १० ॥ इति मलपरीक्षा ।

tr. none (Sanskrit OCR, badly garbled: मर = मल, वातान्मरे = वातान्मले, दढता = दृढता, शुप्कता = शुष्कता, पिन्ताच्छुद्ता = पित्ताच्छुक्लता, '4' and '५०' are OCR for १ and १०) · https://archive.org/download/yogaratnakarakrishnasharmanavrenirnayasagarpress_366_b/page/n34.jpg

Stool signs by dosha, read from the Nirnaya Sagar page images rather than OCR: hard and dry in vata, yellow in pitta, white in kapha (v.1); all signs together in sannipata, and broken-up, frothy, rough and smoke-coloured (trutitam phenilam ruksam dhumalam) in vata-kopa, ash-grey (kapisa) in a combined vata-kapha disorder (v.2); bound, finely broken, yellow-dark from pitta with anila, slightly thick and slimy from kapha with pitta (v.3); dark, broken and yellowish, bound and white in tridosa, and when the stool passed is foul-smelling and cold (v.4) the physicians who know the dosas call it jirna, digested (v.5); tawny and lumpy stool indicates depleted mala-dosa (v.5-6); white, large and putrid-smelling in jalodara (v.6); dark in ksaya, raw-and-undigested, yellow with pain in the flank (v.7); extremely black, extremely white, extremely yellow or ruddy stool portends death, and stool that is intensely hot certainly so (v.7 and the unnumbered half-line); then a second series introduced by anyac ca: black for vata, yellow for pitta, somewhat red, white from kapha (v.8), raw in indigestion and well-formed when digested (v.9); and finally the asadhya signs, lumpy and dry in excessive agni, liquefied in weak agni, and foul-smelling with a sheen (candrika-yukta), which is the mark of the incurable (v.10). The section is attributed by the Yogaratnakara to the Rudra-tantra (rudratantrat), not to Harita.

## Not to be confused with

- **mala (waste products generally).** In Ayurvedic physiology mala includes urine, sweat and dhātu-malas (NIA draft SK0121). In the eightfold scheme mala means stool only because mūtra is a separate site.
- **mūtra-parīkṣā / taila-bindu-parīkṣā.** Urine examination is the second site and has its own elaborate oil-drop prognostic test; the two are often lumped as 'mala-mūtra parīkṣā'.
- **purīṣa.** The specific word for faeces (WHO uses purīṣa compounds for stool signs, e.g. 'makṣikākrāntaṁ purīṣaṁ'); modern reviews use purīṣa-parīkṣā and mala-parīkṣā interchangeably.
- **koṣṭha-parīkṣā.** Assessment of bowel habit (mṛdu/madhya/krūra koṣṭha) for purgation dosing is a different examination.

## Renderings that do not hold

- excretion examination. Over-broad; the Yogaratnakara section is specifically about faeces.
- 'Mala pariksha = laboratory stool test'. The classical examination is by naked-eye colour, consistency, smell and a water-immersion test, not microscopy or chemistry (PMID 27011711 makes the same point).

## Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved.

- The attribution marker at the start of the Yogaratnakara mala-parīkṣā (OCR 'र्दतच्रात्', possibly 'हारीतात्', citing Hārīta) needs confirming from the page image.
- Verse numbering of the section across editions.

## Citation

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, "mala-parīkṣā", https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/mala-pariksha/, CC BY 4.0.
Whole lexicon: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon.json and https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon.csv.

Educational reference only. A term entry explains what a word means and how it has been
translated. Nothing here is advice.