māṃsavaha srotas: what the term means and how it is translated
māṃsavaha srotas मांसवहस्रोतस् is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 6 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 | māṃsavaha srotas |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | मांसवहस्रोतस् |
| Also written | māṃsavahāni srotāṃsi, māṃsavāhīni srotāṃsi (Ca.Vi.5/15), māṃsavahasrotaḥ |
| Category, as gathered | srotas (body channel) — anatomy/physiology |
| Grouped here under | Body: tissues, wastes and channels |
| Classical citations | 3 |
| 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.
Conduit nourishing muscle
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.5.13 · standards-body comparator
WHO gives only 'Related entities are tendons and skin' as description, the shortest description in the whole 2.5 block, and notably 'nourishing' rather than 'carrying'.
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.
Vitiation of channels carrying muscle
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-5.5.7 māmsavahasrotoduṣṭiḥ · standards-body comparator (disorder term)
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.
channels carrying muscle tissue
NAMASTE Portal, Standardised Ayurveda Terminologies · SAT-B.481 · national terminology comparator
Definition: 'originates from the snāyu and tvacā'.
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.
derangement of maMsavahasrOtas
NAMASTE National Ayurveda Morbidity Codes · NAMC EE-1, referenced to Ca.Vi.5/8; Su.Sa.9/13 · morbidity-code comparator
NAMASTE cites Su.Sa.9/13 here where it cites 9/12 for the other channels, an inconsistency in the national list.
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.
The two muscle-carrying Srotas (ducts or channels)
Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna, Sushruta Samhita (1911) · Śārīrasthāna IX.11–12 · public-domain translation
mamsa dhatu or muscle
carakasamhitaonline.com (CSRTSL), 2020 · Sroto Vimana 5/6-7 commentary · modern translation (in copyright; rendering recorded as comparator only)
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.
Caraka SaṃhitāVimāna Sthāna 5:5/8 · checked against the source
मांसवहानां च स्रोतसां स्नायुर्मूलं त्वक् च|
Root = snāyu and tvak. Both WHO ('tendons and skin') and NAMASTE ('snāyu and tvacā') follow Caraka here, not Suśruta.
Caraka SaṃhitāVimāna Sthāna 5:5/15 · checked against the source
अभिष्यन्दीनि भोज्यानि स्थूलानि च गुरूणि च| मांसवाहीनि दुष्यन्ति भुक्त्वा च स्वपतां दिवा||१५||
Causes of vitiation: abhiṣyandi, bulky and heavy foods, and sleeping by day after eating.
Suśruta SaṃhitāŚārīra Sthāna 9:11–12 (Bhishagratna); NAMASTE cites 9/13 · checked against the source
The two muscle-carrying Srotas (ducts or channels) have their roots in the ( Snayu ), nerves Tvak (serum), and the blood-carrying Dhamanis (capillaries). An injury to any of these channels is characterised by swelling, loss or atrophy of the muscles, appearance of varicose veins or may (ultimately) result in death.
Suśruta's roots = snāyu, tvak, plus the blood-carrying dhamanīs. Quoted exactly as printed, including Bhishagratna's garbled glossing; I confirmed the identical wording in the independent archive.org scan of the 1911 edition (https://archive.org/stream/b24758619_0002/b24758619_0002_djvu.txt), so this is the edition's text, not a transcription error by wisdomlib.
Not to be confused with
- snāyu
- snāyu is the root, and is itself contested: Bhishagratna glosses it 'nerves', WHO and NAMASTE read 'tendons'. It is not the channel.
- medovaha srotas
- māṃsa and medas are consecutive dhātus and their srotas are adjacent in every list; the roots are wholly different (snāyu/tvak vs vṛkka/vapāvahana).
- māṃsa dhātu and māṃsa-dharā kalā
- The tissue and its membrane are separate concepts from the conduit.
Renderings that do not hold
- snāyu = nerves. Bhishagratna's 1911 gloss, printed in the retrieved text as 'the ( Snayu ), nerves'. Both WHO (ITA-2.5.13 'tendons and skin') and NAMASTE read snāyu as tendon/ligament. The 'nerves' reading is a 19th-century artefact.
- tvak = serum. The retrieved 1911 text reads 'Tvak (serum)'. tvak is skin. This is an outright error in the public-domain translation and must not be propagated; it is quotable as evidence about Bhishagratna, not usable as a meaning.
- the muscular system. The roots named are tendon and skin, not muscle; the channel is defined by what it nourishes, not by where it lies.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Does snāyu here mean tendon/ligament (WHO, NAMASTE) or nerve (Bhishagratna, Ḍalhaṇa-influenced readings)?
- Is NAMASTE's 'Su.Sa.9/13' a typo or a real edition variant?
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, māṃsavaha srotas
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/mamsavaha-srotas/, 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.