medovaha srotas: what the term means and how it is translated
medovaha srotas मेदोवहस्रोतस् is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 7 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 | medovaha srotas |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | मेदोवहस्रोतस् |
| Also written | medovahāni srotāṃsi, medovāhīni srotāṃsi (Ca.Vi.5/16), medovahasrotaḥ |
| 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.
Channel carrying fat
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.5.14 · standards-body comparator
WHO description: 'The pathway for fat. Entities related to this channel are the kidneys and omentum.', WHO follows Caraka (vṛkka + vapāvahana), not Suśruta (kaṭi + vṛkka).
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 medas
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-5.5.8 medovahasrotoduṣṭiḥ · standards-body comparator (disorder term)
WHO leaves 'medas' untranslated in the disorder term while translating it as 'fat' in the anatomy term, another internal inconsistency in the standard.
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 fat tissue
NAMASTE Portal, Standardised Ayurveda Terminologies · SAT-B.482 · national terminology comparator
Definition: 'originates from vṛkka and vapāvahana and is associated with diseases such as sṭhaulya'.
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 medovahasrotas
NAMASTE National Ayurveda Morbidity Codes · NAMC EF-1, referenced to Ca.Vi.5/8; Su.Sa.9/12 · morbidity-code comparator
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 fat-carrying Srotas (ducts)
Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna, Sushruta Samhita (1911) · Śārīrasthāna IX.11–12 · public-domain translation
Printed in the retrieved scan as 'The fat-Cirrying Srotas' (OCR damage); the sense is unambiguous.
meda dhatu or adipose
carakasamhitaonline.com (CSRTSL), 2020 · Sroto Vimana 5/6-7 commentary · modern translation (in copyright; rendering recorded as comparator only)
omentum
NAMASTE Portal, Standardised Ayurveda Terminologies · SAT-B.234 vapāvahanam · national terminology comparator (for the root, not the channel)
NAMASTE defines vapāvahanam as 'large apron-like fold of visceral peritoneum that hangs down from the stomach and covers the abdominal viscera'.
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 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
मेदोवहानां स्रोतसां वृक्कौ मूलं वपावहनं च|
Caraka's root = the two vṛkka (kidneys) and vapāvahana (omentum).
Caraka SaṃhitāVimāna Sthāna 5:5/16 · checked against the source
अव्यायामाद्दिवास्वप्नान्मेद्यानां चातिभक्षणात्| मेदोवाहीनि दुष्यन्ति वारुण्याश्चातिसेवनात्||१६||
Causes: lack of exercise, daytime sleep, excess fatty food, excess alcohol.
Suśruta SaṃhitāŚārīra Sthāna 9:11–12 (Bhishagratna); cited as 9/12 elsewhere
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.
Suśruta's root = kaṭi (waist/loins) + vṛkka, i.e. it replaces Caraka's omentum with the loin region. A genuine substantive disagreement between the two texts, and the modern standards silently follow Caraka.
Not to be confused with
- vapāvahana
- The omental root, not the channel. Note it is also the only srotas root that WHO/NAMASTE render with a confident single biomedical structure.
- svedavaha srotas
- Caraka gives BOTH channels a root in medas (medovaha: vṛkka+vapāvahana; svedavaha: medas + hair follicles), so sweat and fat channels are linked through the same dhātu, a frequent source of conflation.
- medas / vasā / majjā
- Three different fatty substances in Ayurveda; medas is the dhātu this channel serves, vasā is muscle fat, majjā is marrow with its own srotas.
- sthaulya
- The disorder (obesity) NAMASTE associates with this srotas, not the channel.
Renderings that do not hold
- the adipose tissue / adipose system. Collapses a transport concept into a tissue. Neither text describes fat storage; both describe roots and injury signs.
- the endocrine/metabolic system. A modern extrapolation from sthaulya and prameha associations, with no textual warrant in either locus.
- kidneys as excretory organs. vṛkka appears here as the root of the FAT channel, not the urine channel (which is rooted in basti and vaṅkṣaṇa). Reading vṛkka as 'kidney = renal excretion' imports the wrong physiology into this entry.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Why do WHO and NAMASTE adopt Caraka's vapāvahana and drop Suśruta's kaṭi without comment?
- Is vṛkka in this passage the kidney, or (as some commentators argue) perirenal fat?
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, medovaha srotas
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/medovaha-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.