# picchila (पिच्छिल)

> Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/picchila/

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

## Identification

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Transliteration | picchila |
| Devanagari | पिच्छिल |
| Also written | pichchila, picchila guṇa, paicchilya / picchilatva (abstract) |
| Category, as gathered | guṇa (one of the twenty gurvādi guṇas; opposite of viśada) |
| Grouped under | Pharmacology and the action of substances |
| Classical citations | 4 |
| 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.

### Slimy touch, gummy, Sticky, Sliminess

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022), entries AF1520 picchila and BP0193 picchilaḥ · AF1520 picchila: 'Slimy touch, gummy, Sticky, Sliminess,'. BP0193 picchilaḥ: 'the property of the substance which causes Slimness and stickiness'. WHO's ojas attribute list reads '...Picchila (sticky), Snigdha (unctuous).' · comparator standard

Comparator; note the WHO entries are filed under symptom (AF) and basic-principle (BP) sections rather than DG, and no dedicated DG gurvādi entry for picchila was found in the extracted text.

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.

### slimy

Kaviratna, Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthana Lesson I (standard 1.61) · archive.org BIUSante_47357 · public-domain translation

'Heavy, cold, mild, watery, sweet, stable, and slimy, these attributes of phlegm'.

### Sliminess

Bhishagratna, Sushruta Samhita, Sutrasthana ch. XLII and XLVI · wisdomlib doc141672 and doc141678; archive.org in.ernet.dli.2015.43171 printed pp. 567-568 · public-domain translation

'Sweetness, oiliness, heaviness, coldness and sliminess form the specific properties of Kapha.' 'Sliminess is vitalising, tonic, heavy as regards digestion, and tends to produce Kapha, and brings about the adhesion of fractured bones.' Opposite rendered 'non-sliminess' or 'The quality of absorption (Vishad)'.

### slimy, lubricous, slippery, smeary (opp. to viśada)

Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), p. 624 · dictionary

Dictionary already records the technical opposition to viśada.

### Slimy / sticky / mucilaginous

Common textbook rendering · textbook · our paraphrase of the source, not its words

'Mucilaginous' is a pharmacognostic gloss; 'sticky/slimy' are the usual.

## The classical passages

### Charaka Samhita Sutrasthana 1:61 (standard; Kaviratna's number by sequence 60, OCR '80'), checked against the source

> गुरुशीतमृदुस्निग्धमधुरस्थिरपिच्छिलाः| श्लेष्मणः प्रशमं यान्ति विपरीतगुणैर्गुणाः||६१||

tr. Sanskrit quoted; English by Kaviratna · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Deerghanjiviteeya_Adhyaya ; English: https://archive.org/download/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt

Picchila is the last-named attribute of kapha. Kaviratna: '...stable, and slimy, these attributes of phlegm are cured by objects having adverse attributes.'

### Charaka Samhita Sutrasthana 26:11 (standard; Kaviratna 23), checked against the source

> द्रवस्निग्धशीतमन्दमृदुपिच्छिलरसगुणबहुलान्याप्यानि, तान्युपक्लेदस्नेहबन्धविष्यन्दमार्दवप्रह्लादकराणि;

tr. Sanskrit quoted · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Atreyabhadrakapyiya_Adhyaya

Picchila is one of the six gunas (drava, snigdha, śīta, manda, mṛdu, picchila, plus the rasa-guna) that mark jala-dominant substances, whose actions include bandha (binding). Kaviratna (Su. Lesson XXVI, his 23, p. 300) renders the list 'liquid, oily, cold, mild, soft, unctious, and mobile': 'unctious', after 'oily' (snigdha), is his word for picchila, so he does render it distinctly; it is the rasa-guna that has no counterpart, 'mobile' standing in its place. He renders bandha as 'stoppage of secretions'.

### Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 46:517 (numbering as printed in the web Sanskrit text; verify in a printed edition), checked against the source

> पिच्छिलो जीवनो बल्यः सन्धानः श्लेष्मलो गुरुः | विशदो विपरीतोऽस्मात् क्लेदाचूषणरोपणः ||५१७||

tr. Sanskrit quoted; English by Bhishagratna · https://www.easyayurveda.com/sushruta-samhitha-sutrasthana-46-annapana-vidhi-adhyaya-regimen-of-food-and-drinks/ (Sanskrit only); English: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.43171 pp. 567-568 and https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-1-sutrasthana/d/doc141678.html

Sushruta's karma of picchila: jīvana, balya, sandhāna, śleṣmala, guru; viśada is its opposite. Bhishagratna: 'Sliminess is vitalising, tonic, heavy as regards digestion, and tends to produce Kapha, and brings about the adhesion of fractured bones. The quality of absorption (Vishad) is the opposite of sliminess. It absorbs or soaks up all mucous secretions and helps the process of healing a sore or ulcer.'

### Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 42:not established (Bhishagratna prints none), checked against the source

> A pungent taste is endued with properties which are contrary to those of the Kapha, hence the sweetness, oiliness, heaviness, coldness and sliminess of the latter, are respectively destroyed by the pungency, dryness, lightness, heat and non-sliminess of the former.

tr. Bhishagratna · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-1-sutrasthana/d/doc141672.html

Picchila/viśada as a kapha-vs-kaṭu axis.

## Not to be confused with

- **snigdha (unctuous).** Both kapha attributes often glossed 'oily/sticky'; snigdha opposes rūkṣa (dry), picchila opposes viśada (clear/non-slimy). Sushruta separates their karmas (snigdha: lubrication, strength, complexion; picchila: binding, kapha, heaviness).
- **ślakṣṇa (smooth).** Sushruta 46.521 says ślakṣṇa is 'to be known like picchila' (श्लक्ष्णः पिच्छिलवज्ज्ञेयः), i.e. similar in karma but a distinct guṇa opposing khara/karkaśa.
- **viśada.** Its opposite; rendered 'clear' by Kaviratna (Ca.Su. 1.59) and 'absorption'/'non-sliminess' by Bhishagratna, so the English for the pair is unstable.
- **abhiṣyandī.** A channel-clogging action often attributed to picchila foods; an effect, not the guṇa.

## Renderings that do not hold

- oily. Imports snigdha; WHO's own search snippet gloss 'oily, sticky' blurs the two. Picchila is about adhesion/viscosity, not lipid content.
- 'unctious' (Kaviratna, 26.11). His seven-word list for the eight-word Sanskrit drops picchila; do not cite that line as his rendering of picchila.

## Citation

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, "picchila", https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/picchila/, 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.