# prakṛti (प्रकृति)

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

An Ayurvedic technical term, rendered into English in 8 different ways.
The renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken
to mean.

## Identification

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Transliteration | prakṛti |
| Devanagari | प्रकृति |
| Also written | prakruti, doṣaprakṛti, prakṛtiḥ |
| Category, as gathered | prakriti |
| Grouped under | Regimen and constitution |
| Classical citations | 7 |
| 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.

### An individual's inherent nature

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.8.1 · standard

WHO avoids bare 'constitution' here, reserving 'body constitution' for doṣaprakṛti (ITA-2.8.2).

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.

### Normal state, normalcy

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.17 · standard

Same Sanskrit headword, unrelated sense, in the morbidity chapter: 'The state of being normal in every respect, without deviation from or derangement of the normal state, function or quality.' WHO carries prakṛti twice with non-overlapping English.

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.

### individual constitution

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.7.5 item 1 · standard

Inside the ten-domain gloss WHO does use 'constitution', contradicting its own ITA-2.8.1 avoidance.

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.

### normal constitution in health

Charaka Samhita, tr. Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Vimanasthana 8 · translation

Kaviratna's rendering of prakṛtitaḥ; elsewhere in the same chapter simply 'nature'.

### Temperament

Sushruta Samhita, tr. Bhishagratna (1907-1916) · Sharirasthana IV · translation

A Galenic word chosen in 1911; imports humoral baggage the Sanskrit lacks.

### supreme nature (Prakriti)

Sushruta Samhita, tr. Bhishagratna (1907-1916) · Sharirasthana I · translation

The same translator, the same text, the Samkhya sense. One word, two irreconcilable Englishes.

### constitution types

Govindaraj P et al., Sci Rep 2015 · PMID 26511157 · paper · our paraphrase of the source, not its words

Ayurgenomics usage; does not distinguish deha- from manasa-prakṛti.

### psychosomatic constitution

Indian Ayurvedic college usage · textbook · our paraphrase of the source, not its words

Broader than WHO's 'body constitution' because it folds in sattva.

## The classical passages

### Charaka Samhita Vimanasthana 8:94, checked against the source

> tasmādāturaṁ parīkṣēta prakr̥titaśca, vikr̥titaśca, sārataśca, saṁhananataśca, pramāṇataśca, sātmyataśca, sattvataśca, āhāraśaktitaśca, vyāyāmaśaktitaśca, vayastaścēti, balapramāṇaviśēṣagrahaṇahētōḥ||94||

Sanskrit mūla · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Rogabhishagjitiya_Vimana

Prakṛti is the first of the ten examination items, and this fixes verse 94 for the whole list. Every verse number in this term group was read off this same retrieved page.

### Charaka Samhita Vimanasthana 8:95, checked against the source

> tataḥ sā sā dōṣaprakr̥tirucyatē manuṣyāṇāṁ garbhādipravr̥ttā| tasmācchlēṣmalāḥ prakr̥tyā kēcit, pittalāḥ kēcit, vātalāḥ kēcit, saṁsr̥ṣṭāḥ kēcit, samadhātavaḥ kēcidbhavanti||95||

Sanskrit mūla · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Rogabhishagjitiya_Vimana

Prakṛti is set from conception; five classes named. Note the text's own word is doṣaprakṛti.

### Charaka Samhita Vimanasthana 8:95, checked against the source

> Some persons, by nature, have the wind predominating in thie constitutions ; Some have the bile predominating in their constitutions ; Some have the phlegm predominating in their constitutions ; Some have any two of the three faults or all the three faults combined together in predominant measure ; and Some have all the three faults combined in harmonious proportions.

tr. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · https://archive.org/download/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt

Public-domain English for Vi 8/95. Kaviratna numbers this passage 111 in his own scheme (printed p. 594); the verse number above comes from the Sanskrit and the two were matched by content, not by number. Note that "thie" is Kaviratna's own printed typo, visible on the page image at p. 594 line 3, and not an OCR artefact as this record previously said.

### Charaka Samhita Vimanasthana 8:100, checked against the source

> sarvaguṇasamuditāstu samadhātavaḥ| ityēvaṁ prakr̥titaḥ parīkṣēta||100||

Sanskrit mūla · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Rogabhishagjitiya_Vimana

Closes the prakṛti section at verse 100 and defines the samadhātu type as having all qualities together.

### Sushruta Samhita Sharirasthana 4:57-58, checked against the source

> The temperaments ( Prakriti ) of persons may be of seven different types, according as the deranged Doshas of the body are involved therein, either severally, or in combination of two or of all the three together.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-3-sharirasthana/d/doc142882.html

Sushruta counts seven prakṛtis where Charaka Vi 8/95 names five classes. The two samhitas disagree and modern summaries rarely say so.

### Sushruta Samhita Sharirasthana 4:70-71, checked against the source

> The temperament of a man is never altered, nor does it suffer any deterioration or abatement. A change, abatement or deterioration in any particular case should be regarded as the harbinger of death.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-3-sharirasthana/d/doc142882.html

The classical immutability claim, i.e. the textual basis for WHO's 'It is immutable and does not change during a lifespan' at ITA-2.8.2.

### Sushruta Samhita Sharirasthana 1

**Quotation withheld:** nobody has yet read this quotation against its printed source, and an unchecked quotation is not published here. The passage is at https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-3-sharirasthana/d/doc142879.html

The Samkhya sense inside the same samhita. Verse left blank: the page prints '3' but that was not checked against a Sanskrit edition.

## Where this term does work in the theory

One concept record names this term as one of its components, and glosses it there as follows.

- **[Tridosha: vata, pitta and kapha as the regulatory principles of the body](https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/concept/tridosha-theory/)** (as Prakriti): The proportion of the three doshas fixed at conception; the individual constitutional type (seven combinations are conventionally enumerated). Covered in depth in the prakriti-determination record

## Not to be confused with

- **vikṛti.** Consecutive items in Vi 8: prakṛti is the conception-set baseline, vikṛti (Vi 8/101) the present morbid state. Not two readings of one scale.
- **doṣaprakṛti.** The term Vi 8/95 actually uses. WHO subordinates it to prakṛti; treating them as synonyms drops that distinction.
- **sattva / mānasaprakṛti.** Mental type is a separate examination item at Vi 8/119. Folding it into 'prakriti' collapses two of the ten items.
- **mūlaprakṛti (Samkhya).** Sushruta Sharirasthana 1 uses prakṛti for unmanifest primordial Nature. Nothing clinical follows from it.
- **prakṛti as normalcy.** WHO ITA-4.8.17 defines prakṛti as the normal state simpliciter. An uncontextualised citation is genuinely ambiguous.
- **sāra.** Both are baseline traits assessed for strength, but sāra grades tissue excellence, not doṣa dominance.

## Renderings that do not hold

- body type. Reduces a doṣa configuration to somatotype. Vi 8/115 explicitly rejects reading strength off body size.
- dosha type / 'your dosha'. Merges prakṛti with current derangement, i.e. with vikṛti, which the texts keep separate.
- phenotype. Over-claims discreteness. The reliability literature (24191170, 27257530) argues against it.
- temperament. Bhishagratna's 1911 word; reads as Galenic humoral temperament and loses the conception-fixed sense.
- Nature. Right only for the Samkhya passages; simply wrong in a clinical one.

## Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved.

- Is there an ICD-11 TM2 code for constitution? The TM2 disorder blocks contain no constitution block; whether the SR-series pattern codes include one could not be confirmed.
- Is WHO's double entry for prakṛti deliberate homonymy or editorial oversight?

## Citation

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