prakṛti: what the term means and how it is translated
prakṛti प्रकृति is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 8 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 | prakṛti |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | प्रकृति |
| Also written | prakruti, doṣaprakṛti, prakṛtiḥ |
| Category, as gathered | prakriti |
| Grouped here 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. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
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. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
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. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
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
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.
Charaka SamhitaVimanasthana 8:94 · checked against the source
tasmādāturaṁ parīkṣēta prakr̥titaśca, vikr̥titaśca, sārataśca, saṁhananataśca, pramāṇataśca, sātmyataśca, sattvataśca, āhāraśaktitaśca, vyāyāmaśaktitaśca, vayastaścēti, balapramāṇaviśēṣagrahaṇahētōḥ||94||
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 SamhitaVimanasthana 8:95 · checked against the source
tataḥ sā sā dōṣaprakr̥tirucyatē manuṣyāṇāṁ garbhādipravr̥ttā| tasmācchlēṣmalāḥ prakr̥tyā kēcit, pittalāḥ kēcit, vātalāḥ kēcit, saṁsr̥ṣṭāḥ kēcit, samadhātavaḥ kēcidbhavanti||95||
Prakṛti is set from conception; five classes named. Note the text's own word is doṣaprakṛti.
Charaka SamhitaVimanasthana 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.
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 SamhitaVimanasthana 8:100 · checked against the source
sarvaguṇasamuditāstu samadhātavaḥ| ityēvaṁ prakr̥titaḥ parīkṣēta||100||
Closes the prakṛti section at verse 100 and defines the samadhātu type as having all qualities together.
Sushruta SamhitaSharirasthana 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.
Sushruta counts seven prakṛtis where Charaka Vi 8/95 names five classes. The two samhitas disagree and modern summaries rarely say so.
Sushruta SamhitaSharirasthana 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.
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 SamhitaSharirasthana 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 this address.
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 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. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- 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?
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, prakṛti
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/prakriti/, 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.