rasavaha srotas: what the term means and how it is translated
rasavaha srotas रसवहस्रोतस् 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 | rasavaha srotas |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | रसवहस्रोतस् |
| Also written | rasavahāni srotāṃsi, rasavāhīni srotāṃsi (Ca.Vi.5/13), rasavahasrotaḥ |
| 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 nutrient fluids
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.5.10 · standards-body comparator
WHO description: 'The pathway mediating and distributing the primary circulating nutrient fluid to the body tissues. Entities related to this channel are the heart and vessels carrying primary circulating nutrient fluid.' WHO consistently renders rasa as 'primary circulating nutrient fluid', avoiding both 'plasma' and 'lymph'.
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 primary product of digestion
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-5.5.5 rasavahasrotoduṣṭiḥ · standards-body comparator (disorder term)
Note WHO uses a DIFFERENT English head-term for the disorder ('primary product of digestion') than for the anatomy ('nutrient fluids'), an internal inconsistency worth recording.
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 nutrient fluids
NAMASTE Portal, Standardised Ayurveda Terminologies · SAT-B.479 · national terminology comparator
Definition names 'hṛdaya and rasavaha dhamanī' as origin, i.e. NAMASTE follows Suśruta's dhamanī root, not Caraka's 'ten dhamanīs'.
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 channels-rasavaha srotas
NAMASTE National Ayurveda Morbidity Codes · NAMC EC-1, referenced to Ca.Vi.5/8 · 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 serumcarrying (Rasa-vaha) ducts
Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna, Sushruta Samhita (1911) · Śārīrasthāna IX.11–12 · public-domain translation
Bhishagratna renders rasa as 'serum' here and as 'lymph-chyle' elsewhere in the same chapter ('carry the Rasa (lymph-chyle) throughout the organism'), the 1911 translation is not self-consistent.
rasa dhatu or plasma
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
रसवहानां स्रोतसां हृदयं मूलं दश च धमन्यः|
Root = hṛdaya and the TEN dhamanīs. Caraka gives no separate vitiation signs here, referring instead to the dhātu-pradoṣa signs of Sūtrasthāna 'Vividhāśitapītīya'.
Caraka SaṃhitāVimāna Sthāna 5:5/8 (closing clause of the section) · checked against the source
प्रदुष्टानां तु खल्वेषां रसादिवहस्रोतसां विज्ञानान्युक्तानि विविधाशितपीतीये; यान्येव हि धातूनां प्रदोषविज्ञानानि तान्येव यथास्वं प्रदुष्टानां धातुस्रोतसाम्|
Caraka explicitly defers the vitiation signs of the seven dhātu-carrying srotas (rasa onwards) to the Vividhāśitapītīya chapter, and equates dhātu-pradoṣa signs with dhātu-srotas signs. This is why Ca.Vi.5 is NOT a complete source for rasavaha/raktavaha/etc. symptomatology.
Suśruta SaṃhitāŚārīra Sthāna 9:11–12 (Bhishagratna); cited as 9/12 elsewhere · checked against the source
The serumcarrying (Rasa-vaha) ducts are two in number and have their roots in (the viscus of) the heart and the serum-carrying Dhamanis (vessels). An injury to or piercing of any of these ducts gives rise to Sosha (consumption) and symptoms identical with those developed by a hurt to the Prana-vaha channels of the body, ending in death.
Suśruta's root = heart + rasa-carrying dhamanīs (not 'ten'); injury yields śoṣa plus prāṇavaha-type signs.
Not to be confused with
- rasa dhātu
- rasa is the substance; rasavaha srotas is its conduit. Caraka's own Vi.5/4 warns that what the srotas are, what they carry, and where they sit are all different from the srotas themselves.
- rasāyanī / rasavāhinī
- Caraka lists rasāyanī and rasavāhinī at Vi.5/9 as SYNONYMS in the general list of names for body spaces, not as a distinct channel. Treating them as separate structures is an error.
- prāṇavaha srotas
- Suśruta gives both the same root (heart) and says injury to rasavaha produces prāṇavaha-type signs; they are separated by what they carry, not by location.
- raktavaha srotas
- rasa is converted to rakta; the channels are consecutive in the dhātu chain but have different roots (heart/dhamanīs vs liver/spleen).
Renderings that do not hold
- the lymphatic system. Bhishagratna's 'lymph-chyle' gloss and the fluid-transport imagery drive this, but the named root is the heart and the ten dhamanīs, a vascular, not lymphatic, anatomy. WHO deliberately avoids 'lymph'.
- plasma. Convenient but reductive: rasa is the whole post-digestive nutrient fluid and the first of seven dhātus, not the acellular fraction of blood. WHO's 'primary circulating nutrient fluid' is the more careful rendering.
- serum. Bhishagratna's 1911 choice; he uses 'lymph-chyle' for the same word elsewhere in the same chapter, so the rendering carries no authority.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- What are the 'daśa dhamanyaḥ' of Ca.Vi.5/8, and are they the same ten that Cakrapāṇi (on Ca.Indriya 5/41-42) associates with manovaha srotas?
- Why does WHO use two different English head-terms for the anatomy (2.5.10) and the disorder (5.5.5) of the same channel?
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, rasavaha srotas
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/rasavaha-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.