sāmadoṣa: what the term means and how it is translated
sāmadoṣa सामदोष is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 4 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 | sāmadoṣa |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | सामदोष |
| Also written | sāma doṣa, saama dosha, sama dosha (without diacritics, ambiguous), sāmavāta / sāmapitta / sāmakapha, āmadoṣa (related, not identical) |
| Category, as gathered | dosha-state |
| Grouped here under | Dosha and its subtypes |
| Classical citations | 4 |
| 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.
Dosha associated with ama
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.23 (sāmadoṣaḥ) · standard
Full description: 'Dosha associated with ama undergoes qualitative and functional alterations and becomes capable of giving rise to diseases.' WHO's rendering deliberately avoids both 'toxic' and 'undigested'.
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.
Ama, a state of incomplete digestion, transformation or metabolism
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.6.2 (āma, āmāvasthā) · standard
Recorded because the rendering of sāma-doṣa depends entirely on the rendering of āma, and WHO's āma entry is long and carefully non-committal about what āma is physically.
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.
Healthy person [an individual in a balanced state of dosha...]
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-10.1.1 (svasthaḥ) · standard
Recorded as the HOMOGRAPH, not as a rendering of this term. WHO's description of svastha is 'An individual in a balanced state of dosha, metabolism, structural components and excretion...', this renders samadoṣa (sama = equal), which is a different word from sāmadoṣa (sa-āma = with āma).
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.
no entry located
ICD-11 MMS v2026-01, Traditional Medicine Module 2 · block SR10-SR2Z checked · classification · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
The TM2 humoral-derangement block codes vitiation, accumulation, aggravation, spreading and depletion for each doṣa but has no āma-association pattern. A real gap, not an oversight of this search.
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.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 15:41 · checked against the source
समदोषः समाग्निश्च समधातुमलक्रियः । प्रसन्नात्मेन्द्रियमनाः स्वस्थ इत्यभिधीयते ॥४१॥
THE HOMOGRAPH, recorded deliberately. This is samadoṣa with a short a, meaning doṣas in equilibrium, in the canonical definition of svastha. It is a different word from sāmadoṣa and means close to its opposite. Verse number 41 verified on a retrieved verse-addressed Sanskrit page.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 15:41 · checked against the source
A person with an uniformly healthy digestion, and whose bodily humours are in a state of equilibrium, and in whom the fundamental vital fluids course in their normal state and quantity, accompanied by the normal processes of secretion, organic function, and intellection, is said to be a healthy person.
Bhishagratna's public-domain English for the same samadoṣa verse. Note he renders samadoṣa as 'bodily humours are in a state of equilibrium' and does not transliterate, so an English-only reader has no way to see the homograph at all.
Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana 17:62 · checked against the source
समाः स्वं कर्म कुवेते||६२|| / samāḥ svaṁ karma kuvētē||62||
Charaka's criterion for doṣas in the sama (equal) state: they perform their own function. A second attestation of the homograph sense. (Site prints 'कुवेते' for 'कुर्वते'.)
Ashtanga HridayaSutrasthana 13:23-27 · address only, nothing quoted to check
Located, not quoted. Ashtanga Hridaya Sutrasthana 13 (Doshopakramaniya) is the classical locus for the sāma/nirāma doṣa distinction. The locator 'A. H. Sutra Sthana 13/23-24' (general sāma features) and '13/26-27' (sāma doṣa and sāma dhātu) was read on the carakasamhitaonline Ama page, i.e. it is a secondary attestation and has NOT been checked against the Ashtanga Hridaya text itself. Bhavaprakasha Purva Khanda, Jwara Chikitsa 49-50, 52, 54 is cited on the same page for the per-doṣa sāma sign-lists; also unverified and also not quotable.
Where this term does work in the theory
2 concept records name this term as one of their components. Each gloss is that record's own.
- Ama and its formation as Sama dosha
- A dosha to which ama has adhered, held to behave differently from the same dosha in its pure (nirama) state and to require ama-directed treatment first. The sama/nirama distinction governs the sequencing of therapy.
- Swasthya: the Ayurvedic definition of health as Samadosha
- Equilibrium of the three doshas (vata, pitta, kapha) in quantity and function
Not to be confused with
- samadoṣa (sama = equal, balanced)
- THE critical disambiguation for this record. सामदोष (sa-āma, 'with āma') and समदोष (sama, 'equal') are distinct words that become identical when transliterated without diacritics as 'sama dosha'. They are near-opposites: one is a pathological state, the other is the definition of health at Sushruta Sutrasthana 15/41. Any English or romanised source using 'samadosha' must be checked for which is meant.
- āma
- Āma is the product of incomplete digestion (WHO ITA-4.6.2). Sāmadoṣa is a doṣa that has become associated with it. 'Ama dosha' in loose usage means either.
- āmāvasthā
- WHO ITA-4.6.2 also covers āmāvasthā, the stage of a disease. A disease can be in āma stage; a doṣa is sāma. The referents are different.
- prakupita doṣa
- A doṣa can be aggravated without being sāma. WHO's description makes āma-association a qualitative and functional alteration distinct from increase.
- sāma dhātu and sāma mala
- The same prefix applies to tissues and wastes with separate sign-lists (carakasamhitaonline cites Cha.Su.28/9-19 for sāma dhātu). 'Sama' alone does not say which.
Renderings that do not hold
- balanced dosha. The direct product of the homograph collapse. Renders समदोष, and applied to सामदोष it states the reverse of the truth.
- toxic dosha / dosha with toxins. The commonest popular rendering. WHO ISTA deliberately avoids 'toxin' for āma, describing it as a standstill in digestive and metabolic transformation.
- dosha with undigested food. Too literal and too narrow: WHO's āma covers metabolic as well as digestive incompleteness, and includes channel blockade and accumulation of waste.
- ama dosha. Common in Indian clinical English but ambiguous between āmadoṣa (āma as a doṣa-like entity) and sāmadoṣa (a doṣa carrying āma).
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- The Ashtanga Hridaya Sutrasthana 13 verse numbers for the sāma/nirāma lakṣaṇas were taken from a secondary source and are UNVERIFIED against the primary text. Wisdomlib's Ashtanga Hridaya Sanskrit page returned HTTP 403 to both curl and WebFetch, and GRETIL's Astangahrdaya file path returned 404 at the URL tried. A human should verify against a printed edition or a working GRETIL path before any of these locators is published.
- Whether Charaka states the sāma/nirāma doṣa distinction in its own words anywhere, or whether it is a Vagbhata systematisation, was not established.
- No WHO ISTA entry was found that flags the samadoṣa/sāmadoṣa homograph, despite the standard containing both (ITA-4.8.23 and ITA-10.1.1).
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, sāmadoṣa
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/sama-dosha/, 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.