# samāna vāta (समानः (compound समानवातः verified at Sharngadhara Purva Khanda 2))

> Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/samana-vata/

An Ayurvedic technical term, rendered into English in 3 different ways across 5 sources.
The renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken
to mean.

## Identification

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Transliteration | samāna vāta |
| Devanagari | समानः (compound समानवातः verified at Sharngadhara Purva Khanda 2) |
| Also written | samāna vāyu, samāna, samana vayu, samana vata |
| Category, as gathered | vata-subtypes |
| Grouped under | Dosha and its subtypes |
| Classical citations | 5 |
| 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.

### Kindling vata

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda · Term ID ITA-2.1.1.5 · terminology standard

WHO's description: 'Subtype of vata seated at the navel (between stomach and intestines) and close to digestive fire: it is responsible for metabolism and transformation.' 'Kindling' is an unusual and rather good choice, it encodes Charaka's agnibalaprada (giver of strength to the digestive fire) rather than making samāna the digester itself. Lemma is bare samānaḥ.

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.

### the Samana Vayu (left untranslated); 'Its functions consist in digesting the chyme brought down into the intestines in unison with the digestive ferment (Agni)'

Sushruta Samhita, tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (public domain) · Nidanasthana ch. 1, Bhishagratna's section 9 · public-domain translation

Bhishagratna has samāna DIGESTING, in concert with agni. Charaka Ci.28.8 has it only strengthening agni. This is a real difference between the two texts, not a translation artefact.

### Samana — one of the 'five airs or breaths'; 'the third is considered as essential to digestion'

Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (public domain) · Sutrasthana, translator's footnote · public-domain translation

'Essential to digestion' is closer to Charaka's own agnibalaprada than Bhishagratna's 'digesting' is, but it is Kaviratna's footnote, not a translation of Charaka's definition, which he never reached.

### (the source's rendering is a full definition and is not reproduced here)

Kerala Tourism (Government of Kerala) · keralatourism.org/ayurveda/pathology/five-vatas · government popular-reference page

The source's rendering is not reproduced here, because this project has not cleared that source for quotation.

Partly defensible, partly wrong. Charaka Ci.28.8 does place samāna in the channels carrying SWEAT (sveda), doṣas and water, so 'sweat' has a textual basis. But semen and urine are explicitly apāna's at Charaka Ci.28.10 and Sushruta Ni.1.19. The liver appears in no retrieved locus for samāna.

### (the source's rendering is a full definition and is not reproduced here)

easyayurveda.com, gloss on Sushruta Nidanasthana 1 · easyayurveda.com Sushruta Samhita Nidanasthana Chapter 1 · online textbook gloss

The source's rendering is not reproduced here, because this project has not cleared that source for quotation.

Follows Sushruta's āmapakvāśayacaraḥ, not Charaka's srotas-based seat.

## The classical passages

### Sushruta Samhita Nidanasthana 1 (Vatavyadhi Nidana):Bhishagratna's section 9 = Sanskrit 1.16-17a, checked against the source

> The Samana Vayu courses in (governs) the stomach (Amashaya) and in the region of intestines (Pakvashaya). Its functions consist in digesting the chyme brought down into the intestines in unison with the digestive ferment (Agni), and especially in disintegrating its essence from its refuse or excreted matter. A deranged or aggravated condition of the Samana Vayu causes dysentery, Gulma, and impaired digestion, etc. 9.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1911) · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-2-nidanasthana/d/doc142857.html

Sushruta seats samāna in āmāśaya and pakvāśaya, joined to agni, and gives it both digestion and the separation of essence (sāra) from waste (kiṭṭa). Corresponding Sanskrit, cross-checked at a separate URL: 'आमपक्वाशयचरः समानो वह्निसङ्गतः | सोऽन्नं पचति तज्जांश्च विशेषान्विविनक्ति हि ||१६|| गुल्माग्निसादातीसारप्रभृतीन् कुरुते गदान् |१७|'.

### Charaka Samhita Chikitsasthana 28 (Vatavyadhi Chikitsa):28.8, checked against the source

> स्वेददोषाम्बुवाहीनि स्रोतांसि समधिष्ठितः | अन्तरग्नेश्च पार्श्वस्थः समानोऽग्निबलप्रदः ||८||

tr. None quoted — Sanskrit mūla only · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Vatavyadhi_Chikitsa

Charaka's samāna is NOT seated in the stomach. It presides over the srotas carrying sveda (sweat), doṣas and ambu (water), stands beside the internal fire (antaragni), and its defining function is agnibalaprada, giving strength to the digestive fire. It is the fire's bellows, not the digester. This is materially different from Sushruta Ni.1.16 and from every popular rendering that makes samāna 'the digestive vata'.

### Charaka Samhita Sutrasthana Lesson XII (Vatakalakaliya) in Kaviratna's numbering:Kaviratna's section 6, checked against the source

> It exists in the fivefold form of Prana, Udana, Samana, Vyana, and Apana.

tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (1896-1913) · https://archive.org/stream/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt

Names samāna as one of the five in a lawfully quotable English Charaka. No seat or function given.

### Ashtanga Hridaya Sutrasthana 12 (Doshabhediya):12.8, address only, nothing quoted to check

Vagbhata gives samāna a single self-contained verse: situated near the fire (agnisamīpasthaḥ), ranging throughout the koṣṭha, and performing four sequential acts, it receives food (gṛhṇāti), cooks it (pacati), separates it (vivecayati) and releases it (muñcati). This four-verb formulation is Vagbhata's own and is the tidiest classical definition of samāna anywhere. Sanskrit mūla and verse number verified on the retrieved page; not quoted, as Ashtanga Hridaya has no public-domain English translation.

### Sharngadhara Samhita Purva Khanda 5 (Kaladikakhyana); and ch. 2 (Bhaishajyakhyanaka):5.27-28; and PK 2 on timing of medicine, address only, nothing quoted to check

PK 5.27-28 place samāna at the koṣṭha / vahnisthāna (seat of fire). Separately, Purva Khanda 2 uses the full compound समानवाते ('when samāna vāta is disordered') in prescribing that agni-kindling medicine be given when samāna is deranged and agni is weak, the only occurrence of the compound headword form 'samāna vāta' I found in any retrieved classical Sanskrit. Not quoted, as Sharngadhara has no public-domain English translation.

## Not to be confused with

- **pācaka pitta.** The single most important distinction for this term. Charaka Ci.28.8 makes samāna agnibalaprada, it gives STRENGTH to the fire. Pācaka pitta is the fire's digesting agency. Samāna moves and fans; pācaka pitta transforms. Sources that define samāna as 'the digestive vata' have quietly absorbed pācaka pitta's job, and WHO's choice of 'Kindling vata' is a deliberate guard against exactly this.
- **jāṭharāgni / agni.** Samāna is adjacent to agni (antaragneḥ pārśvasthaḥ, agnisamīpasthaḥ), never identical with it. The adjacency is stated in the verse itself in both Charaka and Vagbhata, which suggests the texts were guarding against the conflation.
- **apāna vāta.** Both operate in the pakvāśaya region and Sushruta explicitly gives samāna a pakvāśaya range (Ni.1.16). The separation is functional: samāna separates sāra from kiṭṭa; apāna expels the kiṭṭa. Charaka avoids the overlap entirely by moving samāna out of the gut and into the sveda/doṣa/ambu srotas.
- **samāna vāyu of yoga.** In yoga samāna is the equalising current at the navel, often tied to the manipura cakra and to assimilation of prāṇa rather than of food. The Ayurvedic samāna is defined against agni and the koṣṭha, not against a cakra.
- **agni-bala / agnideepana as a therapy.** Sharngadhara PK 2 prescribes agni-kindling medicine FOR deranged samāna. The indication is not the definition; samāna is not 'the appetite'.

## Renderings that do not hold

- the digestive vata / digestive fire. Directly contradicts Charaka Ci.28.8, where samāna's function is to give strength to the fire, not to digest. It also silently annexes pācaka pitta's role. Sushruta Ni.1.16 does say samāna digests (pacati), so this rendering is defensible from Sushruta alone, but presenting it as THE definition hides that the two texts disagree.
- the balancing air / the equalising breath. A literal etymological reading (sam + ana) imported from the yogic scheme. Neither Charaka nor Sushruta nor Vagbhata defines samāna by equalisation; all three define it by its relation to agni and to the separation of nutrient from waste.
- the epigastric plexus. Bhishagratna's 1911 footnote, 'The Samana is same as the energy of the epigastric plexus'. Colonial-era neuroanatomical mapping, still quoted as though it were Sushruta's own.
- controls sweat, semen and urine. As given on the Kerala Tourism page. Sweat is textually defensible from Charaka Ci.28.8 (svedavaha srotas); semen and urine are explicitly apāna's at Charaka Ci.28.10 and Sushruta Ni.1.19. The rendering merges two subtypes.
- metabolism. WHO uses it ('responsible for metabolism and transformation') and it is not wrong, but it is a modern abstraction with no classical counterpart term, and it makes samāna indistinguishable from agni in English.

## Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved.

- Does Chakrapani reconcile Charaka Ci.28.8's srotas-based seat for samāna with Sushruta Ni.1.16's āmāśaya/pakvāśaya seat, or does he let the disagreement stand?
- Why did WHO pick 'Kindling vata' (which follows Charaka's agnibalaprada) but then write a description that follows the gut-seat tradition? Was the inconsistency noticed?
- Is there any classical source that assigns semen or urine to samāna, or is the Kerala Tourism rendering wholly unsupported?
- Does NAMASTE assign samāna vāta a Sharira Kriya code, and what English term does it use?

## Citation

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, "samāna vāta", https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/samana-vata/, 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.