sātmya: what the term means and how it is translated
sātmya सात्म्य is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 5 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 | sātmya |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | सात्म्य |
| Also written | sātmyam, okasātmya, satmyata |
| Category, as gathered | prakriti |
| Grouped here under | Regimen and constitution |
| 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.
Agreeable to nature or natural constitution
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-10.2.7 (sātmyam) · standard
Full description continues: 'excellence or abundance of suitable qualities: food that is fully compatible with the individual and which is completely digested and accepted by the body.' WHO places sātmya in the DIETETICS chapter and defines it as a property of food, narrowing a term the samhitas also apply to conduct, place and season.
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.
homologation
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.7.5 item 6 · standard
An extraordinary choice. In ordinary English 'homologation' means official certification of a product; it appears to be reaching for 'homologous'. The most opaque rendering in the WHO ten-domain list, and it should not be reproduced without comment.
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.
power of assimilation … assimilable (i. e., suitable to the constitution)
Charaka Samhita, tr. Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Vimanasthana 8 · translation
His heading for Vi 8/118.
assimilability or suitability
Charaka Samhita, tr. Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Vimanasthana 8, translator's footnote · translation
The clearest exposition in any public-domain English: 'A certain article is said to be "satmya" with regard to one, and "asatmya" with regard to another. Continued or habitual use without injury is the basis of "satmyata." … Habitual use may make even a virulent poison "satmya" or agreeable to a person.'
wholesome / suitable / habituated
Indian Ayurvedic college usage · textbook · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
'Wholesome' is the standard rendering of hita, not of sātmya, a conflation, not a translation.
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 8:118 · checked against the source
sātmyataścēti sātmyaṁ nāma tadyat sātatyēnōpasēvyamānamupaśētē| tatra yē ghr̥takṣīratailamāṁsarasasātmyāḥ sarvarasasātmyāśca tē balavantaḥ klēśasahāścirajīvinaśca bhavanti, rūkṣasātmyāḥ punarēkarasasātmyāśca yē tē prāyēṇālpabalā alpaklēśasahā alpāyuṣō'lpasādhanāśca bhavanti||118||
The definition: sātmya is that which, used continuously, agrees. The prognostic grading is by breadth of tolerance, those to whom ghee, milk, oil, meat juice and all rasas are sātmya are strong and long-lived; those habituated to dry food and a single rasa are weak and short-lived. The criterion is variety tolerated, not any particular food.
Charaka SamhitaVimanasthana 8:118 · checked against the source
Next, as to examination (of the patient) as regards power of assimilation. That is called assimilable (i. e., suitable to the constitution) which, indulged habitually, agrees with the constitution. In this connection, (it should be said that) those persons with whom ghee, milk, oil, juice of flesh, and all the five tastes, agree in consequence of habitual use, are endued with strength, capable of bearing hardship, and long-lived.
Public-domain English for Vi 8/118. Kaviratna writes 'all the five tastes' where the Sanskrit has sarvarasa; whether his exemplar read five or he erred is not established, and the discrepancy is recorded rather than smoothed.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 20
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 relativity-of-wholesomeness argument underlying sātmya. Recorded as adjacent and relevant, NOT as a definition: the chapter's own term is hita and the retrieved page does not use sātmya in this passage.
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.
- Asatmyendriyartha-samyoga (unwholesome contact of the senses with their objects) as satmya
- Habituated suitability. Asatmya is defined negatively as that which does not accord with the organism, which makes the whole category individual-relative
Not to be confused with
- hita
- Hita is what is beneficial, an objective property. Sātmya is what agrees with THIS person through habituation. A thing can be sātmya and not hita, Kaviratna makes the point with poison.
- pathya
- What is prescribed as suiting the disease pathway. Sātmya precedes and constrains it: a physician cannot prescribe against long-established sātmya without consequence.
- oka-sātmya
- The habituation subtype, often used loosely as though it were the whole of sātmya.
- deśa-sātmya and ṛtu-sātmya
- Sātmya of place and season, both silently dropped by WHO's food-only definition.
- asātmya
- Not merely the negation. At Vimana 6/6 the vitiating cause is asātmyendriyārthasaṁyoga, unsuitable contact of sense with object, asātmya operating outside diet altogether.
- prakṛti
- Both individual-specific baselines, but prakṛti is fixed at conception while sātmya is acquired and can be deliberately changed, which is the point of the pādāṃśika krama (WHO ITA-10.2.5).
Renderings that do not hold
- homologation. WHO's own word at ITA-4.7.5. In English it denotes regulatory certification; nothing in Vi 8/118 concerns approval.
- wholesome. That is hita. Using it for sātmya erases the individual-and-habit dependence that is the term's entire content.
- tolerance. Closer, but modern 'tolerance' suggests merely enduring. Vi 8/118 grades people by how WIDE their sātmya is and treats breadth as a marker of strength and longevity.
- allergy or intolerance (for asātmya). An immunological reading with no classical warrant; asātmya includes unsuitable sensory contact and season.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Does Kaviratna's exemplar really read 'five tastes' at Vi 8/118 where the Trikamji text reads sarvarasa, or is it a translator's slip?
- Why does WHO confine sātmya to food when the samhitas apply it to place, season and sense-contact?
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, sātmya
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/satmya/, 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.