śamana: what the term means and how it is translated

śamana शमन 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.

Identification
Transliteration	śamana
Devanagari	शमन
Also written	saṁśamana, praśamana, śamana-cikitsā, shaman chikitsa
Category, as gathered	chikitsa
Grouped here under	Examination and treatment
Classical citations	4
Citations checked	2026-10-07

How it is translated, and whether the translation holds

Each rendering is given with the source that uses it. The assessment is ours.

Restoring normalcy or pacifying action

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-6.2.6.5 śamanam [vāta-śamanam, pitta-śamanam and kapha-śamanam]: 'Substances with the ability to restore normalcy, i.e. vata-pacifying, pitta-pacifying and kapha-pacifying.' Also ITA-6.2.6.9 saṃśamana-karma 'Palliative action: A drug which neither eliminates aggravated doṣha nor aggravates normal dosha but restores irregular dosha to normalcy.' and ITA-9.1.38 saṁśamanam 'Conservative therapy: Therapy which aims to mitigate the disease by pacifying dosha (in contrast to purifying therapies, which remove dosha from the body).' · comparator-standard

WHO uses three different English heads (pacifying action / palliative action / conservative therapy) for śamana, saṁśamana-karma and saṁśamana respectively; a lexicon should surface this spread.

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.

Pacification of vitiated Doṣas; Palliative therapy.

NIA Jaipur / WHO-APW draft terminology (2011) · entries śamana (code beneath: DG0299) and saṁśamanaṁ (BP0249), identical wording; praśamana 'palliative therapeutics' (RS0180) · comparator-draft

Draft; code-to-entry assignment ambiguous in the PDF layout.

soothing effects (Samshamaniya); 'Purificatory and Palliative Drugs' (wisdomlib chapter title)

Bhishagratna, Sushruta Samhita vol. 1, Sutrasthana ch. XXXIX (Saṁśodhana-saṁśamanīya) · wisdomlib doc141669; opening: 'medicinal drugs possessed of cleansing (cathartic; or soothing effects (Samshodhana-Samsha-maniya-adhyaya)' · public-domain-translation

'soothing' is Bhishagratna; 'palliative' in the chapter heading may be wisdomlib's editorial title, verify before attributing to him.

'Praçamanam' is alleviation or the means of alleviation

Kaviratna, Charaka Samhita, Chikitsasthana Lesson I, translator's footnote · archive.org OCR, footnote to his aphorisms 2-3 · public-domain-translation (footnote)

Footnote gloss of praśamana (a chikitsā synonym), not a translation of the Samhita text.

[contrast rendered as] 'fasts and Pachanas' vs 'correctives'

Kaviratna, Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthana Lesson XVI · his printed 17 (standard Su. 16.20) · public-domain-translation

Kaviratna does not use the word śamana here because the Sanskrit (laṅghana-pācana) does not; a reminder that Su. 16.20 is often cited for śamana though the word is absent.

palliative therapy / pacification therapy / conservative management; Shamana Chikitsa

Common textbook and PubMed usage (e.g. PMID 24049408, 23559796) · textbook-usage · our paraphrase of the source, not its words

Dominant modern rendering.

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 SamhitaSutrasthana 16 (Cikitsāprābhṛtīya):20 (carakasamhitaonline, Trikamji numbering). Kaviratna prints 17 after the corresponding sentence. Both recorded; no conversion. · checked against the source

dōṣāḥ kadācit kupyanti jitā laṅghanapācanaiḥ| jitāḥ saṁśōdhanairyē tu na tēṣāṁ punarudbhavaḥ

tr. Sanskrit text (IAST as displayed) · source

Doṣas subdued by laṅghana and pācana may flare again; those removed by saṁśodhana do not recur. The verse contrasts śodhana with laṅghana-pācana, NOT with the word śamana, though it is universally cited for the śodhana/śamana distinction.

Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana Lesson XVI:Kaviratna's printed 17 (standard 20) · checked against the source

The faults of the system, if subjugated by fasts and Pachanas, may reappear. If subjugated by correctives, they cannot reappear.

tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (OCR text; spacing normalized) · source

Kaviratna's rendering: 'faults' = doṣa, 'correctives' = saṁśodhana.

Ashtanga HridayaSutrasthana 14 (Dvividhopakramaṇīya):4-6 per easyayurveda's display (verse 4: śodhanaṁ śamanaṁ ceti dvidhā tatrāpi laṅghanam; verse 6 defines śamana as what neither expels nor provokes doṣas but equalizes them, sevenfold: pācana, dīpana, kṣut, tṛṭ, vyāyāma, ātapa, māruta). No public-domain English exists; Sanskrit seen but not quoted here. · address only, nothing quoted to check

Vāgbhaṭa's formal definition of śamana and its seven kinds, and its placement as a subtype of laṅghana.

Ashtanga HridayaSutrasthana 1 (Āyuṣkāmīya):Not displayed on the page read (commonly cited as 1.25); the line 'śodhanaṁ śamanaṁ ceti samāsād auṣadhaṁ dvidhā' was seen under the heading 'Aushadha Bheda'. · address only, nothing quoted to check

Medicine is twofold in brief: śodhana and śamana.

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.

Shodhana and Shamana (purification versus pacification) as Shamana: Pacificatory or palliative treatment: measures that return the aggravated doshas to normal state without evacuating them.

Not to be confused with

śodhana: Expels doṣas from the body (AH Su. 14.5); śamana settles them in place. Charaka Su. 16.20 makes the recurrence claim that underlies the contrast.
laṅghana: In AH Su. 14.4 both śodhana and śamana are subtypes of laṅghana; in Charaka Su. 22 laṅghana is itself one of six upakramas, so the hierarchy differs between the two texts.
praśamana: Synonym in Charaka's chikitsā-synonym list (Chi. 1.1, Kaviratna footnote 'alleviation'); NIA 2011 lists it separately as 'palliative therapeutics'.
palliative care (biomedical): Modern palliation implies non-curative, end-of-life care; śamana is a curative strategy for doṣas without expulsion.
pācana / dīpana: Two of the seven śamana methods in AH Su. 14.6; not synonyms for śamana.

Renderings that do not hold

palliative therapy. The most common rendering, but 'palliative' in English medicine means symptom relief without cure; śamana is held to resolve the doṣic state.
suppressive therapy. Implies suppression of symptoms with later rebound; the Sanskrit (śama = calming/equalizing) does not.
conservative therapy (WHO ITA-9.1.38). Imports surgical vs conservative dichotomy; serviceable, but 'conservative' can also mean 'watchful waiting'.

Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.

Verse numbers for AH Su. 14.4-6 and 1.25 should be confirmed in a printed Sanskrit edition; the web pages used do not name their edition.
Whether Bhishagratna himself uses 'palliative' in Su.Su. 39 body text or only 'soothing'; the wisdomlib chapter heading may be editorial.

How to cite this entry

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, śamana, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/shamana/, 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.