śārīrika-roga: what the term means and how it is translated
śārīrika-roga शारीररोगः 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 | śārīrika-roga |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | शारीररोगः |
| Also written | sharira roga, śārīra-roga, sharirika vyadhi, sharira vyadhi, kayika roga |
| Category, as gathered | disease-kinds |
| Grouped here under | Causation and the course of disease |
| Classical citations | 7 |
| 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.
Three types of somatic disease
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.2.7, Sanskrit headword trividha-śārīrika-rogaḥ, description: 'A threefold classification of somatic diseases based on vitiation of vata, pitta and kapha.' · standard
WHO's entry is for the threefold division, not for the bare class term, and its content maps directly onto Cha.Ni.1/4 (agneya, saumya, vayavya). 'Somatic' is WHO's English.
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.
Somatic cause
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.4.7, Sanskrit headword śārīrikahetuḥ (शारीरिकहेतुः), description: 'Causes leading to disturbances in the anatomy and physiology of the body.' · standard
Confirms WHO's gloss of the element sharirika as 'somatic' outside the disease-class context.
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.
Bodily (Sharira)
Sushruta Samhita, trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna · Sutrasthana ch. I, 'Disease:—its Definition' · translation (public domain)
Bhishagratna's rendering in the fourfold list.
Diseases due to irregularities in food or drink, or incidental to a deranged state of the blood, or of the bodily humours acting either singly or in concert, are called Sharira.
Sushruta Samhita, trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna · Sutrasthana ch. I, explanation of the four types · translation (public domain)
Important: Bhishagratna's sharira is defined by CAUSE (food, drink, deranged humours and blood), not by seat. So Sushruta's sharira overlaps Charaka's nija far more than the English words 'bodily' and 'endogenous' suggest.
Physical ailments, as regards their nature, are of three kinds, viz., 'Agneya', 'Saumya,' and 'Vayavya' ; in other words, these relate to bile, phlegm and wind.
Charaka Samhita, trans. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · translator's footnote to Nidana Sthana ch. 1 (his aphorism 2, = Ni.1/4 modern) · translation (public domain)
Kaviratna's English for the somatic triad is 'Physical ailments'. This is his own note, not the text, and is labelled as such.
somatic disease
common BAMS/textbook rendering · textbook usage · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
The dominant modern rendering, and the one WHO adopted.
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 1:24 · checked against the source
ते चतुर्विधाः- आगन्तवः, शारीराः, मानसाः, स्वाभाविकाश्चेति ||२४||
śārīra as the second of Sushruta's four classes of vyadhi, with printed verse number.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 1:25 · checked against the source
तेषामागन्तवोऽभिघातनिमित्ताः शारीरास्त्वन्नपानमूला वातापित्तकफशोणितसन्निपातवैषम्यनिमित्ताः
Sushruta defines śārīra as anna-pāna-mūla and caused by vaiṣamya of vata, pitta, kapha and śoṇita. A cause-based, not seat-based, definition.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 1:26 · checked against the source
त एते मनःशरीराधिष्ठानाः ||२६||
All four classes have manas and sharira as their adhishthana (seat). This is the verse that makes sharira function as a SEAT in Sushruta as well as a class name, and it is the root of the ambiguity the lexicon has to flag.
Sushruta SamhitaSutrasthana 1 · checked against the source
The Mind and the Body are the seats of the abovesaid distempers according as they are restricted to either of them, or affect both of them in unison.
Quotable English for Su.Su.1/26. Verse number not printed on this page.
Charaka SamhitaSutrasthana 1:55 · checked against the source
शरीरं सत्त्वसञ्ज्ञं च व्याधीनामाश्रयो मतः| तथा सुखानां, योगस्तु सुखानां कारणं समः||५५|| / śarīraṁ sattvasañjñaṁ ca vyādhīnāmāśrayō mataḥ| tathā sukhānāṁ, yōgastu sukhānāṁ kāraṇaṁ samaḥ||55||
Charaka's two ashrayas of disease: sharira and sattva (mind). Together with Su.55's preceding verse (dvayāśrayāṇāṃ vyādhīnāṃ, Su.1/54) this is the Charaka anchor for the sharira/manas division of disease by seat.
Charaka SamhitaNidana Sthana 1:4 · checked against the source
अतस्त्रिविधा व्याधयः प्रादुर्भवन्ति- आग्नेयाः, सौम्याः,वायव्याश्च;-द्विविधाश्चापरे- राजसाः, तामसाश्च||४|| / atastrividhā vyādhayaḥ prādurbhavanti- āgnēyāḥ, saumyāḥ, vāyavyāśca; dvividhāścāparē- rājasāḥ, tāmasāśca||4||
The threefold somatic (agneya/saumya/vayavya) and twofold psychic (rajasa/tamasa) division. This is the verse behind WHO ISTA ITA-4.2.7 trividha-śārīrika-rogaḥ, although the verse itself does not use the word śārīrika.
Charaka SamhitaNidana Sthana 1:4 · checked against the source
From these arise three kinds of diseases, viz., those relating to Agni (heat), those relating to moon, and those relating to the wind. There are two other kinds of diseases, viz., those arising from the attribute of 'Rajas', and those from the attribute of 'Tamas.'
Quotable English for Cha.Ni.1/4. Kaviratna prints this as his aphorism 2; the verse number 4 is the modern one carried over from the verified Sanskrit.
Not to be confused with
- manasika-roga
- The complementary class by seat. Su.Su.1/26 and Cha.Su.1/55 both make sharira and manas the two seats, so this is the cleanest opposition of the seven terms. But Sushruta lists sharira and manasa as two of FOUR classes at 1/24 while also making both of them seats at 1/26, which is not a contradiction the texts resolve.
- nija-roga
- Charaka defines nija as śārīra-doṣa-samuttha, so nija is defined via sharira. Sushruta's sharira is defined by dosha-vaishamya, which is Charaka's nija. The two terms are close to coextensive in practice but belong to different classifications (cause vs seat) and should not be recorded as synonyms.
- kayika
- 'Bodily' in the sense used in ethics and in kaya-chikitsa. Kaya in Ayurveda also carries the specific sense of agni/metabolism, so 'kayika roga' is not a safe substitute for sharirika roga.
- sharirika-dosha (vata, pitta, kapha)
- WHO ISTA ITA-2.1.2 gives śārīrikadoṣa as a synonym of tridosha, i.e. sharirika there qualifies the DOSHAS, not the disease. The same adjective doing two jobs is a genuine retrieval hazard in any term index.
Renderings that do not hold
- physical disease. Reads in modern English as 'not psychological', importing a body/mind dualism that Su.Su.1/26 and Cha.Su.1/55 explicitly reject by allowing diseases that affect both seats 'in unison'. It is also the word Kaviratna used for nija, so it double-books.
- organic disease. A clinical term of art in Western psychiatry meaning 'with demonstrable physical pathology', opposed to 'functional'. Sharirika carries no such implication and the import smuggles in a contested Western distinction.
- somatoform / psychosomatic. Sharirika is precisely NOT the psychosomatic category. Confusingly, WHO ISTA attaches 'including all psychosomatic diseases' to a different term, ādhyātmikarogaḥ (ITA-4.2.11), which increases the risk of this slip.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Is śārīrika (with the -ika suffix) attested as a disease-class term in the samhitas, or only śārīra? Every classical instance I retrieved uses śārīra (शारीराः, शारीरदोषसमुत्थः); śārīrika appears in WHO ISTA and modern usage. The headword form may be post-classical.
- How do the commentators handle Sushruta listing sharira as a class at 1/24 and as one of two seats at 1/26?
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, śārīrika-roga
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/sharirika-roga/, 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.