# srotāṃsi (स्रोतांसि)

> Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/srotamsi/

An Ayurvedic technical term, rendered into English in 4 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 | srotāṃsi |
| Devanagari | स्रोतांसि |
| Also written | srotāṃsi, srotansi, srotamsi, sroto-, srotasāṃ (gen. pl., स्रोतसां) |
| Category, as gathered | srotas-concept |
| Grouped under | Body: tissues, wastes and channels |
| 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.

### channels (plural)

Grammatical fact, not a source rendering · nominative/accusative plural of the neuter s-stem srotas · lexical · our paraphrase of the source, not its words

srotāṃsi is NOT a separate concept from srotas. It is the plural. It has acquired the look of a technical term in English-language Ayurveda writing only because the two most-quoted sentences in the corpus happen to use the plural form (Ca.Vi.5/3 'srotāṃsi khalu pariṇāmam āpadyamānānāṃ dhātūnām abhivāhīni bhavanti' and the gloss 'sravaṇāt srotāṃsi'). A lexicon should hold this entry as a cross-reference to srotas, not as a definition.

### the ducts (plural, throughout)

Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (public domain) · Vimana Sthana Lesson V · public-domain-translation

Kaviratna makes no lexical distinction between the singular and plural; he translates both as 'the ducts'.

### no separate entry

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · The glossary index carries exactly one entry, 'srotaḥ ITA-2.5.1'. There is no srotāṃsi headword. · standards-body

Verified by full-text search of the WHO ISTA PDF. WHO lemmatises to the singular. This is itself the useful finding for this record.

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.

### no separate entry expected

NAMASTE / ICD-11 · not verified · standards-body · our paraphrase of the source, not its words

Not checked; NAMASTE is behind registration. Given WHO lemmatises to srotaḥ, a separate plural headword would be unusual.

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

Sharma S et al., Int. Res. J. Ayurveda & Yoga 6(12):98-102 (2023) · DOI 10.47223/IRJAY.2023.61218, section 3.6 · modern-journal-review

The source's rendering is not reproduced here, because it is a modern translation and still in copyright.

Typical of how the plural gets reified in secondary literature. The underlying claim (that some sages hold the person to be nothing but the sum of the srotas) is Ca.Vi.5/4, where Charaka records the view and then REJECTS it.

## The classical passages

### Charaka Samhita Vimana Sthana 5:3, checked against the source

> स्रोतांसि खलु परिणाममापद्यमानानां धातूनामभिवाहीनि भवन्त्ययनार्थेन||३||

tr. none (Sanskrit mula text) · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php?title=Sroto_Vimana&action=raw

The sentence in which the plural srotāṃsi appears in its most-quoted form. Grammatically the plural is unremarkable; the sentence is the definition of srotas, not of a distinct thing called srotāṃsi.

### Charaka Samhita Vimana Sthana 5:4-5, checked against the source

> अपि चैके स्रोतसामेव समुदयंपुरुषमिच्छन्ति, सर्वगतत्वात् सर्वसरत्वाच्च दोषप्रकोपणप्रशमनानाम्| न त्वेतदेवं, यस्य हि स्रोतांसि, यच्च वहन्ति, यच्चावहन्ति,यत्र चावस्थितानि, सर्वं तदन्यत्तेभ्यः||४|| अतिबहुत्वात् खलु केचिदपरिसङ्ख्येयान्याचक्षते स्रोतांसि, परिसङ्ख्येयानि पुनरन्ये||५||

tr. none (Sanskrit mula text) · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php?title=Sroto_Vimana&action=raw

Charaka records the view that the person IS simply the aggregate of the srotas, and rejects it ('na tvetadevam'): the one whose srotas they are, what they carry, and where they are situated are all other than the srotas. He then records the dispute over whether they are countable or uncountable. Directly relevant because the reified plural 'srotamsi' is usually deployed in support of the view Charaka rejects.

### Charaka Samhita Vimana Sthana 5:4, corrected against the source

> Then, again, some sages say that a person is only the sum total- of the ducts, because of the ducts being present in every part of the body,, and because also of the duets being the conduits of both the excitements and the alleviations- of the faults. This, however, is not so. Since he whose ducts they are, that which they develop ( or nourish ), and that in which they are located, — all these are differ- ent from them.

tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · https://archive.org/stream/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt

Kaviratna's English of the rejection. OCR artifacts ('duets' for 'ducts') are in the archive.org text as retrieved and are reproduced unaltered.

### Charaka Samhita Vimana Sthana 5:7, checked against the source

> तद्यथा प्राणोदकान्नरसरुधिरमांसमेदोस्थिमज्जशुक्रमूत्रपुरीषस्वेदवहानीति

tr. none (Sanskrit mula text) · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php?title=Sroto_Vimana&action=raw

Charaka's enumeration of the thirteen srotāṃsi: prāṇa, udaka, anna, rasa, rudhira, māṃsa, medas, asthi, majjā, śukra, mūtra, purīṣa, sveda, all as -vahāni compounds. The same verse adds that vata, pitta and kapha move through ALL the channels and have none of their own.

## Not to be confused with

- **srotas.** Not a different concept. srotāṃsi is the plural of srotas. Treating it as a separate headword with its own definition is a category error that a lexicon should actively correct.
- **srotasāṃ (स्रोतसां).** The genitive plural, as in 'srotasāṃ vimāna' (the title of Ca.Vi.5) and 'srotasāṃ duṣṭilakṣaṇam' (Ca.Vi.5/24). Another inflected form that occasionally gets quoted as though it were a term.

## Renderings that do not hold

- the Srotamsi (as a proper noun / a named system). Capitalising and treating the plural as the name of a system implies a technical distinction from srotas that does not exist in Sanskrit.
- the body is nothing but srotamsi. Frequently offered as Charaka's doctrine. Charaka Vi.5/4 states this as the opinion of 'some' and then explicitly denies it ('na tvetadevam').

## Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved.

- Whether any classical commentator draws a substantive distinction between the singular and plural uses. I found no evidence of one, but I did not read Chakrapani on Vi.5.

## Citation

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, "srotāṃsi", https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/srotamsi/, 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.