srotoduṣṭi: what the term means and how it is translated
srotoduṣṭi स्रोतोदुष्टि is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 7 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 | srotoduṣṭi |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | स्रोतोदुष्टि |
| Also written | sroto-duṣṭi, srotasāṃ duṣṭiḥ, srotoduṣṭiḥ, srotovaiguṇya (near-synonym, see khavaigunya record), srotodushti / srotodusti / sroto dushti (common Romanisations) |
| Category, as gathered | srotas-concept |
| Grouped here under | Body: tissues, wastes and channels |
| 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.
Types of body channel deformities
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · Entry ITA-4.8.4, section 4.8 Diagnosis: miscellaneous terms, p. 115; Sanskrit given as srotoduṣṭiprakāraḥ; description "The various types of the deformity affecting the body channels." · standards-body
Important finding: WHO ISTA has NO bare srotoduṣṭi headword. It carries only the compound forms srotoduṣṭiprakāraḥ (ITA-4.8.4) and srotoduṣṭihetuḥ (ITA-4.8.3). So the term the tradition uses most is not itself standardised by WHO.
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.
Functional alteration of body channels
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · Entry ITA-4.8.3, Sanskrit srotoduṣṭihetuḥ; description "A structural and/or functional alteration of the body channels due to vitiated dosha or ama." · standards-body
Note the mismatch: the Sanskrit is srotoduṣṭi-HETU (the CAUSE of channel vitiation) but the English term and description describe the alteration itself, not its cause. WHO also assigns the identical English term 'Functional alteration of body channels' to ITA-4.8.2 (srotovaiguṇyam). Two different Sanskrit terms, one English label. This is a defect in the standard and the lexicon should say so.
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.
vitiation of the ducts
Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna (public domain) · Vimana Sthana Lesson V, aphorism 31 (= Ca.Vi.5/24): "...are regarded as indications of the vitiation of the ducts." · public-domain-translation
The only public-domain English rendering. Kaviratna uses 'vitiation' throughout for duṣṭi/pradoṣa and 'excitement' for prakopa.
channel vitiation / vitiation of the body channels
Standard BAMS-textbook usage · ubiquitous · textbook-convention · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
The dominant convention. 'Vitiation' is itself an archaism inherited from the Victorian translators and is opaque to a modern reader.
obstructive pathology occurring in channels
Otta SP et al., J Complement Integr Med 19(1):155-160 (2021) · the source's own wording is not reproduced here: "Otta SP et al., J Complement Integr Med 19(1):155-160 (2021)" is not a source this project has cleared for quotation · modern-journal-case-report
This glosses SANGA-srotodushti specifically, not srotodushti generally. Cited here because it is a rare instance of a PubMed-indexed paper supplying an explicit English gloss.
histopathology
Sharma S et al., Int. Res. J. Ayurveda & Yoga 6(12):98-102 (2023) · DOI 10.47223/IRJAY.2023.61218, abstract: "without srotodusti (histopathology) no disease can occur" · modern-journal-review
Recorded because it is in print, not because it is defensible. Equating srotodushti with histopathology is an overreach; see mistranslations.
not verified
NAMASTE portal / ICD-11 TM2 · namaste.ayush.gov.in requires registration · standards-body · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
Unretrieved.
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 SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:24 · checked against the source
अतिप्रवृत्तिः सङ्गो वा सिराणां ग्रन्थयोऽपि वा| विमार्गगमनं चापि स्रोतसां दुष्टिलक्षणम्||२४||
THE defining verse. The four signs of srotoduṣṭi are atipravṛtti, saṅga, sirāṇāṃ granthayaḥ, and vimārgagamana. Note the text says 'sirāṇāṃ granthayaḥ' (knots OF the siras, genitive plural), NOT the single compound 'sirāgranthi'. The compound is a later textbook and WHO form. Also note the verse says duṣṭi-LAKṢAṆAM, the SIGNS of vitiation, not the types; the widespread phrase 'four types of srotodushti' is an interpretive step beyond the wording.
Charaka SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:Kaviratna's aphorism 31 (= Ca.Vi.5/24) · checked against the source
Excessive generation (or flow, of food-juice, blood, and other ingredients of the body), or stoppage or attenuation (of these), or cystic tumours, or diviations (of the elements from their own into other channels), are regarded as indications of the vitiation of the ducts.
The only lawfully quotable English of the defining verse. CRITICAL CAVEAT: Kaviratna's rendering does not map cleanly onto the received Sanskrit. He has FOUR items but adds 'or attenuation' alongside 'stoppage' for saṅga, and renders sirāṇāṃ granthayaḥ as 'cystic tumours'. 'diviations' is an OCR artifact for 'deviations'. Kaviratna worked from a Gangadhara-influenced Bengal recension (he repeatedly contrasts 'Gangadhara's reading' with 'the vicious Bengal texts' in this very chapter), so a variant reading is the likely explanation.
Charaka SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:9 · checked against the source
तेषां प्रकोपात् स्थानस्थाश्चैव मार्गगाश्च शरीरधातवःप्रकोपमापद्यन्ते, इतरेषां प्रकोपादितराणि च| स्रोतांसि स्रोतांस्येव, धातवश्च धातूनेव प्रदूषयन्ति प्रदुष्टाः| तेषां सर्वेषामेव वातपित्तश्लेष्माणः प्रदुष्टा दूषयितारो भवन्ति, दोषस्वभावादिति||९||
The propagation rule: vitiated srotas vitiate other srotas, vitiated dhatus vitiate other dhatus, and the vitiators of all of them are the vitiated vata, pitta and kapha 'by the very nature of dosha'. This is the mechanism clause that most English definitions of srotodushti omit.
Charaka SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:Kaviratna's aphorisms 15-16 (= Ca.Vi.5/9) · checked against the source
After the same manner, the ducts that become vitiated, vitiate other ducts. Similarly, those constituent elements that become vitiated, vitiate other constituents ( of the body ) Of all those ducts and constituent elements vitiated wind, bile, and phlegm become vitiators in consequence of their very nature as faults.
Kaviratna's English of the propagation rule. He renders dosha as 'faults' and vata/pitta/kapha as 'wind, bile, and phlegm' throughout.
Charaka SamhitaVimana Sthana 5:23 · corrected against the source
Such food, and such practices, as correspond with the qualities of the faults, and as are hostile to the ingredients (dhdtus) of the body, are vitiators of the ducts.
The general srotodushti-hetu rule (the passage WHO ISTA labels srotoduṣṭihetuḥ at ITA-4.8.3): whatever is dosha-like in quality and dhatu-hostile vitiates the channels. Preceded in Kaviratna by channel-specific causes for each of the thirteen.
Not to be confused with
- khavaiguṇya / srotovaiguṇya
- The tradition orders them: khavaiguṇya is the pre-existing susceptibility or defect in the channel; srotodushti is what happens when dosha and dushya then combine there. The CSNE Kha vaigunya article states the distinction explicitly ('it is different from the vitiation of body channels (srotodushti)... This process of vitiation takes place at the site where Khavaigunya already exists'). WHO ISTA blurs it by giving srotovaiguṇyam and srotoduṣṭihetuḥ the SAME English term.
- srotorodha (स्रोतोरोध)
- WHO ISTA ITA-4.8.1 defines srotorodhaḥ as 'Obstructive pathology: a complete or partial obstruction in the body channels leading to their malfunctioning'. That is one mode of srotodushti (overlapping saṅga), not a synonym for the whole category.
- dhatu-pradoṣaja vikāra
- Ca.Vi.5/8 says that the signs of vitiation of the rasa-and-later channels have already been stated in Vividhashitapitiya (Ca.Su.28) as the signs of vitiation of the DHATUS themselves. Charaka deliberately does not give separate channel signs for those. So dhatu-pradoshaja vikara and the corresponding srotodushti are, for Charaka, the same sign set read two ways, not two independent findings.
- srotoviddha
- Sushruta Sharira 9/11-12 deals with a channel PIERCED by a weapon and the symptoms that follow. That is traumatic injury, a surgical category, not the dosha-mediated vitiation Charaka means by srotodushti.
Renderings that do not hold
- histopathology. In print (IRJAY 2023) but wrong. Histopathology is a tissue-level microscopic diagnostic method; srotodushti is a functional-pathological category defined by four flow behaviours, three of which (excess flow, obstruction, wrong-route flow) are not histological findings at all.
- the four TYPES of srotodushti. Ca.Vi.5/24 says duṣṭi-LAKṢAṆAM, signs. Charaka does not say they are mutually exclusive types, and clinically more than one is routinely present. WHO's own entry ITA-4.8.4 (srotoduṣṭiprakāraḥ, 'types') is the standards-body version of the same interpretive slide.
- channel blockage. Collapses the whole four-fold scheme into its saṅga member. Atipravṛtti is the opposite of blockage and vimārgagamana is orthogonal to it.
- inflammation of the channels. No inflammatory sense in duṣṭi; the word is 'spoiling, corruption, vitiation'. Nothing in Ca.Vi.5/24 corresponds to the cardinal signs of inflammation.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Why Kaviratna's text yields 'stoppage or attenuation' where the vulgate has only saṅga, is this a Gangadhara-recension variant, and does any printed edition carry a fifth item?
- Whether WHO's duplicate English term across ITA-4.8.2 and ITA-4.8.3 is an editorial error or deliberate.
- NAMASTE's rendering, unretrieved.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, srotoduṣṭi
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/srotodushti/, 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.