# sthānasaṃśraya (स्थानसंश्रय)

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

An Ayurvedic technical term, rendered into English in 3 different ways across 4 sources.
The renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken
to mean.

## Identification

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Transliteration | sthānasaṃśraya |
| Devanagari | स्थानसंश्रय |
| Also written | sthānasamśraya, sthanasamsraya, sthana samshraya, स्थानसंश्रयः, sthānasaṃśrayaḥ |
| Category, as gathered | kriyakala |
| Grouped under | Causation and the course of disease |
| 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.

### Stage of a dosha localizing outside its location

WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda · ITA-4.6.10 (sthānasamśrayaḥ), ch. 4, printed p. 114 · who-ista

WHO description, verbatim: 'The fourth stage of disease manifestation, when aggravated and migrant dosha lodges in a different location from its original one and gives rise to prodromal symptoms.' Re-read from the PDF. WHO is the only comparator located that builds the prodrome into the definition. WHO's printed IAST is 'sthānasamśrayaḥ' (with m, not ṃ).

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.

### the specific localities in which they are respectively confined in the course of their expansion (Sthana-samshrayam)

Sushruta Samhita, tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907) · Sutrasthana ch. XXI, summary verse · public-domain-translation

Bhishagratna does not give a noun; he paraphrases. Elsewhere in the same chapter he uses 'incarcerated', 'confined' and 'firmly ensconced'. The section heading on the retrieved page reads 'Stharna-Samshrayam:—', an OCR corruption of Sthana-Samshrayam, re-confirmed on the page and worth knowing if anyone searches that page by string.

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

easyayurveda.com (Dr Raghuram Y.S. / Dr J.V. Hebbar) · https://www.easyayurveda.com/2016/06/13/shat-kriya-kala-stage-wise-disease-management/ · practitioner-reference

The source's rendering is not reproduced here, because this project has not cleared that source for quotation.

String-matched on the retrieved page, with the page's curly apostrophes. Adds 'invasion' and names dhatu as the target, neither of which is in the compound. Typical of BAMS teaching, which pairs sthanasamshraya with khavaigunya.

### localization

siva.sh (machine-generated English layer) · https://www.siva.sh/sushruta-samhita/sutra-sthana/21/36 · machine-translation

LOW AUTHORITY, AI-generated.

## The classical passages

### Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 21:33, checked against the source

> अत ऊर्ध्वं स्थानसंश्रयं वक्ष्यामः । एवं प्रकुपितातांस्ताञ् शरीरप्रदेशानागम्य तांस्तान् व्याधीन् जनयन्ति । ते यदोदरसन्निवेशं कुर्वन्ति तदा गुल्म विद्रध्युदराग्निसङ्गानाहविसूचिकातिसारप्रभृतीञ्जनयन्ति; बस्तिगताः प्रमेहाश्मरीमूत्राघातमूत्रदोषप्रभृतीन्; ... तेषामेवमभिसन्निविष्टानां पूर्वरूपप्रादुर्भावः ; तं प्रतिरोगं वक्ष्यामः । तत्र पूर्वरूपगतेषु चतुर्थः क्रियाकालः ॥३३॥

Sanskrit mūla · https://www.siva.sh/sushruta-samhita/sutra-sthana/21/33

Defines the stage as doshas reaching particular bodily regions and generating the diseases proper to each, and expressly ties the fourth kriyākāla to the APPEARANCE OF PRODROMES (pūrvarūpaprādurbhāvaḥ ... pūrvarūpagateṣu caturthaḥ kriyākālaḥ). This is the verse behind WHO's inclusion of prodromes in ITA-4.6.10.

### Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 21:33, checked against the source

> Now we shall enumerate the names of the peculiar diseases, which are originated by the deranged and expanded humours, incarcerated in the different parts of the body. These humours, confined in the abdomen, give rise to Gulma (abdominal glands) tumours, internal abscesses ( Vidradhi ), abdominal dropsy, impaired digestion in the bowels, constipation (anaha), cholera (Visuchika) and dysentery.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907) · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-1-sutrasthana/d/doc122917.html

Bhishagratna's opening of the sthanasamshraya section. His disease equivalents here (cholera for Visuchika, dropsy, and syphilis later in the same passage) are 1907 colonial-medicine glosses and must not be carried into a modern lexicon.

### Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 21:33, checked against the source

> The aggravated and expanded humours, thus firmly ensconced in the different parts of the body, exhibit the premonitory symptoms of diseases which will be fully dealt with under their respective heads. The manifestation of these premonitory symptoms should be considered as the fourth occasion for medical treatment.

tr. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907) · https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-1-sutrasthana/d/doc122917.html

The stage-marker in English, confirming that the fourth occasion is defined by the appearance of premonitory symptoms, not by lodgement as such.

## Not to be confused with

- **pūrvarūpa.** WHO ITA-4.5.1's English term is 'Prodrome, premonitory symptoms', described as 'Recognition of the prodrome or set of premonitory, precursory symptoms, treatment of which can forestall manifestation of the disease; they are classified into two types depending on their nature.' (Sanskrit column: pūrvarūpam / पूर्वरूपम्, printed p. 109.) Sthānasaṃśraya is the dosha-side event, the lodgement; pūrvarūpa is the clinical output of that event. Su.Su. 21.33 links them (pūrvarūpaprādurbhāvaḥ) but does not equate them.
- **khavaiguṇya.** The pre-existing defect or weakness in a srotas or dhatu that lets the dosha lodge there. It is the enabling condition, not the stage. It is absent from the retrieved verses of Su.Su. 21 and is supplied by commentators and by teaching tradition.
- **dosha-dūṣya-sammūrchana.** The interaction of dosha with the tissue, often taught as what happens at this stage. It is a separate technical term and is not the compound sthānasaṃśraya.
- **prasara.** Migration versus settling. WHO's own wording, 'migrates outside its own location' (ITA-4.6.9) versus 'lodges in a different location... and gives rise to prodromal symptoms' (ITA-4.6.10), is the cleanest available statement of the difference.

## Renderings that do not hold

- 'infection' or 'colonization'. Imports an infectious-disease mechanism. Nothing in the compound or the verse involves an external organism; sthāna is a bodily site and saṃśraya is taking refuge in it.
- 'localization' used alone. Not wrong, but incomplete in a way that matters: it omits the prodrome, which is the criterion the text itself uses to mark the fourth kriyākāla (pūrvarūpagateṣu caturthaḥ kriyākālaḥ). WHO includes the prodrome; most short glosses do not.
- 'manifestation' or 'onset of disease'. Collides with vyakti, the fifth stage. At sthānasaṃśraya the disease is not yet manifest, only heralded.
- Reading Bhishagratna's disease equivalents as the referents. He renders Visuchika as 'cholera' and gives 'syphilis' in the penile-lodgement list. Those are 1907 identifications, not translations of the Sanskrit, and repeating them would put false modern diagnoses into the lexicon.

## Open questions

Recorded rather than resolved.

- Whether khavaiguṇya appears anywhere in Su.Su. 21 itself or only in Dalhana, I could not verify either way from the verses retrieved (21.16-21.38).
- Whether NAMASTE or ICD-11 TM2 codes the pūrvarūpa/sthānasaṃśraya stage at all, see the shat-kriyakala record for why both lookups failed again.
- Whether any source offers a way to tell lodgement from mere presence in a site, clinically.

## Citation

Age Ayurveda Nighantu, "sthānasaṃśraya", https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/sthanasamshraya/, 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.