tejas: what the term means and how it is translated
tejas तेजस् (nominative तेजः) is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 6 different ways across 7 sources, 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 | tejas |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | तेजस् (nominative तेजः) |
| Also written | tejaḥ, agni (as bhūta name; WHO lists 'fire (tejas, agni)'), teja, anala, taijasa (adj., substance with tejas predominant), āgneya (Caraka's adjective for tejas-predominant dravya) |
| Category, as gathered | mahabhuta |
| Grouped here under | Foundations and categories |
| 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.
Fire element
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-1.9.3.1.5, p.17 (PDF p.35), IAST printed as 'Tejaḥ'; description: 'Responsible for heat, acts as the substratum for form and vision, perceived by the eyes.' · comparator standard
WHO's group entry gives 'fire (tejas, agni)', treating agni as an alternate name of the bhūta.
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.
fire element
NAMASTE Standardized Ayurveda Terminologies · SAT-A.181 tejaḥ; long definition: 'an entity which is responsible for heat'. NAMASTE also has SAT-D.3674 tejaḥ 'fiery' and SAT-D.3675 tejasvī 'person with radiant glow' as clinical descriptors. · comparator standard
Reproduced unaltered and attributed from the Government of India NAMASTE terminology, 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.
(no standalone tejas entry found in my scan) — adjectival use only: 'substances having teja as the predominant mahābhūta' (taijasa dravya)
NIA/WHO-APW draft (2011) · PDF p.324 · comparator draft terminology
The draft writes 'Teja' in its mahābhūta lists (BP0151, DG0202) and uses 'Agni Mahābhūta' freely elsewhere (e.g. p.21, 217, 237).
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.
fire (Teja)
Bhishagratna, Su.Sū. 41 · wisdomlib doc141671 · public-domain translation
heat, (fire,); 'Teji (fire or heat)'
Bhishagratna, Su.Śā. 1 · wisdomlib doc142879, sections 6 and 20: 'The properties of Teji (fire or heat) are form, the eyes, colours, heat, illumination, digestion, anger, generation of instantaneous energy and valour.' · public-domain translation
'Teji' is a misprint/variant on the wisdomlib page.
Fire; fire (or light); Heat
Kaviratna, Caraka · Sū. 26 'Fire'; Śā. 1 'fire (or light)'; Śā. 5 'Heat' with footnote: 'It should be noted that of the six ingredients, that which is called 'Tejas' is generally rendered either as 'light' or 'heat.' Properly speaking, 'Tejas' is 'energy.' The fact is, Light and Heat are convertible terms; in such a connection, what is meant is Fire— T.' · public-domain translation
Kaviratna himself flags the instability of 'light'/'heat'/'energy' and settles on 'Fire'.
fire
Common textbook usage · textbook usage · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
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.
Caraka SaṃhitāSūtrasthāna 26:Kaviratna prints '24' after this sentence; standard 26.11 (prose unit; Sanskrit clause उष्णतीक्ष्णसूक्ष्मलघुरूक्षविशदरूपगुणबहुलान्याग्नेयानि per carakasamhitaonline.com) · checked against the source
Those that are principally hot, keen, subtile, light, dry, and clear, and largely endued with the attribute of form, are regarded as appertaining to Fire.
Caraka's āgneya dravya profile: uṣṇa, tīkṣṇa, sūkṣma, laghu, rūkṣa, viśada, rūpa-guṇa-bahula. Note Caraka's adjective is āgneya (from agni), not taijasa.
Suśruta SaṃhitāSūtrasthāna 41:Bhishagratna prints no verse numbers; Sanskrit at siva.sh places this in verse 4 (see caveat in pañcamahābhūta record) · checked against the source
A thing or substance, which is heat-making, pungent and keen, subtle in its essence, permeates the minutest capillaries, and is dry, rough, light, and non-slimy in its character and has strong properties and a taste which is largely pungent marked by a shade of saline, is called a substance of the dominant principle of fire (Taijasam).
Suśruta's taijasa dravya profile; Sanskrit term here is तैजस (Su.Sū. 41.3 इदं तैजसम्).
Suśruta SaṃhitāŚārīrasthāna 1:Bhishagratna section 20; Sanskrit verse 19 per siva.sh · checked against the source
The properties of Teji (fire or heat) are form, the eyes, colours, heat, illumination, digestion, anger, generation of instantaneous energy and valour.
Tejas-derived bodily features including digestion (pakti), anger and valour; this is where tejas and agni (digestive) functions meet in the text.
Caraka SaṃhitāŚārīrasthāna 5:Kaviratna Sharirasthana Lesson V, his printed aphorism 4 (superscript 4 after '...and the Inner Self is Brahma.', vol. 1 p. 765); standard Trikamji Ca.Sa. 5.5, whose opening sentence Kaviratna folds into his 4 — तस्य पुरुषस्य पृथिवी मूर्तिः, आपः क्लेदः, तेजोऽभिसन्तापः, वायुः प्राणः, वियत् सुषिराणि, ब्रह्म अन्तरात्मा| ... ||५||. The six-dhatu list पृथिव्यापस्तेजो वायुराकाशं ब्रह्म चाव्यक्तमिति is standard 5.4, a separate sentence, and is NOT what this citation quotes. · checked against the source
the animal heat is Heat
Caraka's loka-purusa correspondence gives tejas a bodily correlate: तेजोऽभिसन्तापः, 'tejas [in the body] is abhisantapa', scorching, bodily heat. The Sanskrit term is abhisantapa; usma does not occur in this passage. Kaviratna renders the clause 'the animal heat is Heat'. His footnote on the English for tejas is translator's voice and belongs in the renderings and mistranslations blocks rather than here; it is also keyed to the preceding six-ingredient sentence (standard 5.4), not to this clause, and what it says is that tejas is generally rendered 'light' or 'heat', that 'properly speaking, Tejas is energy', and that 'in such a connection, what is meant is Fire', he offers 'energy' as the proper sense and 'Fire' only as what is meant in this context, so 'argues the right English is Fire' overstated him.
Not to be confused with
- agni (digestive/metabolic fire; jāṭharāgni, bhūtāgni, dhātvagni)
- Agni is the functional principle of digestion and transformation; tejas is the bhūta. WHO lists agni as an alternate name of the bhūta, which makes the distinction harder, not easier. NAMASTE SAT-D.118 'diminution of agni' is a clinical sign unrelated to the bhūta.
- pitta (doṣa)
- Pitta is the doṣa in which tejas predominates (NIA draft p.21 'dominant of Agni Mahābhūta'); not the bhūta itself.
- tejas as lustre/vitality (tejasvī, ojas-related usage)
- NAMASTE SAT-D.3674-3675 'fiery', 'person with radiant glow'; a descriptive/clinical sense distinct from the bhūta.
- light / energy
- Kaviratna's footnote shows translators oscillating between 'light', 'heat' and 'energy'; the bhūta's guṇa is rūpa (form/colour) and its liṅga uṣṇatva (heat), so neither 'light' nor 'energy' alone is adequate.
Renderings that do not hold
- energy. Kaviratna's footnote ('Properly speaking, Tejas is energy') is a translator's opinion of 1890s physics; not a textual rendering.
- light. Kaviratna 'fire (or light)'; tejas governs rūpa (visible form), so 'light' captures one guṇa but loses uṣṇatva and digestion.
- heat. Bhishagratna 'heat, (fire,)'; Kaviratna 'Heat' in Śā. 5; a liṅga, not the bhūta.
- Teji. Misprint on the wisdomlib Bhishagratna page; not a Sanskrit form.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Whether the 2022 WHO ISTA has a separate 'agni' entry distinct from ITA-1.9.3.1.5 was not checked.
- Why the 2011 NIA draft lacks a standalone tejas row while using 'Agni Mahābhūta' freely.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, tejas
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/tejas/, 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.