# vikṛti (विकृति) > Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/vikriti/ An Ayurvedic technical term, rendered into English in 5 different ways. The renderings do not agree, and the difference between them changes what the term is taken to mean. ## Identification | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Transliteration | vikṛti | | Devanagari | विकृति | | Also written | vikruti, vikāra, vikṛtiḥ | | Category, as gathered | prakriti | | Grouped under | Regimen and constitution | | 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. ### Abnormal state WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.18 · standard 'Not typical, usual or regular; differing in any way from the normal state, structure or condition.' WHO pairs it against prakṛtiḥ at ITA-4.8.17 'Normal state, normalcy', so WHO's vikṛti is opposed to prakṛti-as-normalcy, NOT to prakṛti-as-constitution. 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. ### morbidity WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.7.5 item 2 · standard A much stronger word than 'abnormal state', for the same item, two chapters apart in the same document. 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. ### abnormal condition … a deviation from what is normal Charaka Samhita, tr. Kaviratna (1896-1913) · Vimanasthana 8 · translation Looser than the Sanskrit, and one route by which the modern 'deviation from your constitution' reading entered English. ### modifications (Vikara) Sushruta Samhita, tr. Bhishagratna (1907-1916) · Sharirasthana I · translation The Samkhya sense: an evolute, with no implication of disorder at all. ### current state of imbalance, as against prakriti the birth constitution Western popular and clinical Ayurveda usage · textbook · our paraphrase of the source, not its words Ubiquitous in Western practice and dosha-quiz software. This pairing is not how Vi 8/101 defines vikṛti, which equates it with vikāra, the disease itself. ## The classical passages ### Charaka Samhita Vimanasthana 8:101, checked against the source > vikr̥titaścēti vikr̥tirucyatē vikāraḥ| tatra vikāraṁ hētu-dōṣa-dūṣya-prakr̥ti-dēśa-kāla-balaviśēṣairliṅgataśca parīkṣēta||101|| Sanskrit mūla · https://www.carakasamhitaonline.com/index.php/Rogabhishagjitiya_Vimana The decisive sentence: vikṛtirucyatē vikāraḥ, vikṛti IS the disorder, examined through hetu, doṣa, dūṣya, prakṛti, deśa, kāla, bala and liṅga. prakṛti appears as one parameter BY WHICH vikṛti is assessed, which is not the same as vikṛti being a deviation from prakṛti. ### Charaka Samhita Vimanasthana 8:101, checked against the source > Next, as to abnormal conditions : an abnormal condition has been said to be a deviation from what is normal. tr. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · https://archive.org/download/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt Public-domain English for Vi 8/101. ### Charaka Samhita Vimanasthana 8:101, checked against the source > That disease is strong (or violent) in which the constituent elements (of the body, the faults, nature or normal condition), place (or seat of disease), and time (that is, season or age), draw an agreement with one another, but whose cause or causes and symptoms are possessed of strength. tr. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · https://archive.org/download/BIUSante_47357/BIUSante_47357_djvu.txt The operational content: disease strength is graded strong / middling / weak by whether doṣa, dūṣya, prakṛti, deśa and kāla agree. ### Sushruta Samhita Sharirasthana 1 **Quotation withheld:** nobody has yet read this quotation against its printed source, and an unchecked quotation is not published here. The passage is at https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-3-sharirasthana/d/doc142879.html The Samkhya prakṛti/vikāra pair as cause and evolute, with no pathological sense. Verse blank: the page prints '22-23' but that was not checked against a Sanskrit edition. ## The concept record for this term A term entry answers what the word means. It does not answer whether the thing the word names is settled, and often it is not. That is what the concept record is for: it sets out the questions on which the sources disagree about this term, with each position attributed, and states what is not established. - [Vikriti assessment (assessing the present deranged state)](https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/concept/vikriti-assessment/) ## Where this term does work in the theory One concept record names this term as one of its components, and glosses it there as follows. - **[Tridosha: vata, pitta and kapha as the regulatory principles of the body](https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/concept/tridosha-theory/)** (as Vikriti): The current deranged state of the doshas, distinguished from prakriti; what treatment addresses ## Not to be confused with - **prakṛti (constitution).** The popular pair treats vikṛti as a present doṣa reading against a birth reading. Vi 8/101 equates vikṛti with vikāra and lists prakṛti as one of eight parameters for grading it. - **prakṛti (normalcy, WHO ITA-4.8.17).** This is the prakṛti WHO opposes to vikṛti. Anyone citing WHO for the prakriti/vikriti pair is citing the normal/abnormal pair, not the constitution pair. - **vikāra.** Not a distinction at all in Vi 8/101, which says they are the same; but WHO treats them separately and later usage often reserves vikāra for the manifest disease. - **vikṛti in Samkhya.** An evolute of prakṛti; carries no disorder sense. - **doṣaprakopa.** Aggravation of a specific doṣa is a mechanism; vikṛti is the resulting disordered state examined as a whole. ## Renderings that do not hold - your current dosha imbalance. The most widespread error in this group. It makes vikṛti a second constitutional reading; Vi 8/101 makes it the disease. - imbalance. Too weak. vikāra in Charaka covers jvara, atīsāra, śoṣa, śvāsa, meha, kuṣṭha, named diseases. - deformity. A legitimate anatomical sense, wrong for Vi 8/101 where the word is being defined as morbidity in general. ## Open questions Recorded rather than resolved. - When and by whom was the prakriti/vikriti-as-paired-assessment framing introduced into English? It does not follow from Vi 8/101 and no source for it was found. ## Citation Age Ayurveda Nighantu, "vikṛti", https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/vikriti/, 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.