vikṛti: what the term means and how it is translated
vikṛti विकृति is an Ayurvedic technical term. It is rendered into English in 5 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 | vikṛti |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | विकृति |
| Also written | vikruti, vikāra, vikṛtiḥ |
| Category, as gathered | prakriti |
| Grouped here 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. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
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. It is deliberately absent from the downloadable dataset, which is offered under CC BY 4.0 and invites the modification a NoDerivs licence forbids.
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
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 SamhitaVimanasthana 8:101 · checked against the source
vikr̥titaścēti vikr̥tirucyatē vikāraḥ| tatra vikāraṁ hētu-dōṣa-dūṣya-prakr̥ti-dēśa-kāla-balaviśēṣairliṅgataśca parīkṣēta||101||
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 SamhitaVimanasthana 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.
Public-domain English for Vi 8/101.
Charaka SamhitaVimanasthana 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.
The operational content: disease strength is graded strong / middling / weak by whether doṣa, dūṣya, prakṛti, deśa and kāla agree.
Sushruta SamhitaSharirasthana 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 this address.
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.
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 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. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- 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.
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, vikṛti
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/vikriti/, 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.