vyādhikṣamatva: what the term means and how it is translated
vyādhikṣamatva व्याधिक्षमत्व 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 | vyādhikṣamatva |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | व्याधिक्षमत्व |
| Also written | vyādhikṣamatvam, vyādhibalavirodhitva (commentarial synonym), vyādhyutpādapratibandhakatva (commentarial synonym), bala (WHO pairs the two under one ID) |
| Category, as gathered | physiology-pathology (host resistance) |
| Grouped here under | Body: tissues, wastes and channels |
| 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.
Immunity, strength, physical endurance
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-2.2.27 (Sanskrit term given as 'balam, vyādhikṣamatvam'); description: 'This is classified into three types: innate strength, acquired strength and seasonal strength' · who-ista
WHO merges bala and vyādhikṣamatva into a single entry here, which is a substantive lexical decision, not a neutral gloss.
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.
Inherent capacity of the body to resist diseases
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-4.8.25; description: 'The inherent resisting power of the body, which strives to arrest the occurrence, progress and re-occurrence of diseases.' · who-ista
WHO gives the SAME English head-term to three different Sanskrit words (ITA-4.8.25 vyādhikṣamatvam, ITA-4.8.26 vyādhibalavirodhitatvam, ITA-4.8.27 vyādhyutpādapratibandhakatvam), separating what Chakrapāṇi treats as synonyms.
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.
Immunity
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Ayurveda (2022) · ITA-10.3.9 (health-promotion chapter), Sanskrit 'vyādhikṣamatva', no description text given · who-ista
Third WHO entry for the same word, in a third chapter, with a third English term. The same term is rendered three ways inside one 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.
Immunity; ... the power of the body which prevents the development of diseases or resists a developed disease
National Institute of Ayurveda / WHO-APW glossary, 'Standardization of non-clinical terminologies of Ayurveda' · SV0328 · glossary
Draft Indian glossary prepared under a WHO agreement; predates and differs in framing from the 2022 WHO ISTA. Provenance of the local copy of this PDF was not re-established, so treat the locator as indicative.
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.
capable of resisting diseases / incapable of resisting diseases (of bodies)
Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · Sūtrasthāna ch. 28, his verses 13-14; 'These bodies which are the reverse of those described above are capable of resisting diseases.' · public-domain-translation
Kaviratna has no noun for vyādhikṣamatva; he renders it only predicatively, of bodies.
All bodies, again, are not equally liable to disease.
Charaka Samhita, tr. Avinash Chandra Kaviratna · Sūtrasthāna ch. 28, his verse 11 (= CS Sū. 28.7 in modern numbering) · public-domain-translation
This renders 'na ca sarvāṇi śarīrāṇi vyādhikṣamatve samarthāni bhavanti'. Kaviratna inverts the polarity: the Sanskrit says bodies are not all CAPABLE of resistance; he writes they are not all LIABLE to disease. Semantically close, logically not identical.
immunity / disease resistance / resistance to disease
Standard Indian BAMS textbook and journal usage · ubiquitous in Ayurvedic periodical literature, e.g. PMID 24501524 title uses the untranslated term · textbook · our paraphrase of the source, not its words
The commonest working rendering; carries immunological baggage the classical term does not.
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 Samhita (Agniveśa, with Cakrapāṇidatta's Āyurvedadīpikā)Sūtrasthāna 28 (Vividhāśitapītīya):28.7 · checked against the source
na hi sarvāṇyapathyāni tulyadoṣāṇi na ca sarve doṣāstulyabalā na ca sarvāṇi śarīrāṇi vyādhikṣamatve samarthāni bhavanti
The locus classicus. The word appears not as a defined entity but inside a triple denial: not all unwholesome things are equally harmful, not all doṣas equally strong, and not all bodies capable of vyādhikṣamatva.
Cakrapāṇidatta, Āyurvedadīpikā commentary on Charaka Samhita Sūtrasthāna 28.7Sūtrasthāna 28:commentary gloss no. 10 on 28.7 · checked against the source
vyādhikṣamatvaṃ vyādhibalavirodhitvaṃ vyādhyutpādapratibandhakatvamiti yāvat
Chakrapāṇi EQUATES vyādhikṣamatva with vyādhibalavirodhitva and with vyādhyutpādapratibandhakatva. WHO ISTA splits these same three words into three separate term IDs with different definitions. This is the single most important disagreement in the record.
Charaka Samhita, tr. Kaviratna (public domain)Sūtrasthāna 28:Kaviratna's verses 11-14 (= modern 28.7) · checked against the source
All bodies, again, are not equally liable to disease. ... are incapable of resisting diseases.13 These bodies which are the reverse of those described above are capable of resisting diseases.
The earliest English rendering available for lawful quotation; shows the term was not treated as a technical noun in 1900.
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.
- Ojas and the Ayurvedic Account of Resistance to Disease as Vyadhikshamatva
- The capacity both to resist the onset of disease and to withstand it once present. The term closest in function to 'immunity', though broader.
Not to be confused with
- bala
- WHO ISTA ITA-2.2.27 lists both words under one entry, but bala is the positive capacity (classified sahaja / yuktikṛta / kālaja) while vyādhikṣamatva in CS Sū. 28.7 is specifically the body's competence to withstand disease. Every bala is not vyādhikṣamatva; Chakrapāṇi defines the latter by what it obstructs.
- vyādhibalavirodhitva
- Chakrapāṇi says they are the same thing (see quote). WHO ISTA ITA-4.8.26 makes it a separate entry, 'A natural, nonspecific type of immunity which defends the body whenever any disease occurs for the first time', an innate-immunity reading with no classical warrant given. A lexicon must not silently adopt either position.
- vyādhyutpādapratibandhakatva
- Again a Chakrapāṇi synonym, but WHO ISTA ITA-4.8.27 defines it separately as 'The defence mechanism of the body which intervenes to resist the occurrence or re-occurrence of diseases'.
- ojas
- Ojas is a substance-like entity (the essence of the dhātus); vyādhikṣamatva is a capacity predicated of the śarīra. Modern papers routinely conflate them; CS Sū. 28.7 does not mention ojas.
- immunity (biomedical)
- The biomedical term denotes a specific organ-system. CS Sū. 28.7's account of bodies unable to resist is anatomical and nutritional (too fat, too thin, undeveloped flesh/blood/bone, weak, sustained on unsuitable food, on very little food, of little vitality) — nothing immunological.
Renderings that do not hold
- immune system. Turns a capacity into an anatomical system. Nothing in CS Sū. 28.7 or in Chakrapāṇi's gloss individuates a system; the qualifying factors listed are body habitus, tissue quality, diet and sattva.
- immunity (unqualified). Defensible as shorthand and used by WHO ISTA, but it imports specificity/memory/antigen concepts. The classical term also covers resistance to non-infectious causation (apathya āhāra, prajñāparādha), which 'immunity' excludes.
- immunity booster. Marketing usage. It treats vyādhikṣamatva as a quantity that can be raised by a product, whereas the classical passage treats it as a standing property of the constituted body.
- resistance to infection. Narrows the term to infectious disease; the Charaka context is about vyādhi in general arising from diet and other rogaprakṛtis.
Open questions
Recorded rather than resolved. Each one is something this entry cannot currently settle.
- Does any classical text other than Charaka use the word vyādhikṣamatva? Not found in the GRETIL Charaka-parts corpus beyond Sū. 28.7 and its commentary; Sushruta was not searched exhaustively for it.
- Whether WHO ISTA's three-way split (ITA-4.8.25/26/27) rests on any commentarial authority, or is an editorial invention contradicting Chakrapāṇi.
- Whether NAMASTE assigns a code to vyādhikṣamatva (portal unreachable).
How to cite this entry
Age Ayurveda Nighantu, vyādhikṣamatva
, https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/lexicon/vyadhikshamatva/, 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.