# Navara-kizhi (Rice-Bolus Fomentation)

> Navara-kizhi is a Kerala bolus fomentation. The record describes ṣaṣṭika-śāli rice cooked in milk with bala decoction, tied into muslin boluses, dipped in the warm milk-decoction and applied in rhythmic strokes. It is done to you by trained therapists in a clinic, not something performed at home.

## Key facts

- **Sanskrit name:** Navara-kizhi

## What it is

Navara-kizhi is a piṇḍa sveda, a fomentation given with warm boluses rather than with steam or a bath. The record files it as an external procedure (kriyā-bāhya) in the piṇḍa subcategory and glosses it as "rice-bolus piṇḍa-svedana".

The name is Malayalam: kizhi is the bolus, and navara (also written njavara) is the local name for the sixty-day rice. The Sanskrit name for the same procedure is ṣaṣṭika-śāli piṇḍa sveda, literally sixty-rice-bolus-sweating.

## Where it sits in the classical literature

The record cites Sahasrayogam. Sahasrayogam is a Kerala compendium of roughly a thousand formulations, and its chapters are organised by preparation type: kaṣāya, ghṛta, taila, cūrṇa, ariṣṭa, āsava, lehya and a pariśiṣṭa appendix. It is a formulary rather than a manual of procedures, and we could not confirm that it contains a description of navara-kizhi, so the citation is left unverified.

The wider classical frame is easier to place. Caraka Sūtrasthāna 14 lists thirteen fire-based (sāgni) svedas, and defines saṅkara sveda at verse 41 as the local sudation "carried out with the lumps prepared of articles mentioned above, either wrapped in a cloth or unwrapped", which is the bolus method. Published reviews of the procedure place ṣaṣṭika-śāli piṇḍa sveda within that saṅkara or piṇḍa sveda category.

## What it involves

The record gives two steps.

First, ṣaṣṭika-śāli rice is cooked in milk together with bala-kvātha, a bala decoction, and the cooked rice is tied into muslin boluses.

Second, the boluses are dipped in the warm milk-decoction and applied over the body in rhythmic strokes.

That is the whole of the recorded procedure. There is no preparation step, no aftercare step, no session length, no number of days, no frequency and no season in the record.

## What is used

Ṣaṣṭika-śāli, the rice harvested in sixty days, is the material of the bolus. Milk is the cooking and dipping medium. Bala supplies the decoction; a widely used secondary Ayurvedic reference identifies the bala used here as the root of Sida cordifolia. Muslin cloth ties the boluses.

The record's own dravya and oil fields are empty, so all of these come from the wording of the two procedure steps rather than from a curated ingredient list.

## What to ask before booking

This is a treatment applied to you by therapists, and the record is silent on nearly everything a person would want settled in advance. It gives no temperature for the boluses or the decoction, no session length, no course length, no frequency, no season, no contraindications and no adverse events.

So those are the questions for the clinic: how hot the boluses run and how the temperature is checked, how long a session lasts, how many sessions are being proposed, who prepared the rice and the decoction and when, and what they consider a reason not to give it. A clinic that answers those precisely is telling you something useful about how it works.

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Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/practice/navara-kizhi/

Published by Age Ayurveda in the Nighantu. Educational reference only, not medical advice.
Incorporates material from the Amidha Ayurveda Herb Database under CC BY 4.0.