# Svedana (Sudation Therapy) > Svedana is Ayurvedic sudation: controlled therapeutic sweating, usually given after oleation and before the main purification procedures. A trained therapist chooses a method such as steam, a directed tube, a herbal bolus, a heated bed or a warm immersion, and stops once defined endpoints appear. ## Key facts - **Sanskrit name:** Svedana ## What it is Svedana is therapeutic sweating, induced deliberately and then stopped at a defined point. The source record files it under pūrva-karma, meaning a preparatory procedure rather than a main treatment in its own right, and Caraka's chapter on it places it in the same position: sudation follows oleation and is treated as a prerequisite to the pañcakarma purification procedures. Caraka indicates sudation in vāta and kapha conditions amenable to it, and distinguishes unctuous (snigdha) procedures for vāta-dominant presentations from dry (rūkṣa) ones for kapha-dominant presentations. ## Where it comes from in the classical literature Both citations in the record check out. Caraka Sūtrasthāna 14 is the Svedādhyāya, the chapter on sudation. Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya Sūtrasthāna 17 is the Svedavidhi Adhyāya, which sits immediately after Snehavidhi (chapter 16) and before Vamana-Virecana Vidhi (chapter 18), exactly where a preparatory sweating chapter belongs in that text's sequence. Caraka's chapter is considerably broader than modern clinic menus suggest. It enumerates thirteen thermal varieties of sveda, including bolus fomentation, hot-bed sudation, steam delivered through a tube, affusion with warm decoction, immersion, the jentāka hot-house, a heated stone slab, a trench of live coals and several buried-vessel methods. It then lists ten ways of inducing perspiration without fire at all: exercise, warm rooms, heavy clothing, hunger, excessive drinking, fear, wrath, plasters, war and sunshine. ## What it involves The record describes the procedure in two steps. First, the type is chosen per case: bāṣpa (steam box), nāḍī (tube), piṇḍa (bolus), prastara (described in the record as a stone bed) and avagāha (immersion). These map onto Caraka's varieties, with one wrinkle worth knowing: in Caraka's own enumeration prastara is a bed of heated grains or pudding covered with cloth, while the heated stone slab is listed as a separate variety. Second, the procedure is applied only until svedana-samyak-yoga, the sign that sudation has been correctly administered. The record gives three markers: rūkṣatā nivṛtti, śīta nivṛtti and jāḍya nivṛtti, that is, the cessation of dryness, of cold and of stiffness. Caraka's own wording is close: sudation is stopped "when the cold and the colicky pain have ceased, stiffness and heaviness of body have disappeared and softness and perspiration have set in." Afterwards the record specifies wiping the sweat, rest, and a warm water bath after thirty minutes. ## What is used The record names four dravyas commonly used: Daśamūla, Eraṇḍa, Sahacara and Nirguṇḍī. Of these, only eraṇḍa (the castor oil plant) appears in the translation of Caraka Sūtrasthāna 14 consulted here, among the plants used in sudation decoctions. The other three are practice-tradition attributions carried by the record, not verified against the chapter. ## Who should avoid it Caraka's chapter lists sudation as contraindicated for people with diminished body fluids, pitta disorders with diarrhoea, obesity, urinary anomalies and abdominal diseases, among a longer list of conditions. The same chapter describes what over-sudation looks like: provocation of pitta, fainting, prostration of the body, thirst, burning, weakness of voice and weakness of the limbs. These are the signs a therapist is watching for, and they are the reason the endpoint matters more than the duration. ## What to ask before booking Which sveda type is being proposed and why that one for your case; whether it is being given as snigdha or rūkṣa sudation and on what reasoning; what endpoint the therapist stops at, and whether they are stopping on a timer or on the samyak-yoga signs; and whether an oleation step precedes it, since the classical sequence puts sneha before sveda. --- Canonical version of this page: https://nighantu.ageayurveda.com/practice/svedana/ 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.