Charaka Samhita

The Charaka Samhita — literally "the compendium (samhita) of Charaka" — is the most famous of the foundational texts of Ayurveda. Compiled and reworked over several centuries around the beginning of the common era, and attributed to the physician Charaka, who is said to have revised an older teaching (that of Agnivesha), it is the reference work of kayachikitsa, internal medicine.

The text comprises eight sections and one hundred and twenty chapters, in Sanskrit, mixing prose and verse. It contains the core of the theory still taught today: the three doshas, agni and ama, the six tastes, the classification of constitutions, the pharmacopoeia — but also a detailed medical ethics and a remarkably modern idea: health is preserved first through lifestyle, diet and prevention, before any treatment. It is also the source of the great practical typologies, such as the incompatible food combinations (viruddha ahara).

Together with the Sushruta Samhita (surgery) and the Ashtanga Hridayam (synthesis), it forms the "great triad" (brihat trayi) of classics that every Ayurveda student still studies, often by heart. Complete English translations exist, though most readers first meet the text through modern overviews — see our selection of books for learning Ayurveda and our account of the history of Ayurveda.