Nineteen foundational terms — the vocabulary that makes the rest of Ayurveda navigable.
The body type of air + ether — movement, creativity, and variability.
Vata is one of three Ayurvedic body types (doshas). It governs movement in the body — circulation, breath, nerve impulses, elimination. Vata-dominant people are typically light-framed, quick-thinking, creative, and cold. When out of balance, Vata expresses as anxiety, insomnia, constipation, and dryness. Counterbalanced with warm grounding food, regular routine, and oil massage.
Read the full Vata page →The body type of fire + water — transformation, intensity, and metabolism.
Pitta governs transformation in the body — digestion, body temperature, intellect, vision. Pitta-dominant people are typically medium-build, sharp-minded, ambitious, and warm. When out of balance, Pitta expresses as irritability, heartburn, inflammation, and burnout. Counterbalanced with cooling food, paced work, and protective routines around heat.
Read the full Pitta page →The body type of earth + water — structure, stability, and lubrication.
Kapha governs structure and lubrication in the body — bones, joints, mucous membranes, immunity. Kapha-dominant people are typically sturdy, calm, methodical, and cool. When out of balance, Kapha expresses as weight gain, congestion, lethargy, and resistance to change. Counterbalanced with light spice-led food, vigorous movement, and early waking.
Read the full Kapha page →The three-body-type framework of Ayurveda — Vata, Pitta, Kapha.
Tridosha is the core organising principle of Ayurveda — every person is a unique combination of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, expressed as a percentage profile. Most people are dual types (e.g. Vata-Pitta or Pitta-Kapha). The Tridosha framework lets the same intervention be expressed differently for different bodies — why a meditation that calms one person agitates another.
Find your body type →Your constitutional body type — the percentage profile you were born with.
Prakruti is the body-type profile a person is born with — the genetic baseline of Vata, Pitta, Kapha proportions. It does not change over a lifetime. The 2-minute Body Type Assessment estimates your Prakruti by reading constitutional signs (build, digestion, sleep, stress response) that have remained stable since childhood.
Take the assessment →Your current state — what's out of balance right now, regardless of birth type.
Vikruti is the present-state imbalance — what's elevated or depleted today, this season, this month. A Pitta-Kapha person under work pressure can have Vata-Vikruti (anxiety, insomnia) even though their constitutional baseline is different. Vaidya tracks Vikruti through daily check-ins so the same person gets different recommendations in spring vs autumn.
Explore the Causes →Digestive fire — Ayurveda's word for digestive strength and metabolism.
Agni is the metabolic fire that transforms food into nutrition and clears waste. Strong Agni: comfortable meals, regular elimination, steady energy, clear skin. Weak Agni: bloating, fatigue, ama (toxic build-up). Each body type has a characteristic Agni signature — Vata Agni is irregular, Pitta Agni is sharp/acidic, Kapha Agni is slow.
Ayurveda for Digestion →Sanskrit for physician — and the name of InnerVeda's AI wellness companion.
Vaidya is the traditional Sanskrit term for a practitioner of Ayurveda — one who knows how the body changes across body type, season, and circumstance. InnerVeda's Vaidya is the AI wellness companion trained on classical Ayurvedic texts (Charaka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita, Ashtanga Hridaya) plus modern peer-reviewed research. Three-layer memory (session, profile, event log) makes Vaidya a continuous relationship, not a Q&A bot.
Meet Vaidya →Daily routine — Ayurveda's framework for living in rhythm with the body's clock.
Dinacharya means 'day-routine'. It maps the 24-hour cycle to body-type-relevant practices: when to wake, when to eat, when to exercise, when to rest. The 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine for circadian biology validates what Dinacharya has prescribed for 3,000 years — that physiology follows a daily clock, and aligning behaviour to it improves sleep, digestion, and energy.
Dinacharya guide →Seasonal routine — how diet and practice should shift across the year.
Ritucharya means 'season-routine'. Ayurveda divides the year into six seasons, each with characteristic effects on body type. Summer aggravates Pitta; autumn and early winter aggravate Vata; spring aggravates Kapha. Vaidya adjusts meal plans and practices seasonally — what calms you in July may not be what serves you in November.
Seasonal living →Taste — the first axis of Ayurvedic food classification (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, astringent).
Rasa is the immediate taste of a food. Ayurveda recognises six rasas, and a balanced meal includes all six. Each body type favours certain rasas: Vata likes sweet, sour, salty (warming, building); Pitta likes sweet, bitter, astringent (cooling); Kapha likes pungent, bitter, astringent (lightening).
Food guide →Energy potency — whether a food is heating or cooling on the body.
Virya is the post-digestion energy of a food — heating (ushna) or cooling (sheeta). Ginger is heating; coconut is cooling. Virya often matters more than taste: a sweet chilli (heating) and a sweet pear (cooling) behave very differently in the body. Pitta avoids heating; Kapha avoids cooling-and-heavy; Vata avoids cooling-and-dry.
Food guide →Post-digestion effect — what the food becomes after the gut has processed it.
Vipaka is the long-term effect of a food after digestion. Sweet vipaka is nourishing (most grains, milk, ghee); sour vipaka stimulates digestion (most fruits); pungent vipaka dries and lightens (most spices, raw onion, garlic). The same food can have different Rasa and Vipaka — chillies are pungent in rasa but pungent in vipaka too, doubling their drying effect.
Food guide →Quality — the texture or property of a food (heavy/light, dry/oily, hot/cold etc.).
Guna is the qualitative attribute of a food. Ayurveda lists 20 gunas (heavy/light, oily/dry, hot/cold, slow/sharp, etc.). Kitchari is light, oily, warm, soft — a near-universally balancing food. Pizza is heavy, oily, hot, hard — aggravating to all three doshas if eaten habitually. Vaidya classifies every food in the 300+ database by guna for personalised meal plans.
Food guide →Vitality essence — the substance Ayurveda associates with immunity, glow, and resilience.
Ojas is the refined essence produced when food is well-digested, sleep is deep, and emotions are stable. It manifests as immunity, complexion, and the felt sense of being well. Modern equivalents include adequate haemoglobin, healthy hormonal balance, and parasympathetic dominance. Ojas builds slowly with body-type-aligned routine and degrades quickly with stress and poor sleep.
Inner radiance — the refined essence of Pitta, associated with mental clarity and metabolic precision.
Tejas is the subtle counterpart to Pitta — refined fire that powers digestion, perception, and intellect. Healthy Tejas: sharp focus, decisive thinking, healthy enzymes. Excess Tejas: irritability, perfectionism, burnout. Cultivated by paced effort, cooling food, and sufficient sleep.
Life force — moved primarily through breath, the substance of vitality and animation.
Prana is the life force that moves through breath and circulates through subtle channels (nadis). Pranayama — breath regulation — is the direct method of working with Prana. Slow exhalation activates parasympathetic recovery; fast exhalation (Kapalabhati, Bhastrika) energises. Vaidya selects pranayama by body type and time of day.
Meditation library →The seven tissue layers — Ayurveda's map of how nutrition becomes body.
Sapt Dhatu lists the seven tissues built sequentially from food: rasa (plasma), rakta (blood), mamsa (muscle), meda (fat), asthi (bone), majja (marrow/nerve), shukra (reproductive tissue). Each takes longer to form than the last. Building deeper tissues — strong bones, fertile reproductive tissue — requires sustained good Agni over months, not days.
The three wastes — urine, stool, sweat — clues Ayurveda reads for current state.
Tri-Mala are the three primary waste products: mutra (urine), purisha (stool), sweda (sweat). Their consistency, frequency, and odour give an honest readout of current Agni and dosha state. Sticky, fragmented stool signals Vata imbalance; loose, hot, frequent stool signals Pitta excess; heavy, mucus-coated stool signals Kapha excess. The least glamorous data — and the most reliable.