---
type: Concept
bundle: ayurveda-consciousness
bundle_version: 0.11.0
id: vega-dharana
title: Vegadhāraṇa
iast: Vegadhāraṇa
devanagari: वेगधारण
description: 'Suppression of the thirteen non-suppressible natural urges (adhāraṇīya vega) as a formal cause of disease, paired with the urges of mind and speech that SHOULD be restrained (dhāraṇīya); NOT prudish body-talk, NOT trivia about bathroom habits, NOT license for every impulse.'
darshana:
- Āyurveda
text_source: Charaka Sūtrasthāna 7
tags:
- vega
- adharaniya
- etiology
- ayurveda
not:
- term: 'prudish body-talk'
  why: 'The chapter is unembarrassed physiology: thirteen listed urges (urine, feces, semen, flatus, vomiting, sneezing, eructation, yawning, hunger, thirst, tears, sleep, and the breathing of exertion), each with the specific disorders its suppression produces and the corrective measures. It is an etiological table, not etiquette.'
  instead: 'Render vegadhāraṇa as suppression of the non-suppressible urges, a listed cause of disease, and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'bathroom trivia'
  why: 'Reading the chapter as quaint hygiene advice misses its structural role: suppression of natural urges stands beside prajñāparādha among the great self-inflicted causes, part of the systems claim that disease is often manufactured by overriding the bodys own signals.'
- term: 'license for every impulse'
  why: 'The same chapter draws the counter-list: the dhāraṇīya vegas, the impulses of greed, grief, fear, anger, vanity, and harmful speech and action, which SHOULD be restrained. The teaching is discrimination between signal classes, not indulgence.'
related:
- /concepts/prajnaparadha.md
- /concepts/vata.md
- /concepts/sadvritta.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Vegadhāraṇa -- वेगधारण

**Not:** prudish body-talk, bathroom trivia, license for every impulse

## What It Actually Means

Charaka Sūtrasthāna 7 legislates a distinction modern readers keep missing: some urges must never be suppressed, and some must always be. The thirteen adhāraṇīya vegas are the bodys non-negotiable signals, and holding them back, the text specifies disorder by disorder, deranges vāta first and then the system: suppressed urine has its disease list, suppressed sleep its own, suppressed tears its own. Against these stand the dhāraṇīya vegas, the impulses of mind, speech, and body (greed, grief, fear, anger, harsh speech, violence) whose restraint is the beginning of conduct. One word, vega, urge, split into a physiology you must obey and a psychology you must govern. The pairing is the whole ethic of the system in miniature: health is neither obedience to every impulse nor war against the body, but knowing which class of signal you are looking at.

## Audience Metaphor

A cockpit has two kinds of lights. Some are sensor warnings you must never override, silencing the low-fuel alarm does not refuel the plane, it schedules a crash. Others are impulses from the passengers to fly lower over the beach, which you must always override. Airmanship, and vega discipline, is never confusing the two panels.

## Citations

1. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 7 on the thirteen non-suppressible urges and their disorders -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
2. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 7.26-30 on the urges that should be restrained -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
