---
type: Concept
bundle: ayurveda-consciousness
bundle_version: 0.11.0
id: guna
title: Guṇa
iast: Guṇa
devanagari: गुण
description: 'In Āyurveda, the twenty gurvādi properties in ten opposed pairs (heavy-light, cold-hot, unctuous-dry, and so on), the working vocabulary connecting substances to physiological effect; NOT the Vaiśeṣika category of quality treated in nyaya-vaisheshika v0.9, NOT the three cosmological guṇas of cosmology-creation v0.7, NOT vague qualities.'
darshana:
- Āyurveda
text_source: Charaka Sūtrasthāna 25.36
school_scope: ayurveda
tags:
- guna
- gurvadi
- pharmacology
- ayurveda
- school-contrast
not:
- term: 'the Vaiśeṣika category of quality (guṇa in nyaya-vaisheshika v0.9)'
  why: 'Same word, third distinct referent in the corpus. Vaiśeṣika guṇa is an ontological category, one of the seven padārthas, with twenty-four members like color and number. The Āyurvedic twenty are a pharmacological instrument: properties a physician reads off substances and states to predict effect. School-contrast, not duplication.'
  instead: 'Render the Āyurvedic list as the twenty gurvādi properties and keep the school context explicit whenever guṇa appears.'
- term: 'the three cosmological guṇas (v0.7)'
  why: 'Sattva, rajas, and tamas as strands of primal materiality belong to the Sāṃkhya-derived cosmology treated in cosmology-creation v0.7 and, medically repurposed, under mānasa-doṣa here. The twenty gurvādi properties are a different list doing different work.'
- term: 'vague qualities'
  why: 'The twenty are a closed, paired, technical list (Charaka Sūtrasthāna 25.36), operated through the like-increases-like principle. Treating them as loose adjectives dissolves the predictive machinery.'
related:
- /concepts/rasa.md
- /concepts/dosha.md
- /concepts/agni.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Guṇa -- गुण

**Not:** the Vaiśeṣika quality category of v0.9, the cosmological guṇas of v0.7, vague qualities

## What It Actually Means

The gurvādi guṇas are the twenty dials of Āyurvedic pharmacology, arranged as ten opposed pairs: heavy-light, cold-hot, unctuous-dry, dull-sharp, stable-mobile, soft-hard, clear-sticky, smooth-rough, subtle-gross, dense-liquid. Every substance, activity, season, and state can be read on these dials, and the system runs on one law: samānya-viśeṣa, like increases like and opposites reduce. Heavy food increases the heavy in you; dry weather increases the dry. Because doṣas, tissues, and drugs are all described in the same twenty-property vocabulary, the physician can compute a correction: read the derangement as a property profile, prescribe the opposing profile. This is the third distinct referent the word guṇa carries in this corpus, after the Vaiśeṣika ontological category (v0.9) and the cosmological strands (v0.7), and it is the flagship demonstration that school-contrast scales: one word, three theoretical instruments, no single canonical home.

## Audience Metaphor

Twenty sliders on a mixing desk, in ten linked pairs: push one up and its partner drops. Every ingredient of a life, meals, weather, work, sleep, slides some fader. The physician is the sound engineer reading the mix and pulling the opposing fader until the track sits right.

## Citations

1. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 25.36 listing the twenty śārīra guṇas -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
2. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 1.44 on samānya and viśeṣa, like increasing like -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
3. Cross-bundle note: the cosmological triguṇa this file distinguishes itself from (item 2 in the not: field) now has its doctrinal source-school treatment at sankhya-darshana v0.13's guna-samkhya.md -- still a fourth, unrelated referent to this Āyurvedic pharmacological sense
