---
type: Concept
bundle: ayurveda-consciousness
bundle_version: 0.11.0
id: dinacharya
title: Dinacaryā
iast: Dinacaryā
devanagari: दिनचर्या
description: 'The daily regimen: a physician-designed sequence aligning physiology with the day cycle, from waking through hygiene, exercise, and meals to sleep; NOT a morning-routine listicle, NOT self-optimization content, NOT one-size ritual.'
darshana:
- Āyurveda
text_source: Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya Sūtrasthāna 2
tags:
- dinacharya
- regimen
- prevention
- ayurveda
not:
- term: 'a morning-routine listicle'
  why: 'Productivity culture strips the regimen to five habits of successful people. The classical dinacaryā is a complete physiological sequence with stated rationales: each act (rising before dawn, elimination, oral care, oleation, exercise to half capacity, bathing, meals) is timed to the doṣa phases of the day and justified by its effect on agni and the channels.'
  instead: 'Render dinacaryā as the daily regimen aligned to the doṣa phases of the day and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'self-optimization content'
  why: 'The frame is preventive medicine, not performance enhancement. The regimen exists because the doṣas cycle daily whether you attend to them or not, and alignment is cheaper than correction.'
- term: 'a one-size ritual'
  why: 'Every element is adjusted to constitution, age, season, and strength. The published uniform checklist is precisely what the individualized system refuses to be.'
related:
- /concepts/ritucharya.md
- /concepts/agni.md
- /concepts/prakriti.md
- /concepts/sadvritta.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Dinacaryā -- दिनचर्या

**Not:** a morning-routine listicle, self-optimization content, a one-size ritual

## What It Actually Means

Dinacaryā is medicine practiced before anything is wrong. The classical day is read as a doṣa clock: kapha dominates the early morning and evening, pitta the midday and midnight, vāta the transitions, and the regimen sequences the days acts to ride that cycle rather than fight it. Rise in the vāta hours before dawn when the mind is subtle; evacuate and clean the senses while kapha is heavy; exercise to half strength in the kapha morning; take the main meal at pitta noon when the fire is highest; wind toward sleep as kapha returns. Each item in the Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya chapter carries its medical reason, and the whole is calibrated to the individual constitution. The logic is compounding: a physiology aligned daily accumulates order the way a misaligned one accumulates āma, which makes dinacaryā the cheapest therapy in the system.

## Audience Metaphor

Sailors do not argue with the tide table; they schedule the harbor around it and spend the saved fuel elsewhere. Dinacaryā is the tide table of the body, and following it is not discipline for its own sake but seamanship.

## Citations

1. Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya Sūtrasthāna 2 on the daily regimen -- see [references/ashtanga-hridaya.md](../references/ashtanga-hridaya.md)
2. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 5 on the measured intake and daily conduct -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
