---
type: Concept
bundle: ayurveda-consciousness
bundle_version: 0.11.0
id: ritucharya
title: Ṛtucaryā
iast: Ṛtucaryā
devanagari: ऋतुचर्या
description: 'The seasonal regimen: diet and conduct adjusted season by season to the cycle of doṣa accumulation, aggravation, and pacification; NOT seasonal self-care content, NOT a diet plan, NOT folklore about weather.'
darshana:
- Āyurveda
text_source: Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya Sūtrasthāna 3
tags:
- ritucharya
- seasons
- prevention
- ayurveda
not:
- term: 'seasonal self-care content'
  why: 'Lifestyle media renders this as pumpkin-spice wellness. The classical apparatus is a three-beat pathophysiological cycle (caya, prakopa, praśama: accumulation, aggravation, subsidence) mapped across six seasons, with regimen designed to intercept each doṣa at the accumulation stage before it erupts.'
  instead: 'Render ṛtucaryā as the seasonal regimen keyed to the accumulation-aggravation-subsidence cycle and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'a diet plan'
  why: 'Food is one lever among many: the chapters adjust exertion, sleep, clothing, environment, and conduct alongside diet, because the season loads the whole organism, not just the plate.'
- term: 'weather folklore'
  why: 'The system states testable regularities: cold dry wind accumulates vāta which the rains aggravate; summer heat accumulates pitta which autumn aggravates. Folkloric readings miss that this is the preventive arm of a formal etiology.'
related:
- /concepts/dinacharya.md
- /concepts/dosha.md
- /concepts/agni.md
- /concepts/vikriti.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Ṛtucaryā -- ऋतुचर्या

**Not:** seasonal self-care content, a diet plan, weather folklore

## What It Actually Means

Ṛtucaryā extends the doṣa clock from the day to the year. Each season loads a doṣa (caya), the next season provokes it (prakopa), and a later one settles it (praśama): vāta accumulates in the hot dry season, erupts in the rains, settles in autumn; pitta accumulates in the rains, erupts in autumn; kapha accumulates in late winter, erupts in spring. The seasonal chapters legislate the interception: adjust diet, exertion, and conduct so that the accumulating doṣa is drained at the accumulation stage, before it flares into disease. Agni also swings with the year, strong in winter, weak in summer, and the regimen scales food to the fire actually available. The deep claim is ecological: the body is a seasonal system inside larger seasonal systems, and health is phase-alignment between the two.

## Audience Metaphor

A groundskeeper treats the lawn for grubs in early spring, not when the birds are tearing it up in July; by eruption the cheap intervention is gone. Ṛtucaryā is grub-calendar medicine: act at accumulation, and the eruption never books an appointment.

## Citations

1. Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya Sūtrasthāna 3 on the seasonal regimens -- see [references/ashtanga-hridaya.md](../references/ashtanga-hridaya.md)
2. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 6 on seasonal conduct -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
