---
type: Concept
bundle: ayurveda-consciousness
bundle_version: 0.11.0
id: panchakarma
title: Pañcakarma
iast: Pañcakarma
devanagari: पञ्चकर्म
description: 'The five classical purification procedures (emesis, purgation, enema, errhine, bloodletting) applied to a prepared body under physician judgment; NOT a detox spa package, NOT a wellness retreat format, NOT karma in the moral, physical, or ritual senses treated elsewhere in the corpus.'
darshana:
- Āyurveda
text_source: Charaka Sūtrasthāna 2
tags:
- panchakarma
- purification
- therapy
- ayurveda
- karma
not:
- term: 'a detox spa package'
  why: 'Retreat marketing sells pañcakarma as massage-plus-juice. Classically the five karmas are strong evacuative procedures indicated for specific presentations, preceded by preparatory oleation and sudation and followed by graded rebuilding, all under physician judgment; the texts spend as much ink on who must NOT receive them as on who may.'
  instead: 'Render pañcakarma as the five purification procedures within a physician-governed sequence and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'a wellness retreat format'
  why: 'The retreat frame makes purification a lifestyle experience. In the classical system it is interventional medicine with indications, contraindications, and complications, positioned for when regimen and pacification are insufficient.'
- term: 'karma in the senses treated elsewhere in this corpus'
  why: 'Fourth distinct sense of the word in the corpus. Karma here means procedure, a therapeutic act, unrelated to moral action-and-consequence (dharma-foundation v0.1), Vaiśeṣika physical motion (nyaya-vaisheshika v0.9), and the enjoined ritual act (mimamsa-dharma v0.10).'
related:
- /concepts/ama.md
- /concepts/srotas.md
- /concepts/agni.md
- /concepts/rasayana.md
reception_note: 'Heavily commercialized as detox tourism. The file names the classical procedures without any procedural instruction, preparation, or dosage, and makes no clinical claims.'
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Pañcakarma -- पञ्चकर्म

**Not:** a detox spa package, a wellness retreat format, karma in the other corpus senses

## What It Actually Means

Pañcakarma is the interventional arm of classical therapeutics: five evacuative procedures, vamana (emesis), virecana (purgation), basti (medicated enema, itself the vāta therapy par excellence), nasya (errhine, through the nose), and raktamokṣaṇa (bloodletting, in the Suśruta enumeration), each matched to the doṣa and site it evacuates. The five sit inside a strict architecture: pūrvakarma prepares the body by oleation and sudation so that lodged doṣas and āma return to the gut for removal, the karma proper evacuates them, and paścātkarma rebuilds digestion by graded diet. The texts are as precise about contraindication as indication, which is exactly what the spa-package framing deletes. Note the word karma: here it means a therapeutic procedure, the fourth distinct sense the corpus now carries alongside the moral, kinetic, and ritual senses. This file names the procedures and deliberately contains no instruction.

## Audience Metaphor

A city does not dredge its river as a festival, and dredging is not sweeping the streets. It is scheduled engineering: survey first, water levels prepared, equipment matched to the silt, traffic rerouted, and the channel rebuilt to flow afterward. Pañcakarma is dredging, not housekeeping, and it is commissioned, not consumed.

## Citations

1. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 2 on the five procedures and their preparations -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
2. Suśruta Saṃhitā Cikitsāsthāna on the five karmas including raktamokṣaṇa -- see [references/sushruta-samhita.md](../references/sushruta-samhita.md)
