---
type: Concept
bundle: ayurveda-consciousness
bundle_version: 0.11.0
id: pitta
title: Pitta
iast: Pitta
devanagari: पित्त
description: 'The transformative doṣa, the principle of conversion and processing, governing digestion, metabolism, thermoregulation, vision, and discriminative cognition; NOT bile, NOT body heat as such, NOT an angry personality type.'
darshana:
- Āyurveda
text_source: Charaka Sūtrasthāna 18.50
tags:
- pitta
- dosha
- transformation
- ayurveda
not:
- term: 'bile'
  why: 'The humoral translation fixed pitta to one secretion. Bile is at most one gross expression of pitta in the digestive tract; the doṣa itself is the principle of transformation wherever anything is converted, food into tissue, light into sight, information into judgment.'
  instead: 'Render pitta as the transformative principle and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'body heat'
  why: 'Pitta manifests heat because transformation releases it, but equating pitta with temperature reduces a processing principle to a thermometer reading.'
- term: 'an angry personality type'
  why: 'Pop-Āyurveda sells pitta as the intense achiever. The classical referent is the conversion function, with named subdivisions for digestion (pācaka), vision (ālocaka), complexion (bhrājaka), discrimination (sādhaka), and coloration (rañjaka).'
related:
- /concepts/dosha.md
- /concepts/agni.md
- /concepts/rasa.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Pitta -- पित्त

**Not:** bile, body heat, an angry personality type

## What It Actually Means

Pitta is the doṣa of transformation. Wherever the body converts one thing into another, food into nutrient, nutrient into tissue, photon into perception, percept into judgment, pitta is the operating principle. It works hand in glove with agni, the fire of transformation: classical texts treat pitta as the vessel and agent through which agni acts in the body. Its five subdivisions map the conversion sites: pācaka in the gut, rañjaka in blood formation, ālocaka in the eye, bhrājaka in the skin, sādhaka in the heart-mind complex, where it powers discrimination and courage. Pitta imbalance therefore shows up as much in inflamed judgment as in inflamed tissue, which is exactly the mind-body integration the humoral reading loses.

## Audience Metaphor

A kitchen is not its stove flame, but nothing in it becomes a meal without controlled fire. Pitta is the whole kitchen discipline of the body: the flame, the chef timing the conversions, and the plating, everything that turns raw into ready, from breakfast to a decision.

## Citations

1. Charaka Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 18.50 on the functions of pitta -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
2. Suśruta Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 21 on pitta subdivisions and seats -- see [references/sushruta-samhita.md](../references/sushruta-samhita.md)
