---
type: Concept
bundle: ayurveda-consciousness
bundle_version: 0.11.0
id: dhatu
title: Dhātu
iast: Dhātu
devanagari: धातु
description: 'The seven-fold tissue system (rasa, rakta, māṃsa, medas, asthi, majjā, śukra), each built sequentially from the previous by its own tissue-fire and together constituting the structural body; NOT generic body tissue, NOT energy layers, NOT the chakra system.'
darshana:
- Āyurveda
text_source: Charaka Cikitsāsthāna 15.16
tags:
- dhatu
- tissue
- physiology
- ayurveda
not:
- term: 'generic body tissue'
  why: 'Histology classifies tissue by structure; dhātu theory orders tissues as a sequential nourishment chain, each one the refined product of the previous and the raw material of the next. The point is the assembly line and its dependencies, which the generic translation deletes.'
  instead: 'Render dhātu as the seven sequential tissue systems and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'energy layers or subtle bodies'
  why: 'The seven dhātus are physiological, built from food by fire. Mapping them onto auras or the kośa scheme confuses distinct frameworks.'
- term: 'the chakra system'
  why: 'Chakras belong to yogic and tantric subtle physiology (treated in dharma-foundation v0.1 and shakta-darshana v0.8). Dhātus are the flesh-and-bone tissue series of medicine; the two vocabularies answer different questions.'
related:
- /concepts/agni.md
- /concepts/ojas.md
- /concepts/rasa.md
- /concepts/srotas.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Dhātu -- धातु

**Not:** generic body tissue, energy layers, the chakra system

## What It Actually Means

The dhātus are the seven stations of embodiment: rasa (nutrient fluid), rakta (blood), māṃsa (muscle), medas (fat), asthi (bone), majjā (marrow and nerve), śukra (reproductive essence). Each is manufactured from the one before it by a dedicated tissue-fire (dhātvagni), so the series is a dependency chain: poor rasa starves everything downstream, and a defect at any station propagates forward. The chain terminates beyond itself in ojas, the culminating essence of the whole sequence. Nourishment therefore takes time to reach the deep tissues, which is why classical therapeutics thinks in weeks and seasons rather than doses and days, and why depletion or excess of a specific dhātu, not a lab value, is the classical unit of structural diagnosis.

## Audience Metaphor

Seven workshops in a single supply chain, each taking the previous workshop output as its only raw material. A flaw in the first workshop batch shows up in the seventh as a mystery defect nobody can trace on-site. Dhātu theory is the supply-chain map that makes the tracing possible.

## Citations

1. Charaka Saṃhitā Cikitsāsthāna 15.16 on the sequential formation of the seven dhātus -- see [references/charaka-samhita.md](../references/charaka-samhita.md)
2. Suśruta Saṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 14 on the dhātu series and its refinement -- see [references/sushruta-samhita.md](../references/sushruta-samhita.md)
