Ghee in Ayurveda: What Charaka and Sushruta Record, and Which Ghee to Keep
By Prateek Singh · Pratapgarh Vedic Gau Gram
In Ayurveda, ghee is the first of the unctuous substances, and it is food before it is anything else. The fullest description is Sushruta’s, in the Sushruta Samhita, Sutra Sthana 45, from verse 96: ghee for memory, intellect and clarity, for digestion, for Vata and Pitta, for strength and complexion and voice, for the eyes, for a long life. Charaka gives the same properties in the Charaka Samhita, Sutra Sthana 27, verses 231 to 234½, and Vagbhata condenses both in the Ashtanga Hridaya, Sutra Sthana 5.
Three books, written centuries apart, one substance described in almost the same words each time. That agreement is what this page is about: what the texts say, in their own vocabulary, and the one decision the tradition makes at the end of it, which ghee belongs in which kitchen. If you want the substance defined before what the tradition makes of it, what ghee is is its own page.
One substance, with one character
Sushruta writes verse 96 as a description rather than a list of benefits. Ayurveda describes a substance once, in five categories, and then reads its effects off that description.
| The category | Ghee | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Rasa, taste | madhura | sweet |
| Guna, quality | guru | heavy |
| Virya, potency | shita | cooling |
| Vipaka, post-digestive effect | madhura | sweet |
| Dosha karma, action on the doshas | Vata-pitta shamana, Kapha vardhana | pacifies Vata and Pitta, increases Kapha |
Read the table and verse 96 stops reading as a list of promises. A sweet, heavy, cooling, unctuous substance does what such a substance does, and the texts say so in one breath because the character and its effects are one statement: the character comes first, and the effects follow it.
That is also why the tradition spends its effort on matching a substance to a person. Charaka’s chapter on fats, the Snehadhyaya at Sutra Sthana 13, takes the same ghee and builds a procedure out of it: snehapana, the internal administration of fats, with ghee chief among the sneha. In the kitchen it is food. In the treatment room it is a vehicle, for oleation and for carrying herbs where the texts wanted them to go. The literature gives ghee both lives.
The words the claims are made in
The verses are short and the vocabulary is old. Here is what each word means, so you can read the texts yourself instead of taking a summary’s word for it.
| The word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Smriti | memory, recollection |
| Dhi | understanding, discernment |
| Medha | the capacity to hold and work with what has been learnt |
| Agni | the digestive fire, the function the tradition treats as central to health. Ghee is agnidipana, the thing that kindles it |
| Ojas | the essence the tradition treats as vitality |
| Rasayana | the practices the tradition keeps for vitality and for healthy ageing |
| Brimhana | nourishing, tissue-building |
| Sneha | the class of unctuous substances, of which ghee is chief |
What the texts give ghee for
Memory, intellect and clarity. Charaka, at Sutra Sthana 27, verses 231 to 234½, gives ghee for smriti, dhi and medha, and for the digestive fire in the same passage. Sushruta, at 45.96, puts memory, intellect and mental clarity at the head of his list. The claim is larger than alertness: it places ghee inside the Ayurvedic account of how the mind is nourished at all, which is a claim about a model of the body rather than about a single effect.
Digestion and the fire. Ghee kindles the fire, and it is the principal substance of the fat procedure in the Snehadhyaya. Charaka gives it for the digestive fire at 27.231 and Sushruta at 45.96, and both put it inside digestion rather than alongside it.
Nourishment and ojas. Ghee is brimhana, and it belongs to the rasayana class. Charaka ties it to ojas at 27.231, and the nourishing and rejuvenating properties are attributed particularly to cow ghee. Before ghee is anything else in these texts, it is food that builds the body.
The eyes. Sushruta, at 45.96 to 98, gives ghee, and cow ghee in particular, to the eyes and to vision. The same chapters describe procedures in which medicated ghee is applied around the eye, by a practitioner, as a treatment rather than as a food.
Complexion, voice and skin. Sushruta’s verse gives ghee for complexion and for voice. The pharmacy gives it a larger job: in Jatyadi Ghrita and Manjishthadi Ghrita, ghee is the base that herbs are cooked into, and the formula is named for its herbs.
Strength, vitality and a long life. Sushruta puts strength, vitality and longevity in the same verse as memory and digestion. The tradition files a long strong life as one more consequence of a nourishing food, in the same breath as the rest.
A spoon is the measure
Charaka’s Snehadhyaya works in measured amounts of fat, and a spoonful is the everyday measure the tradition keeps. What it goes into is your kitchen’s business: the day’s first roti, a bowl of dal, a spoon stirred into warm milk.
That much is settled. What the spoon comes out of is the next question, and the tradition has an answer.
Which ghee the tradition keeps
Cow ghee is the default. Sushruta describes it as excellent in its qualities, the tradition associates it with strength and with vision, and in the pharmacy it is the ghee the texts reach for first.
Buffalo ghee has a description of its own, under its own name. Sushruta, Sutrasthana 45.99, Mahisha Ghrita: sweet, very cooling, heavy to digest, pacifying for Vata and Pitta, increasing Kapha.
| The Ayurvedic priority | Which ghee the tradition keeps | Why |
|---|---|---|
| General daily use | Cow ghee | Described as excellent in its qualities, and the default |
| Vata | Either | Both are described as calming Vata |
| Pitta, or excess heat | Cow ghee, and buffalo ghee where the cooling quality is the point | Both are described as cooling, buffalo ati-sheeta in the classical account |
| Excess Kapha | Cow ghee | Buffalo ghee is described as increasing Kapha at 45.99 |
| A named medicinal preparation | The ghee the formulation names | Source and method matter to the formula |
That table is the buying rule, and for most kitchens it gives one answer: cow ghee. We make it two ways, the everyday jar and the A2 from the farm’s own herd, and the buffalo jar is the one to reach for where a cooling quality is what you are after. The three jars, side by side, sets out the milk.
The method the texts prefer
The literature treats three kinds of ghrita as three different things. Ordinary ghee is food. Medicated ghee is cooked with herbs, to a formula, and it is the form most of the therapeutic material in these texts describes. Aged ghee, purana ghrita, has applications of its own, and Charaka at Sutra Sthana 27 and Vagbhata at Ashtanga Hridaya 5 describe it separately.
The 2024 review in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine records what the texts are particular about: the source of the milk, the method of preparation, the age of the ghee and its physical state. It records one thing more, that ghee prepared from curd is held in high regard.
Curd is where ours starts. The whole milk is boiled and set into dahi overnight. We churn that dahi in a wooden bilona until the makkhan rises, and the makkhan is simmered into ghee. Thirty litres of cow’s milk go into a kilo, in five stages, by hand. The stages are set out on the bilona page.
The method the texts rate is the method in our kitchen. That kitchen sits on a farm open to guests since 2008, with 30,000+ Google reviews at our farm from people who have walked around it.
Ghee is a highly nourishing substance
That is the one view of our own on this page, and it is the whole of it. Everything above belongs to Charaka, Sushruta and Vagbhata, in their words, with the verses named so you can read further.
The jar is ours.
Questions people ask
What does Ayurveda say ghee is good for?
The texts give ghee for memory, intellect and clarity, for digestion, for nourishment and vitality, for the eyes, for complexion and voice, and for strength and long life. Sushruta’s list at Sutra Sthana 45.96 is the fullest single account; Charaka’s is at 27.231 to 234½.
Which ghee does Ayurveda keep for daily use?
Cow ghee. Sushruta describes it as excellent in its qualities, and the tradition associates it with strength and with vision. Buffalo ghee has its own description at 45.99, kept for where its cooling quality is the point.
What is purana ghrita?
Aged ghee, and a substance in its own right in these texts. Charaka and Vagbhata describe preserved ghee separately from fresh, at Sutra Sthana 27 and Ashtanga Hridaya 5.
Is ghee mentioned in the Charaka Samhita?
Twice at length. Sutra Sthana 13, the Snehadhyaya, is the chapter on fats and on oleation, with ghee chief among them. Sutra Sthana 27, verses 231 to 234½, sets out ghee’s properties, from memory and the digestive fire to vital essence.
Our ghee
Three jars, a litre each, made in our kitchen at the farm: Murrah buffalo, cow, and A2 cow from the farm’s own Sahiwal, Hariana and Gir herd. ₹1,205 for the buffalo jar, ₹1,640 for cow, ₹2,599 for A2.
Free delivery anywhere in India, dispatched in one working day, at your door in one to three days.
