Sprouts Every Day? Ashtanga Hridaya 8.41 on Virudhaka and Vagbhata’s Two Lists of Daily Foods

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ें: रोज़ स्प्राउट्स खाएँ? अष्टांग हृदय 8.41 और वाग्भट की दो भोजन-सूचियाँ

📖 18 min read · Ashtanga Hridaya, Sutrasthana 6.34, 7.34 and 8.40-43 (Sanskrit from GRETIL; English from Vidyanath’s Chowkhamba translation); Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary; CDC (2024, 2025); FDA (2017)

Sprouts Every Day: The Habit, and the One Thing We Get Wrong

The routine is familiar in many Indian homes. A cup of whole moong or chana goes into water at night. In the morning it is drained and tied in a wet cloth, or left in a colander on the kitchen counter, and a day later the beans show small white tails. From then on, a bowl of them is eaten raw every morning, with chopped onion, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt. It feels like the most sensible breakfast there is: nothing fried, nothing packaged, all of it made at home.

The one thing we get wrong is the word “every”. Most of us assume that an old Ayurvedic text would approve of a daily bowl of sprouts, because sprouts look fresh, simple and full of life. The Ashtanga Hridaya, Vagbhata’s book and one of the three great classics of Ayurveda, does not put sprouted grains on its list of daily foods. It puts them on the other list: the foods one should not take as a habit.

That is not a ban. Vagbhata’s words are na shilayet, “one should not make a habit of it”, and his English translator says the foods on that list can be used occasionally. Nor does the text simply call sprouts bad. It gives sprouted grains four qualities, which we read word by word below, and it leaves moong itself on the list of foods to take every day. The difference lies in the habit, and in the state of the grain.

So this page does three things. It reads both of Vagbhata’s lists, item by item, with the Sanskrit and plain English. It reads the verse that gives the reason for the caution and sets it beside what two US agencies, the CDC and the FDA, say about sprouts today. And it ends with a practical section on keeping sprouts in your week, cooked, on the days you choose.

The habit this page is about: moong sprouted at home in a wet cloth, ready for the morning bowl.

Matrashitiya Adhyaya: Where Vagbhata Keeps His Two Food Lists

Both lists come from the eighth chapter of the Sutrasthana, the first section of the Ashtanga Hridaya. The chapter is called Matrashitiya Adhyaya, the chapter on eating in the right measure (matra), and most of it is about how much to eat and what goes wrong when the measure is lost. Its best-known rule divides the stomach into parts for food, for liquid and for space; we read that rule on our page on Vagbhata’s stomach rule (ahara matra), so we will not repeat it here.

Near the end of the chapter, after verses on how a meal should be served and which food to refuse, Vagbhata gives two lists, one straight after the other:

• Sutrasthana 8.40-41: foods one should not take as a habit, ending in the words na shilayet.
• Sutrasthana 8.42-43: foods one should take as a habit, opening with the word shilayet.

The two lists share one verb, and only the small word na, “not”, separates them. We read the Sanskrit in the edition published online by GRETIL, the Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages, and the English in R. Vidyanath’s translation of the Sutrasthana (Chowkhamba). Vidyanath gives the two lists two headings: Food not to be taken on regular basis and Recommended food to be taken daily (page 162).

Keep those headings in mind. The lists are about habit, about what you eat day after day, not about one meal. That is the key to reading them.

Na Shilayet, Word by Word: Ashtanga Hridaya Sutrasthana 8.40-41

In plain English: thickened milk, curd, kucika, alkalis, fermented gruel, raw radish; the meat of lean animals, dried meat, and the meat of boar, sheep, cow, fish and buffalo; urad, nishpava, lotus tubers, lotus stalks, flour preparations, sprouted grains; dried vegetables, yavaka and half-made jaggery: one should not take these as a habit.

Line by line, the verse moves through four groups:

• Line one is mostly milk and its products: kilata (milk thickened by boiling), dadhi (curd) and kucika (another milk preparation), then kshara (alkalis), shukta (a fermented, sour preparation) and ama-mulaka (raw radish; ama means raw or unripe).
• Line two is meat (amisha): of lean animals (krisha), dried meat (shushka), and the meat of boar, sheep, cow, fish and buffalo.
• Line three is pulses, lotus and grain: masha (urad), nishpava (a flat bean), shaluka (lotus tubers), bisa (lotus stalks), pishta (flour preparations) and virudhaka, sprouted grains.
• Line four closes the list with shushka-shaka (dried vegetables), yavaka (a small barley) and phanita (half-made jaggery), and then comes the verb.

What na shilayet means

The verb shilayet is formed from shila, which the Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary explains as habit, custom, usage, natural or acquired way of living or acting, practice. The same dictionary gives the verb itself as to do, make, practise repeatedly or exceedingly. So na shilayet does not say “never eat this”. It says: do not make it a practice, do not repeat it day after day.

Vidyanath’s English says it plainly: The following food substances should not be taken regularly but can be used occasionally. That one sentence answers the question most readers bring to this verse. Vagbhata does not forbid sprouts, curd, urad or any other food on this list. What he cautions against is the habit: the same food, every day, as a fixed part of the routine.

The word virudhaka

Monier-Williams gives virudhaka as grain that has begun to sprout, and Vidyanath translates it here as germinated grains. The word comes from virudha, which the dictionary explains as shot out, sprouted, budded, grown. It names no particular grain. Moong, chana or wheat: once the seed has begun to sprout, it falls under this word.

One more detail for careful readers. GRETIL records a variant reading of line three, tila-pishta-virudhakam, with sesame (tila) in place of lotus stalks (bisa). Sprouted grains stand in both readings.

Vagbhata’s Two Lists: What to Eat Every Day (Shilayet) and What Not to Make a Habit Of (Na Shilayet)

Here are both lists, complete and item by item, in the order of the verses. The first column gives the Sanskrit as GRETIL prints it. The second gives plain English. The third gives how Vidyanath’s English identifies each item (pages 162-163), mostly in his own words.

List one: na shilayet, not as a habit (Sutrasthana 8.40-41)

Curd (dadhi) on this list surprises many readers, since curd is part of so many daily meals; the Ashtanga Hridaya describes it at length in its chapter on liquids, which we read on our page on milk, curd, buttermilk and ghee (kshira varga). The list also names several meats; a vegetarian reader can simply pass over those lines.

Curd, urad, raw radish, lotus stem and sprouts are all on the 8.40-41 list; its jaggery is phanita, the half-made kind.

List two: shilayet, to take as a habit (Sutrasthana 8.42-43)

Vidyanath’s English opens this list with The following food substances can be taken regularly or habitually.

A small find in the English. The Sanskrit of 8.42 ends with vastuka, and Vidyanath prints that word in his own Sanskrit line, but his English list goes straight from tender radish to haritaki. Monier-Williams gives vastuka as Chenopodium Album, the leafy green known in Hindi as bathua. Counting each kind of meat on its own, the first list has 22 entries and the second has 21.

From the 8.42-43 list: rice, wheat, barley, moong, amla, ghee, milk, honey, pomegranate and rock salt.

The moong twist

Now look at where moong stands. In the same chapter, moong (mudga) is on the second list, in Sutrasthana 8.43, among the foods to take as a habit, beside amla, ghee and milk. Sprouted grains (virudhaka) are on the first list, in 8.41, among the foods not to make a habit of. The verses never name sprouted moong as such; virudhaka covers any grain that has begun to sprout. But the bowl on most breakfast tables is sprouted moong, so the twist is plain: the bean is on the daily list, the sprout is not.

Vagbhata’s chapter on foods adds one more pointer. In Sutrasthana 6.33, a few lines before the verse on sprouted grains, he calls moong soup (maudga) wholesome (pathya) for particular groups of people, starting with those who have just been through a cleansing course (samshuddha). Moong cooked as a soup gets the word pathya; moong as a sprout falls under a different entry, with different words.

Pairs across the two lists (our reading)

Read the two lists side by side and a pattern appears. Several food families have a member on each list, in a different kind or a different state:

• Raw radish (ama-mulaka) on list one; tender radish (bala-mulaka) on list two.
• Urad (masha) on list one; moong (mudga) on list two.
• The small barley (yavaka) on list one; barley (yava) on list two.
• Half-made jaggery (phanita) on list one; sugar (sharkara) on list two.
• Thickened milk and curd (kilata, dadhi) on list one; milk and ghee (kshira, ghrita) on list two.
• Dried vegetables (shushka-shaka) on list one; fresh greens (sunishannaka, jivanti, vastuka) on list two.
• Sprouted grains (virudhaka) on list one; rice, wheat, barley and moong, unsprouted, on list two.

This pairing is our reading; the text does not point it out. But it fits the moong twist. The lists seem to judge a food by its kind and its state as much as by its family: raw or tender, half-made or finished, dried or fresh, sprouted or whole. Germination changes a grain, and the changed grain sits on the other list.

Guru, Glapana, Doshala, Drighna: Why Sutrasthana 6.34 Calls Sprouted Grains Heavy

Chapter 8 tells us what not to make a habit of. For a reason, we go back two chapters, to Sutrasthana 6, the Annasvarupa-vijnaniya Adhyaya, the chapter on knowing the nature of foods. There, among prepared foods, one verse groups sprouted grains with three other foods and gives the whole group four words.

In plain English: preparations of sesame oil-cake (tila-pinyaka-vikriti), dried vegetables (shushka-shaka), sprouted grains (virudhaka) and shandaki-vataka are harmful to the eyes, upset the doshas, weary the body and are heavy.

Two of the four foods, dried vegetables and sprouted grains, are on the 8.41 list as well. Vidyanath explains the other two. Pinyaka is the cake obtained after extracting sesame oil (page 96), and his glossary describes shandaki-vataka as balls of rice dried in the sun and then fried in oil. His English for the whole verse reads: Food products prepared from tila such as pinyaka (cake obtained after extracting sesame oil) and others, dried leafy vegetables, germinated grains, sandakivataka causes vision defects, vitiates all the three dosas. They also cause weakness and not easily digestible.

Now the four words, one by one, in the order a reader most needs them:

• Guru, heavy. Vidyanath renders it as not easily digestible.
• Glapana, wearying. Monier-Williams gives wearying, making tired. Vidyanath’s English: They also cause weakness.
• Doshala, upsetting the doshas. Vidyanath: vitiates all the three dosas, that is, vata, pitta and kapha.
• Drighna, harmful to the eyes. Written drin-ghna in the verse, from drik, sight, and ghna, harming. Vidyanath: causes vision defects.

These are the text’s words about a group of foods, written many centuries ago. They are not test results, and they are not our claim: we do not say that sprouts affect the eyes or weaken anyone. What the verse does show is how Vagbhata classed sprouted grains: as heavy, wearying, dosha-upsetting food.

Read together, the two passages explain each other. A food the text calls heavy and wearying is not one it would set out every morning, and 8.41 does not. It belongs to the occasional plate, which is exactly what the translator’s word “occasionally” allows.

Sprouted grains also turn up in the chapter on food combinations, where Sutrasthana 7.34 pairs them with lotus stalks; Vidyanath’s English reads Virudhaka (germinated seeds) should not be taken with bisa (stalks of lotus). (page 144), and we read that chapter’s list on our page on viruddha ahara, the incompatible food pairs.

Virudhaka is any grain that has begun to sprout: moong, chana or wheat alike.

What the CDC and the FDA Say About Sprouts

Vagbhata’s reasons are qualities: heavy, wearying. Modern food-safety agencies give a different kind of reason, and it is worth reading in their own words. Both sources below are from the United States.

The CDC: warm, humid conditions

The CDC (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has a page on a Salmonella outbreak linked to alfalfa sprouts in December 2022, last updated on 31 January 2025. It says: Eating raw or undercooked sprouts may lead to food poisoning. That’s because the warm, humid conditions needed to grow sprouts are also ideal for germs to multiply.

Its page on how Listeria spreads, dated 11 August 2024, makes three more points. Sprouts need warm and humid conditions to grow. Germs can grow on the inside and outside of sprouts, so washing them does not remove all germs. And: Home-grown sprouts can also have germs because they need the same conditions to grow.

That last line matters for the habit on this page. Moong sprouting in a wet cloth on a warm kitchen counter is the kind of warm, humid setting the CDC describes.

The FDA: twenty years of outbreaks

The FDA (the US Food and Drug Administration) reported on a large sampling study of sprouts on 18 August 2017. It gives the numbers: From 1996 to July 2016, there were 46 reported outbreaks of foodborne illness in the United States linked to sprouts. These outbreaks accounted for 2,474 illnesses, 187 hospitalizations, and three deaths. And it gives a reason: Sprouts are especially vulnerable to pathogens given the warm, moist and nutrient-rich conditions needed to grow them.

For the study, the FDA collected 825 samples from 37 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and A total of 14 positive samples were found at eight of the 94 growers. It also notes that studies point to contaminated seed as the most likely source of most Salmonella outbreaks linked to sprouts. These figures describe commercial growers in the United States, not Indian kitchens, and we quote them only as the agency gives them.

Side by side

The two kinds of reason come from different worlds. The text knows nothing of germs, and the agencies know nothing of doshas. We do not claim that Vagbhata saw what the CDC sees. We only set them side by side: an old text that calls sprouted grains heavy and keeps them off the daily list, and modern agencies that say the conditions sprouts need to grow are also the conditions germs need. The reader can draw the link, or not.

Warm and humid: the conditions sprouts need to grow, which the CDC says are also ideal for germs.

Sprouts the Way the Text and the CDC Would Have Them

The reel’s comment word is SPROUTS, so here is everything our sources say you can do, and nothing more. If you love your morning sprouts, nothing on this page asks you to give them up. It asks for two things: fewer days, and a hot pan.

1. Occasionally, not every day. This is the text’s own rule. Sprouted grains are on the 8.41 list, and Vidyanath’s English says such foods can be used occasionally. A bowl now and then is within the verse; a bowl every morning is the habit it names.
2. Cooked thoroughly. The CDC: Cook sprouts thoroughly to reduce your risk of illness. In an Indian kitchen this is easy: sprouts cooked through until soft in a kadhai with a simple tadka, or in a dal or a sabzi. This advice is the CDC’s, not the text’s; the verses say nothing about cooking sprouts.
3. Do not count on washing. The CDC says washing sprouts does not remove all germs, because germs can grow on the inside of sprouts as well as the outside.
4. Home-grown is no exception. The CDC says home-grown sprouts can also have germs, because they need the same conditions to grow.
5. Some people should avoid raw sprouts. The CDC: It’s especially important to avoid raw sprouts if you are in a group more likely to get seriously sick from food poisoning: adults aged 65 and older, children younger than age 5, people with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women.

Sprouts cooked through in a kadhai: the CDC’s advice is to cook sprouts thoroughly.

The other mornings: a rotation from Vagbhata’s daily list

If sprouts move to an occasional day, what goes in the bowl on the other days? Vagbhata does not write a breakfast menu, and this part is our editorial suggestion, not his. But his daily list, Sutrasthana 8.42-43, is a good place to choose from. A few simple ways to rotate it through the week:

• Moong (mudga) cooked soft, as a light dal, or as a khichdi with rice (shali).
• Wheat (godhuma) or barley (yava) cooked as a daliya, with milk (kshira) or a little ghee (ghrita).
• Fruit from the list: pomegranate (dadima), grapes (mridvika) or amla (amalaka).
• Rock salt (saindhava) in place of ordinary salt, if you like its taste.

None of this is a diet plan, and we make no claim about what any of these foods does for the body. It is simply the text’s own daily list, put on a breakfast table.

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