About Marma
What is Marma?
The word ‘Marma’ is used to denote the vital points of the living human body. Each letter of the word has a meaning of its own.
In the practitioner's words
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The meaning of the word
- Ma
- Prana or vayu, the life energy or wind.
- Ra (repha)
- The letter r, read as a house or seat.
- Marma
- The seat of prana or vayu.
This letter-by-letter reading is a traditional teaching. Grammatically, the word comes from the Sanskrit root mri, ‘to die’: a marma is a vital point where a severe injury can be fatal.
So the marma sthanas are the seats where pranic currents concentrate. Because they are described as the seats of prana, these locations are held to have some physiological importance in maintaining prana, or life.
Why these points matter
According to Charaka, the sense of pain, or its intensity, is greater at the marma locations than in other parts of the body, because chetana (life force) is situated in the marma sthanas. The physiological processes are centred on these particular locations.
This describes the traditional Ayurvedic understanding of marma. It is not medical advice and does not replace care from a qualified clinician.