In Ayurveda, ghee is classed as cold (sheeta) in virya, or potency: a 2024 review of the classical texts lists cow ghee as cold, sweet in taste and sweet after digestion, citing the Sushruta Samhita, the Bhavaprakasha and the Charaka Samhita. Virya is a traditional classification of expected action, not a measured property, so "cooling" does not mean ghee is cold, lowers body temperature or is light in energy. If you are asking because of a health condition or symptom, follow your doctor's advice, not a hot-or-cold label.
At a glance
- A 2024 review in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine tabulates ghee's Ayurvedic qualities and lists cow ghee as cold in virya, citing three classical texts: the Sushruta Samhita, the Bhavaprakasha and the Charaka Samhita.
- That review drew on eleven texts spanning more than 3,000 years and found 774 mentions of ghee in the context of health, the most of any milk product.
- The Charaka Samhita (Sutra Sthana 26/65), as summarised by the Charak Samhita centre at ITRA Jamnagar, defines virya as the potency through which a substance performs its action; hot and cold are its two main classes.
- A 2010 study in Ayu that looked for objective markers of hot and cold qualities used 42 rats and six herbs, not ghee, and most of its differences were not statistically significant.
- USDA FoodData Central lists clarified butter (ghee) at 900 kcal and 100 g of fat per 100 g; that energy comes from the fat and has nothing to do with virya.
Why do people ask whether ghee is hot or cold?
Because Indian food culture sorts foods into "heating" and "cooling", and the vocabulary is Ayurveda's, which classes every substance by several qualities, including virya, its potency. Ghee carries a strong label in that system, so the question follows naturally. Most pages stop at "cooling"; this one shows where the label comes from.
The 2024 review by Kataria and Singh puts the framework in one line: "Ayurveda pharmacology uses the concepts of rasa, guna, virya, vipaka and dosha karma", that is taste, quality, potency, post-digestive effect and action on the doshas. Our overview of ghee in Ayurveda covers the tradition's uses of ghee; this article stays on one word, virya.
What do the Ayurvedic texts say about ghee's virya?
They say it is cold. The 2024 review tabulates the qualities of thirteen kinds of ghee from eleven classical texts, and lists cow ghee as cold in virya, citing the Sushruta Samhita, the Bhavaprakasha and the Charaka Samhita. The same row adds a sweet taste, a heavy quality and a sweet post-digestive effect.
Not every ghee gets the same label. In the review's table, ghee in general and buffalo ghee are also cold, but camel, mare and ass ghee are hot, and the review notes that goat, mare, horse, ass and elephant ghee are astringent rather than sweet. The classification was built over a very long time: the review's eleven texts span "a period of over 3000 years, from the 15th century BCE to the 17th century CE".
Ghee had 774 mentions in the context of health across those texts, more than any other milk product, and "cold" is one label among many. It records what the authors expected ghee to do, not what ghee was measured to do.
What does virya actually mean?
Virya is potency: the power by which a substance is said to act. The Charaka Samhita, Sutra Sthana 26/65, as summarised by the Charak Samhita Research, Training and Development Centre at ITRA Jamnagar, defines veerya as "the potency or power of the drug through which it performs its work or action".
Two classifications sit under that definition. The two-fold one has only hot (ushna) and cold (sheeta), described on the same page as "two main contrasting energies responsible for carrying out various functions in body". The eight-fold one, from Sutra Sthana 26/64, lists heavy, light, unctuous, dry, sharp, dull, cold and hot. Ghee's "cold" belongs to the two-fold scheme.
How is a substance assigned to hot or cold? Not with a thermometer. The ITRA page says virya is judged on contact with the tongue or after digestion, from effects such as a burning sensation or a change in appetite, and gives as one theory that "The potency of a dravya is observed according to its major pharmacotherapeutic actions". The label is an inference from expected action, not a measurement.
What do the texts say about ghee and the doshas?
In the review's table, cow ghee reduces all three doshas, and the review states that "Cow, goat and human ghee reduce all three doshas, while buffalo ghee increases pitta and horse ghee increases vata". These describe what the texts hold; nothing in the review tests them.
The labels do not always line up. On the ITRA page, cold potency pacifies pitta but aggravates vata and kapha, yet the review's table has cold cow ghee reducing all three, and has ghee in general increasing kapha, citing the Bhavaprakasha. The texts are classifications by different authors across centuries, not one rulebook.
| Label | What the texts say (2024 review, Table 1) | What has been measured |
|---|---|---|
| Virya (potency) | Cow ghee: cold (sheeta), per Sushruta, Bhavaprakasha and Charaka | Nothing; no opened study measures it in ghee |
| Rasa (taste) | Cow ghee: sweet | A sensory description, not a measured value |
| Guna (quality) | Cow ghee: heavy | A traditional quality, not a weight |
| Vipaka (post-digestive effect) | Cow ghee: sweet | No opened study tests it |
| Dosha action | Cow ghee reduces vata, pitta and kapha; buffalo ghee increases pitta | Not tested in the review |
| Energy | Not a concept in the texts | USDA FoodData Central: 900 kcal, 100 g of fat, 60 g saturated, per 100 g |
| Body temperature | Not what virya refers to | No opened study measures any effect of ghee on it |
Is virya a measured physical property?
No. Virya is a classification. The nearest attempt to measure it that we found is a 2010 study in Ayu by Mane and colleagues, which looked for objective parameters for the hot and cold gunas. It is an animal study: 42 Wistar rats in seven groups of six, given three herbs classed as hot and three classed as cold.
They recorded food intake, water intake, faecal output and body weight, and their framing says what virya is. The authors write that "the effects of Gunas are recognized by their action on the body, i.e. physiological variations", and that "Absolute evolution of one Guna is not possible in living body as infinite factors are related with every biological event". Most differences were not statistically significant, and they concluded that change in body weight should be taken "to a large extent as a parameter" for the two qualities. The study used herbs, not ghee, and rats, not people, so it says nothing about ghee's label; it shows that researchers inside the tradition also treat hot and cold as inferred from effects, not read off an instrument.
The 2024 review itself says "modern scientific literature has limited studies on functional benefits of ghee". We found no trial that fed people ghee and measured body temperature. So the honest answer to "does ghee cool the body?" is that the texts say so, and nothing has tested it.
Does "cooling" mean ghee is cold, or low in energy?
Neither. Physically, ghee is a fat that melts over a range of temperatures rather than at one point; the dairy measurements are in our article on the melting point of ghee. That behaviour is the same whatever label a text gives it.
Nor is "cooling" a comment on energy. USDA FoodData Central's record for clarified butter (ghee) lists 900 kcal, 100 g of fat, 60 g of saturated fat, 0 g of protein and 0 g of carbohydrate per 100 g. That is 900 ÷ 100 = 9 kcal per gram, and it comes from the fat itself, so a text's label does not change it. If calories are behind your question, the label is the wrong place to look; amount and timing are covered in the best time to eat ghee, which found no evidence for a time of day and points to the ICMR-NIN limit on amount.
How should you use the hot-or-cold label?
As a note on tradition, not a health instruction. It tells you what Ayurvedic physicians expected ghee to do. It does not tell you that ghee will cool you in summer, settle a condition the texts link to pitta, or suit you better than another fat. A few rules keep the two apart:
- Quote the label as a label. "Ayurvedic texts class ghee as cold in virya" is accurate. "Ghee cools the body" is a claim nobody has tested.
- Keep virya and dosha action separate. The texts assign them separately, and for ghee they do not always agree.
- Keep tradition and measurement separate. Energy, fat, melting range and composition are measured; virya is not.
- Ask your doctor about anything medical. If you have a heart, liver, digestive or metabolic condition, or are pregnant, how much ghee suits you is a question for your doctor. What too much can do is in ghee side effects.
- Judge the ghee by what can be checked. Whether it is genuine milk fat, how it was made, and what the batch report says. For ours, that is Himdhara's A2 bilona ghee, with each batch's report on the lab reports page; we make no claim about its virya.
The short version
Ayurveda classes ghee as cold (sheeta) in virya: a 2024 review of eleven classical texts lists cow ghee as cold, sweet and heavy, citing Sushruta, Bhavaprakasha and Charaka. Virya means potency, assigned from expected effects, not temperature. No study we opened measures virya in ghee or any effect of ghee on body temperature. Ghee is 900 kcal per 100 g on USDA figures, like any fat, and how much you eat is a matter for your doctor or dietitian, whatever label a text gives it.
Sources
Further reading behind the figures above. Himdhara's own numbers — yields, batch results — come from our production records and the batch reports on the lab reports page.
- Kataria D, Singh G (2024). Health benefits of ghee: Review of Ayurveda and modern science perspectives. Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine.
- Charak Samhita Research, Training and Development Centre, ITRA Jamnagar (n.d.). Veerya. Charak Samhita online edition.
- Mane S, Vyas M, Ravishankar B, Dwivedi RR (2010). Evaluation of some objective parameters for Ushna and Sheeta Gunas based on pharmacological study. Ayu.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (2019). Butter, Clarified butter (ghee). FoodData Central (SR Legacy), record 171314.