I love that the Ayurvedic anatomical language is not only descriptive in nature, but also indicates the function of each body part.

The Sanskrit name for the stomach is Āmāśaya, coming from the word Āma (referring to the undigested state of the food arriving in the stomach) and Āśaya or receptacle. The word Āma comes from the seed syllable Āp, meaning to enter, pervade or occupy. The stomach is thus the receptacle in which the food enters and is occupied by.

In addition to Āma referring to undigested food, it is also a term for an unwanted substance in the body that cause disease. Here, the term Āma refers to the the unripe, immature or undigested chyme and chyle that can't be metabolised by the body, due to a variety of reasons including overeating, eating meals that are too rich and heavy for your digestive power, eating at the wrong times, etc. This Āma is often translated in the West as digestive toxins - it prevents proper nourishment of the body tissues, clogs the subtle channels and spreads into deeper tissues of the body, leading to disease.

Between the Āmāśaya and the Pakvāśaya is the ग्रहणी or Grahaṇī (small intestine), where further digestion takes place after the chyme (thick liquid of broken down food mixed with digested acids and enzymes) is released from the stomach. In addition, the small intestine is responsible for the absorption of nutrients. The meaning of the Sanskrit word Grahaṇī (coming from the seed syllable 'grah') means seizing, holding or taking – perhaps here it refers not only to the small intestine taking the chyme from the stomach, but also 'seizing' the nutrients?

In contrast to the above, we have the large intestine (or colon), which has the exact opposite meaning of the term Āmāśaya: the meaning of Pakva is digested, matured, ripened. Thus, Ayurveda understood that once the food reaches the large intestine, the process of digestion is mostly completed, apart from the bacteria that digest any remaining food particles.

In balanced digestion, all of our food that we take will reach the pakva state, where the food is fully digested, with no undigested food remnants clogging up our system.