Also called Sleshma, it is the formative, cohesive, cementing and cooling component lending firmness, stability, flexibility and calmness to the body. It aids anabolism and builds up tissues. Enabling mental strength, endurance and bodily resistance to diseases, kapha most strongly relates to the physical structure of the body. Kapha is the cooling element that keeps vata and pitta confined to their normal limits, in the absence of which the combustion going on in the human system will feed upon the constituent principles of the body. Restraining factor of fire being water and physical matter (water by taking up a lot of heat energy in latent form and food by utilizing bodily heat for digestion helps quench it), pitta is constituted of Prithvi and Ap, i.e., gross physicality and cooling cohesiveness. Thus food and water are the prime sources of kapha component in our system. Derived from the root word ‘slis’ which means to embrace, kapha is sthira, snigdha and picchila. It combines solidity with substance to bind tissues together in a cooling embrace. Kapha is located primarily in lungs and heart and the governing areas are from the diaphragm upwards. Depending on the function and location, it is of five types.

1. Avalambaka kapha – Located in the chest within the pleura of the lungs and the pericardium of the heart, it lubricates bronchial passages and alveoli. It supports and protects the heart in the chest.
2. Kledaka kapha – Associated with mucus secretions of the gastrointestinal tract it protects underlying tissues of the stomach from the usna and tiksna nature of digestion. Moistening and liquefying ingested food this kapha lubricates and nourishes the digestive tract.
3. Bodhaka kapha – Present in the mouth as salivary secretions, it is specifically related to the function of taste.
4. Tarpaka kapha – Located in the head it appeases and cools sense organs, slows neural activity, induces relaxation and promotes contentment and emotional stability.
5. Sleshaka kapha – sleshaka means that which joins. Situated in the joints it provides lubrication.

The tridoshas thus control all biologic, psychological and physiopathologic functions of the body, mind and consciousness producing natural urges and individual tastes in food, flavour and temperature. They govern the maintenance and destruction of bodily tissues and the elimination of waste products. They are also responsible for psychological phenomena, including the emotions of fear, anger and greed as well as the highest order of emotions, understanding, compassion and love.

Having arisen from the five basic elements, the human body is thus postulated to be under the control of tridoshas. Ayurveda elucidates and investigates the causes through which vata, pitta, kapha which sustain life are transformed into the dynamics of disease.