Organs

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Organs." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/categories/organs.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Organs. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/categories/organs

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-organs,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Organs},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/categories/organs},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The internal organs as they appear in the traditional medical systems: the zang-fu organs of Chinese medicine, each paired with a phase and a meridian; the organs of humoral medicine with their planetary rulers; and the Ayurvedic scheme. An organ in these systems is a functional category rather than only an anatomical structure, the Chinese spleen covers a set of digestive functions rather than the organ alone.

Facts

Overview

What Defines This Grouping

Organs as three unrelated medical traditions classify them, where an organ is a functional category and not only an anatomical structure. They are collected here for comparison and share no single scheme. 1

Peoples and Traditions Covered

Ayurveda: the organs of the classical Sanskrit medical compendia. 2

Peoples and Traditions Covered

Chinese medicine: the zang-fu organs, each paired with a phase and a meridian. 1

Peoples and Traditions Covered

European humoral and astrological medicine: the organs under planetary rulership. 3

Structure

In the Chinese scheme, five zang (depots) and six fu (palaces). 1

Learn More

The Organs in Traditional Medicine

The internal organs appear in the traditional medical systems mapped to cosmic principles: the zang-fu organs of Chinese medicine, each paired with a phase of the wu xing, a meridian and an emotion; the organs of humoral medicine with their planetary rulers; and the organs of the Ayurvedic scheme. An organ in these systems is understood functionally and symbolically, not only anatomically.

In Chinese medicine especially, the "organs" are functional systems rather than the physical organs alone, the "spleen" or "kidney" of Chinese medicine covers a range of functions that do not map onto the Western organ of that name, and the atlas is careful about this difference.

Function and Correspondence

The traditional organ systems tie the body into the wider cosmology: the five zang organs to the five phases, the humoral organs to the planets, so that the organs are read in relation to season, emotion, element and star. The atlas presents these as historical and cultural frameworks rather than as modern physiology, since their categories do not correspond to those of biomedicine.

The atlas gives each organ its correspondences in the several systems (phase, meridian, planet), and its traditional functions. The meridians the organs are paired with, and the phases and planets that rule them, are treated in their own categories.

Cross-Tradition Connections