Marma therapy works the marmas, specific anatomical points the classical Ayurvedic surgical treatise, the Sushruta Samhita, catalogues in careful detail, counting one hundred and seven such points across the body, each classified by its location, its structural composition in the classical anatomical scheme, muscle, vein, ligament, bone or joint, and, critically, by the severity of the consequences the text associates with injury to it, ranging from significant impairment to points the classical text identifies as immediately life threatening if struck or wounded. This dual character, marma points as sites both of medical vulnerability and of therapeutic opportunity, is what distinguishes marma from a simple massage pressure point system, since the same classical knowledge that catalogues the marmas as dangerous in injury also treats their skilled, deliberate stimulation as a genuine therapeutic technique, capable of relieving pain, correcting energetic or physiological imbalance, and supporting the flow of prana understood to move through and be concentrated at these points, a therapeutic use requiring real anatomical knowledge and careful technique given the same points' documented capacity for harm if mishandled.