Ajamoda

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Ajmod

What the texts say Ajamoda does

• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Pachana — digests ama (digestive)
• Vatahara — pacifies vata
• Shoolaprashamana — relieves colicky pain
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)

What the evidence says. Traditional use is extensive and long recorded. Modern clinical evidence is limited.

Side effects and limits

• Increased sensitivity of skin to sunlight
• Allergic reaction in those sensitive to Apiaceae
• Digestive irritation in quantity

Avoid or ask first: Known allergy to celery or to other plants of the Apiaceae family.; Pregnancy, in medicinal quantity.; Kidney inflammation, which is a traditional and a modern caution.

A traditional classification, not a recommendation. The full safety record is below.

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

One of the eight of Hingvashtaka churna. Not the same drug as Yavani.

Reported from Sharangadhara Samhita and the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India. Laisha states what the texts prescribe; it does not recommend. No quantity here is adjusted for a particular person — not for agni, koshtha, bala, age, pregnancy, kidney or liver function, or anything already being taken.

Katu and tikta with ushna virya and katu vipaka.

These are the actions the classical texts record. They are statements about what the tradition holds, and this library does not restate them as findings about a human body.

Ajamoda means goat's delight. Dipyaka names the digestive action, the same root as Deepya used for ajwain — which is exactly how the two came to be confused.

Rasa, guna, virya, vipaka and karma are recorded as the classical texts give them, with the text and section named so a student can open the book and check. Where an exact chapter and verse could not be confirmed, this library names the section rather than inventing a number.

Yavani, ajwain, is the standing confusion and it runs in both directions, in shops and in some printed texts. Trachyspermum roxburghianum, called Radhuni in Bengal, is also sold as Ajamoda and is a third plant again. A student should be able to name all three and say which the formulation means.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Constantly confused with Yavani, ajwain, which is a different genus — the names are close, the seeds look alike, and the texts assign them different properties.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Apium is the old Latin name for celery. Graveolens is gravis (heavy) + olens (smelling) — heavy-scented. You will meet graveolens again on dill; both earn it.

Ajamoda is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu and is named among the vatahara dravya. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the fruit does in a body.

Constituents. The fruit carries an essential oil with limonene and the phthalides that give celery its characteristic smell, along with furocoumarins.

Grown as a crop: how to grow celery, from sowing to harvest, in Laisha's grow guides.

• This is a study and clinical reference for practitioners and students. The matra and anupana it records are what the classical texts and the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India PRESCRIBE — Laisha reports them, it does not recommend them. They are not a prescription for any particular person, and they are not adjusted for your age, agni, koshtha, bala, pregnancy, kidney or liver function, or anything else you are already taking. Only a qualified practitioner who has examined you can do that.
• Traditional classification is recorded as what the classical texts say, with the text and the place in it named so it can be checked. It is not restated as a finding about a human body.
• Nothing here replaces a qualified Ayurvedic practitioner or a doctor.