Amra

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Aam

What the texts say Amra does

• Balya — strengthening
• Vrishya — aphrodisiac, supports reproductive vigour
• Brimhana — nourishing, builds tissue
• Grahi — digestive that absorbs excess fluid and binds the stool
• Raktastambhana — checks bleeding (haemostatic)
• Varnya — improves complexion

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

Side effects and limits

• Contact dermatitis around the mouth from the sap
• Digestive heaviness in quantity
• Skin reactions in those sensitive to the Anacardiaceae

Avoid or ask first: Known allergy to cashew, pistachio or other Anacardiaceae.; Unripe fruit in quantity, which the texts themselves warn against.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

The kernel and bark are the medicinal parts; the ripe fruit is food.

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.

The ripe fruit is madhura with sheeta virya and madhura vipaka. The unripe is amla and kashaya with ushna virya — the texts treat them as opposite, and this is the examinable point.

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.

Pikavallabha, beloved of the cuckoo, and Madhudoota, messenger of spring — the paryaya of this tree are almost all poetic rather than descriptive, which is unusual and tells you what place it held.

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.

The fruit is not adulterated but is very commonly ripened artificially with calcium carbide, which is banned for that purpose in India and leaves arsenic and phosphorus residues, and with ethylene ripeners which are permitted. Carbide-ripened fruit colours evenly while staying hard, which is the practical test. Dried leaf and bark are substituted with other Mangifera species.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The same family as cashew and bhallataka, which is directly relevant to the skin reaction described below.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Mangifera is mango-bearing: mangga (Malayalam manga) + fero, I carry. Indica, of India. The genus name contains the fruit's own name.

Amra heads its own varga in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu, with the ripe and unripe fruit described separately. 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 sugars, carotenoids and mangiferin. The peel and sap carry urushiol-type compounds, the same chemical class as in poison ivy and in bhallataka.

Grown as a crop: how to grow mango, 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.