Aragvadha

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Amaltas

What the texts say Aragvadha does

• Mridu virechana — mild purgative
• Jwaraghna — used in fever
• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Vishaghna — antidote (against poison)
• Shothahara — reduces swelling

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

Side effects and limits

• Abdominal cramping
• Loose stool
• Wind

Avoid or ask first: Intestinal obstruction, appendicitis or undiagnosed abdominal pain.; Inflammatory bowel disease.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

The mildest of the classical virechaka, which is why it is the one used in children and the elderly.

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.

A single rasa, madhura, with sheeta virya and madhura vipaka — remarkable for a purgative, and the reason it is the gentlest one the texts describe.

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.

Chaturangula, four fingers, describes the spacing of the partitions inside the pod. Suvarnaka, golden, names the flowers. Rajavriksha, king of trees, records how it was regarded.

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.

Pods of other Cassia species, and pulp from old pods whose sugars have fermented, are sold as aragvadha. The pulp is also bulked with dates and with jaggery, which is hard to see because the genuine article is itself dark and sweet.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The tree everyone in India knows by its hanging yellow flowers in summer, and the state flower of Kerala.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Cassia from Hebrew qetsi'ah, a peeled bark. Fistula is Latin for pipe or tube — the long cylindrical pod. Aragvadha means disease-killer.

Aragvadha is named in the Kushthaghna dashemani of the Charaka Samhita, heads the Aragvadhadi gana in the Sushruta Samhita, and is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu as the mildest purgative. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the pulp does in a body.

Constituents. The pulp carries anthraquinone glycosides, the same class that makes senna and rhubarb purgative, at a lower concentration.

• 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.