Arjuna

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

What the texts say Arjuna does

• Hridya — good for the heart
• Sandhaniya — unites tissue, helps fractures and wounds join
• Varnya — improves complexion
• Medohara — reduces fat
• Kaphahara — pacifies kapha

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive discomfort
• Constipation from the tannins

Avoid or ask first: No absolute contraindication is documented here. This is written deliberately rather than left blank.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Ksheerapaka — decocted in milk — is the classical hridya preparation and is not the same as the churna.

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.

Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India, Part I

The high total ash is characteristic of the bark and is not a sign of adulteration in itself; the acid-insoluble fraction is what to read.

These are the pharmacopoeial limits for the article, not a test Laisha has run on anything. They are here so a practitioner can ask a supplier for a certificate of analysis and know what the numbers on it should say.

A single rasa, kashaya, and with sheeta virya and katu vipaka — the combination the texts associate with its action on pitta and kapha.

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.

Nadisarja records where it grows — beside rivers. Dhavala means white and describes the pale smooth bark, which is how the tree is recognised at a distance.

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.

Bark of other Terminalia species, and of unrelated trees with pale bark, is sold as arjuna — and once the bark is dried, broken and powdered the distinguishing features are gone. The more serious problem is not identity but method: bark taken by ring-barking kills the tree, and a supply chain that does not ask how the bark was collected is one that destroys its own source.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The genus also holds haritaki and bibhitaki, and bark of other Terminalia species is substituted for arjuna where the trees grow together.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Terminalia from Latin terminus, an end — the leaves cluster at the very ends of the shoots. Arjuna is the Sanskrit name, and also means white, for the pale bark.

Arjuna is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu among the trees and is recorded in the classical literature as hridya. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the bark does in a body.

Constituents. The bark carries tannins, triterpenoid saponins including arjunolic acid, and flavonoids. Content varies with the age of the tree and the part of the trunk the bark came from.

• 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.