Bhallataka

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Bhilawa

What the texts say Bhallataka does

• Rasayana — rejuvenative
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Bhedana — breaks up hard, bound stool and expels it (purgative)
• Medohara — reduces fat

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

Side effects and limits

• Burning sensation in the mouth and stomach
• Severe skin blistering on contact with the raw oil
• Mouth ulceration
• Acidity

Avoid or ask first: Self-treatment, absolutely.; Pregnancy and breastfeeding.; Children.; and more below.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Among the upavisha. Used only after shodhana, only in a classical yoga, and ghrita is given alongside to blunt the vesicant action.

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, tikta and kashaya with ushna virya and madhura vipaka. The madhura vipaka is the detail the texts rely on for its rasayana use.

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.

Agnimukha means fire-mouthed and Shophakrit means swelling-causing. The paryaya describe what the raw nut does to skin, and they are a warning label written in Sanskrit.

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.

Semecarpus travancoricus and related species are collected with it. The substitution that matters most is not of species but of process: nuts sold as purified that have not been through shodhana look identical and are a blistering agent. Anacardium occidentale, the cashew, is in the same family and its shell oil carries the same class of compound, which is why cashew shells are also not handled bare.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The same family as mango and cashew, and it shares their characteristic irritant oil in a far more aggressive form. Classed among the upavisha, the lesser poisons.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Semecarpus is semeion (a mark) + karpos (fruit) — the juice marks cloth indelibly, which is why it was the laundry-marking nut. Anacardium, heart-shaped-without: the nut sits outside the fleshy part.

Bhallataka is described in the Charaka Samhita among the rasayana with its own regimen, and in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu as a poison. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the nut does in a body.

Constituents. The nut oil carries urushiol-type phenols, chiefly bhilawanol, the same chemical class as the irritant in poison ivy and in cashew shell.

• 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.