Chitraka

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

What the texts say Chitraka does

• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Pachana — digests ama (digestive)
• Grahi — digestive that absorbs excess fluid and binds the stool
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Shothahara — reduces swelling
• Lekhana — scraping, reduces excess tissue and fat

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

Side effects and limits

• Burning sensation
• Blistering of skin on contact with fresh root
• Acidity and gastric irritation

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy — absolutely.; Peptic ulcer and acid conditions.; Bleeding disorders.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Small matra and short courses. The root bark is a vesicant on contact and is contraindicated in pregnancy.

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

Plumbago zeylanica root. Plumbagin is both the marker and the reason the raw root is a vesicant requiring shodhana.

These are the marker and the identity test for this dravya, and they are not a test Laisha has run on anything. Laisha does not state the numeric limits here: the assay, ash and extractive figures must be read from the current edition of the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India, because a wrong limit printed here is a number a laboratory would act on. The entries in this library that DO carry figures carry them because each one was checked.

A single rasa, katu, with ushna virya and katu vipaka. Among the most strongly ushna dravya in the materia medica.

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.

Every one of these paryaya means fire. No dravya in this library is named more insistently for a single quality, and the names are a warning as much as a description.

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.

Roots of the other Plumbago species are used interchangeably though they differ in strength, and the red-flowered kind is stronger. Because the root is caustic, the more consequential problem is not substitution but preparation: material that has not been processed as the tradition directs is a different and harsher article than material that has.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The white-flowered species is the one the texts mean. Plumbago indica, red-flowered, and Plumbago auriculata, blue, are also traded and the red is considered stronger.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Plumbago is from plumbum, lead — the flowers were said to cure lead poisoning, or to stain the skin lead-grey. Zeylanica, of Ceylon. Chitraka means the spotted or striking one.

Chitraka is named in the Deepaniya dashemani of the Charaka Samhita and is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the root does in a body.

Constituents. The root carries plumbagin, a naphthoquinone, which is responsible for both the action and the irritancy.

• 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.