Dadima

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Anar

What the texts say Dadima does

• Grahi — digestive that absorbs excess fluid and binds the stool
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Hridya — good for the heart
• Trishnanigrahana — quenching thirst
• Raktapittahara — used in bleeding disorders (raktapitta)
• Balya — strengthening

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

Side effects and limits

• Constipation from the rind's tannins
• Digestive upset

Avoid or ask first: Root bark, other than under a qualified practitioner.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

The ROOT BARK is anthelmintic and toxic in quantity; the fruit is food. Different drugs.

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.

Madhura, amla and kashaya with anushna virya and madhura vipaka. The texts treat the sweet fruit as tridoshahara, which is rare and is why it is given so freely.

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.

Lohitapushpa names the red flower. Dantabeeja, tooth-seeded, describes the packed arils, which is how the fruit is recognised without cutting it.

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 itself is rarely adulterated. Commercial pomegranate juice is another matter and is among the most economically adulterated juices in the world, routinely diluted or bulked with cheaper juices. Root bark of other species is substituted where the root bark is wanted.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The texts distinguish the sweet fruit, used as food and a gentle dravya, from the sour, and treat the root bark as a separate and far stronger article.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Punica means Phoenician or Carthaginian — the Romans met it through Carthage. Granatum means having many seeds, and gives us both grenade and garnet.

Dadima is described in the Charaka Samhita among the fruits and in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu, where the sweet and sour kinds are distinguished. 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 punicalagins and anthocyanins. The root bark carries piperidine alkaloids including pelletierine, which is the basis of the warning below and is not present in the fruit.

Grown as a crop: how to grow pomegranate, 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.