Daruharidra

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Daruhaldi

What the texts say Daruharidra does

• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Lekhana — scraping, reduces excess tissue and fat
• Vranashodhana — cleans wounds
• Netrya — good for the eyes
• Raktashodhana — purifies the blood

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive upset
• Loose stool
• Bitterness and nausea

Avoid or ask first: Newborn infants.; Pregnancy and breastfeeding.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Rasanjana, the boiled-down aqueous extract, is a separate preparation with its own smaller matra.

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

Berberis aristata stem. Berberine is the marker across the whole Berberis group, so it confirms the genus rather than the species.

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.

Tikta and kashaya with ushna virya and katu vipaka.

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.

Pita daru, yellow wood, is the identifying feature: a cut stem is bright yellow inside from berberine, and no other Himalayan shrub of that size is.

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.

Berberis species are substituted for one another freely and differ in berberine content. More consequentially, Coscinium fenestratum — tree turmeric, an unrelated Menispermaceae — is sold as Daruharidra in south India, and Berberis lycium and Mahonia species are also used. All of these are yellow inside, which is the only test most buyers apply.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Several Himalayan Berberis species are used interchangeably. The name means wood-turmeric: the stem is yellow inside like haridra, and the two are paired in the texts but are entirely unrelated plants.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Berberis is from the Arabic barbaris. Aristata means bearing a bristle or awn, for the spines. Daru-haridra is wood-turmeric: yellow inside like haridra, but it is wood, not a rhizome.

Daruharidra is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu, which also describes Rasanjana prepared from it. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the stem does in a body.

Constituents. The stem and root carry the alkaloid berberine, which is what makes them yellow and is also the source of the caution below.

• 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.