Dhataki

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Dhai phool

What the texts say Dhataki does

• Grahi — digestive that absorbs excess fluid and binds the stool
• Raktastambhana — checks bleeding (haemostatic)
• Vrana ropana — heals wounds
• Jwaraghna — used in fever
• Sandhaniya — unites tissue, helps fractures and wounds join

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

Side effects and limits

A flower in very long and very wide use, including as the fermenting agent in preparations taken over months. No significant toxicity is recorded. Anyone pregnant, on medication or managing a diagnosed condition should speak to a doctor or a qualified practitioner first.

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

As a grahi drug. As a fermenting agent the quantity is set by the Sandhana Kalpana method, not by a clinical 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

Woodfordia fruticosa flower. The article is unambiguous botanically; the failure is age, because the wild yeast it is bought for dies in storage.

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.

Kashaya and tikta with sheeta virya and katu vipaka — a cooling astringent, which is what makes it both a grahi drug and a safe fermenting agent.

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.

Tamrapushpi, copper-flowered, is the recognition character: the dried flower is a deep brick red.

The flowers of Grislea tomentosa are the same plant under an old name rather than an adulterant. The real problem is age: the wild yeast the flower carries dies with storage, so an old sample looks correct, passes every identity test, and simply will not ferment. That is a failure no pharmacopoeial standard for identity would catch.

Woodfordia fruticosa is unambiguous and has no serious botanical rival in the market, which is unusual for a dravya this heavily traded.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Woodfordia honours E. J. A. Woodford. Fruticosa means shrubby. The flower is what turns a decoction into an arishta without a brewer, and every pharmacy runs on it.

Dhataki is named in five of Charaka's mahakashaya and is specified by Sharangadhara as the fermenting agent of the asava and arishta preparations. That is what the tradition records and where it is set down.

• 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.