Gunja

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Ratti

What the texts say Gunja does

• Keshya — good for the hair
• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Vedanasthapana — relieves pain
• Vajikarana — aphrodisiac, virilising

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

Side effects and limits

• Severe irritation of the mouth and gut
• Vomiting and diarrhoea

Avoid or ask first: Internal use of raw seed, by anyone, in any quantity.; Self-treatment, absolutely.; Pregnancy and breastfeeding.; 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 and one of the most toxic plant proteins known. The intact chewed seed is lethal. Chiefly external.

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.

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.

Raktika, the red one, names the scarlet seed with its single black eye. That seed was the classical unit of weight — one ratti — because the seeds are so uniform, which is why a jeweller and a physician once used the same word.

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 red seed is sold widely as a bead and as jewellery, and that is how most poisonings happen rather than through medicine. The white-seeded kind is a different variety of the same species and is scarcer. Because the seeds are famously uniform in weight they were used as a measure, which means they turn up in places nobody thinks of as a pharmacy.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Classed among the upavisha. The seed contains abrin, a toxin of the same class as ricin and, by weight, one of the most poisonous substances known.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Abrus is habros, graceful. Precatorius means of prayer — the scarlet-and-black seeds were strung as rosaries, and are also the classical weight standard. Beautiful, used for prayer, and lethal.

Gunja is described in the Sushruta Samhita among the poisons and in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the seed does in a body.

Constituents. The seed carries abrin, a ribosome-inactivating protein of the same class as ricin. The hard seed coat is what makes an intact swallowed seed usually survivable; a chewed one is not.

• 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.