Haratala

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Hartal

What the texts say Haratala does

• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Vishaghna — antidote (against poison)
• Keshaghna — removes hair (depilatory)

What the evidence says. Traditional use is documented. Modern evidence is toxicological: arsenic content in Ayurvedic preparations and resulting poisonings have been reported repeatedly in peer-reviewed literature.

Side effects and limits

This is arsenic. Arsenic trisulphide is poorly soluble, which is why it is less acutely toxic than soluble arsenic compounds, and that is a matter of degree and not of kind. Chronic arsenic exposure causes skin lesions, peripheral neuropathy and cancer, and arsenic poisoning from Ayurvedic preparations is documented in the medical literature.

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy and breastfeeding.; Children.; Renal or hepatic impairment.; and more below.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Never given alone. It appears in named yogas such as Talakeshwara rasa, in a stated quantity, prepared by a practitioner qualified in Rasashastra.

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.

Haratala is classed among the Uparasa.

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.

Haratala and Manahshila are both arsenic sulphides and are routinely confused and substituted for one another. Haratala is the yellow trisulphide; Manahshila is the red disulphide. The names are not interchangeable and neither are the drugs.

Arsenic trisulphide, As2S3. A yellow arsenic mineral.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Hara-tala is Shiva's palm-leaf, for the yellow sheets the mineral splits into. Orpiment is from the Latin auripigmentum, gold pigment, for the same colour.

Haratala is one of the uparasa and appears in classical yogas for kushtha and for shwasa. The texts treat it as a poison requiring shodhana before any use, and that is stated in the texts themselves.

Constituents. Arsenic trisulphide, As2S3. A yellow arsenic mineral.

• 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. It is not restated as a finding about a human body.
• Nothing here replaces a qualified Ayurvedic practitioner or a doctor.