Kalmegha

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

What the texts say Kalmegha does

• Jwaraghna — used in fever
• Kamalahara — used in jaundice (kamala)
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Raktashodhana — purifies the blood
• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease

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

Side effects and limits

• Loss of appetite and nausea from the bitterness
• Digestive upset
• Headache
• Allergic rash

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy.; Anyone trying to conceive, in light of the above.; Autoimmune conditions, given its immune-stimulating activity.; and more below.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Intensely tikta; the matra is small because the bitterness itself limits it.

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

Andrographolide is the bitter principle; a sample that is not intensely bitter will not meet the limit.

These are the pharmacopoeial limits for the article, not a test Laisha has run on anything. They are here so a practitioner can ask a supplier for a certificate of analysis and know what the numbers on it should say.

A single rasa, tikta, and it is the standard example of an extremely tikta dravya. Sheeta 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.

Bhunimba means earth-neem, because it is as bitter as nimba without being a tree. Mahatikta, the great bitter, says it plainly. The paryaya Kiratatikta is shared with Swertia chirata, which is a different plant, and that overlap is the source of real confusion.

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.

Swertia chirata, Kiratatikta, shares a paryaya with this plant and is a different family entirely; the two are sold interchangeably as chirayata across north India, and Swertia is scarcer and dearer, so the substitution runs from cheap to dear. Both are intensely bitter, so taste does not separate them.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Called the king of bitters, and among the most intensely bitter plants used anywhere — the taste is the identification.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Andrographis is andros (man) + graphis (a pencil or brush) — the anthers. Paniculata means the flowers are in a panicle. Kal-megha means dark cloud, for the bitterness and the colour.

Kalmegha is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu as bhunimba. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the herb does in a body.

Constituents. The herb carries diterpene lactones, principally andrographolide, which is what commercial extracts are standardised to and what makes it so bitter.

• 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.