कङ्कुष्ठ
Given in the texts as an earthy mineral exudate of the Himalaya, blackish or yellowish, used as a purgative. Modern identifications differ: some read it as a resinous plant exudate rather than a mineral at all, others as an iron-bearing earth.
Parthiva · mineral origin · Uparasa
SHODHANA — NO MINERAL DRAVYA IS USED RAW
Bhavana with godugdha or with triphala kwatha, dried and powdered. The texts are brief about it, which is consistent with a dravya whose identity was already uncertain when they were written.
TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS
What the texts say Kankushtha does
What the evidence says. Traditional use is documented in the Rasashastra texts. Modern evidence about this dravya is largely toxicological rather than therapeutic.
Side effects and limits
A purgative of unsettled identity that is rarely prepared and rarely traded. The safety of a dravya nobody can reliably identify cannot be stated, and that is the honest position rather than a cautious one. Anyone pregnant, on medication or managing a diagnosed condition should speak to a doctor or a qualified practitioner first.
Avoid or ask first: Not used in the raw, unprocessed state.; Not used at all where the material supplied has not been identified.
A traditional classification, not a recommendation. The full safety record is below.
AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE
| Shuddha churna | 125–250 mg, specialist use only |
| Anupana | Ushnodaka |
| Kala | As the yoga directs |
Recorded from the classical literature. The article is very rarely prepared and its identity is unsettled.
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.
| Rasa | KatuTikta |
| Guna | LaghuTikshna |
| Virya | Ushna |
| Vipaka | Katu |
| Prabhava | Named in the texts purely as a virechana dravya, which is unusual among the uparasa and is the whole reason it is listed. |
| Doshakarma | Kaphapittahara. |
Katu and tikta with ushna virya and katu vipaka, the profile of the purgative dravya.
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.
| Upayukta anga | Shuddha kankushtha |
| Why it matters | The processed article, never the raw mineral. A lot received raw is a different material from the one the formula names. |
| English | Purgative earth |
| Hindi | Kankushtha |
| Kannada | Kankushtha |
| Tamil | Kankushtha |
| Telugu | Kankushtha |
| Malayalam | Kankushtha |
| Marathi | Kankushtha |
| Gujarati | Kankushtha |
| Bengali | Kankushtha |
| Odia | Kankushtha |
| Urdu | Kankushtha |
| Classical virechana yogas | Named as a purgative component in some recensions. |
The identification is unsettled and the article is rarely traded, so what is supplied under the name is usually something else entirely. A practitioner offered Kankushtha should ask what the supplier believes it to be, because the honest answer in most of the market is that nobody knows.
Given in the texts as an earthy mineral exudate of the Himalaya, blackish or yellowish, used as a purgative. Modern identifications differ: some read it as a resinous plant exudate rather than a mineral at all, others as an iron-bearing earth.
A WAY TO REMEMBER IT
Kankushtha is read as kanka, a heron, and stha, standing - the texts describe the colour as that of a heron's droppings, which is the kind of recognition character that survives badly across a thousand years.
Kankushtha is listed among the uparasa in the Rasa Ratna Samuccaya and described as a purgative. Which material the texts meant is not settled.
Constituents. Given in the texts as an earthy mineral exudate of the Himalaya, blackish or yellowish, used as a purgative. Modern identifications differ: some read it as a resinous plant exudate rather than a mineral at all, others as an iron-bearing earth.
| Status | Traditional use is documented in the Rasashastra texts. Modern evidence about this dravya is largely toxicological rather than therapeutic. |
| Suggested | The dravya has a defined place and a defined shodhana in the classical Rasashastra literature, and the processed form has a pharmacopoeial standing in India. That is a standard for the material, not evidence of an effect in a body. |
| Not established | There is not enough good clinical evidence to establish an effect on any named health condition. Long traditional use is not a substitute for that evidence, and this library does not present it as one. |
| The honest gap | Published analyses of preparations containing this dravya rarely record whether shodhana was performed or how, so a result cannot be attributed to the processed article rather than the raw mineral. |
A purgative of unsettled identity that is rarely prepared and rarely traded. The safety of a dravya nobody can reliably identify cannot be stated, and that is the honest position rather than a cautious one. Anyone pregnant, on medication or managing a diagnosed condition should speak to a doctor or a qualified practitioner first.
| Contraindications | Not used in the raw, unprocessed state. Not used at all where the material supplied has not been identified. |
| Interactions | No specific drug interaction is documented for this dravya. That is the honest state of the evidence, not a statement that none exists - the mineral dravya have almost never been studied for interaction with modern medicines. |
| Pregnancy and breastfeeding | Not used in pregnancy. A purgative is avoided in pregnancy on classical grounds alone, and the identity here is unsettled besides. |