Karpasa

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Kapas

What the texts say Karpasa does

• Vatahara — pacifies vata
• Stanyajanana — promotes breast milk
• Vedanasthapana — relieves pain
• Garbhashaya sankochaka — contracts the uterus
• Shothahara — reduces swelling

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive upset
• Weakness
• Nausea

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy — absolutely.; Breastfeeding.; Any man who may wish to father children, in light of the gossypol finding.; and more below.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

The root bark is an emmenagogue and is contraindicated in pregnancy. Gossypol in the seed is an antifertility agent.

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.

Madhura and tikta 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.

Karpasa gives the English word canvas, through Greek and Latin — one of the few dravya in this library whose Sanskrit name is still in daily use in another language.

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.

Root bark of Gossypium hirsutum is used where the tradition means Gossypium herbaceum, and hirsutum is what grows in Indian fields now. Cottonseed oil is also a common adulterant of other edible oils, including sesame, which is where most people encounter gossypol without knowing it.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The Old World cotton of Indian tradition; most cotton grown in India today is Gossypium hirsutum, an American species, which matters for the safety note below.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Gossypium is the Latin for cotton. Herbaceum means herbaceous, not woody — this is the old-world short-staple cotton.

Karpasa is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu and its root bark is named in the classical literature for the uterus. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the bark does in a body.

Constituents. The plant carries gossypol, a polyphenol concentrated in the seed and root. Gossypol was studied as a male contraceptive and abandoned because the infertility it caused was often permanent.

• 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.