Kasturi

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

What the texts say Kasturi does

• Hridya — good for the heart
• Vrishya — aphrodisiac, supports reproductive vigour
• Medhya — supports intellect and memory
• Shwasahara — relieves breathlessness
• Vishaghna — antidote (against poison)

What the evidence says. No clinical evidence establishes an effect. The conservation position is well documented.

Side effects and limits

The overwhelming consideration is legal and ecological, not toxicological: musk deer are threatened and the gland is taken by killing the animal. Synthetic musks have their own toxicology and are not the classical dravya.

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy — classically abortifacient.; Pitta-predominant conditions.; Any material without lawful provenance, which is nearly all of it.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Appears in classical yogas such as Kasturi Bhairava rasa and Mrigamadasava. In practice a substitute is what is used, and the yoga is no longer the yoga the text describes.

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.

Kasturi is classed among the jangama dravya.

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.

Almost everything sold as kasturi is synthetic musk or a substitute. **Every Moschus species is CITES Appendix I or II and is protected under India's Wildlife Protection Act.** Laisha records this dravya because the texts and the yogas name it, and states plainly that legal sourcing is effectively unavailable and that synthetic musk is what the market supplies.

From Musk deer, Moschus species — the preputial gland secretion of the male. The dried glandular secretion.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Kasturi gave the Persian and Arabic words and, through Greek moschos, the English musk — which comes ultimately from the Sanskrit mushka, testicle, for the shape of the gland pod. Nutmeg's Latin, Myristica, is from the same Greek root, for the smell.

Kasturi is named in classical yogas for hridroga, shwasa and as a medhya and vrishya. Laisha records what the texts say and what the law now says alongside it.

Constituents. A product of Musk deer, Moschus species — the preputial gland secretion of the male.

• 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.