Kushtha

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Kuth

What the texts say Kushtha does

• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Shwasahara — relieves breathlessness
• Kasahara — relieves cough
• Vatahara — pacifies vata
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Vishaghna — antidote (against poison)

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

Side effects and limits

• Contact allergy and skin rash
• Digestive upset

Avoid or ask first: Known allergy to plants of the Asteraceae family.; Pregnancy.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

CITES Appendix I — Saussurea costus is among the most restricted medicinal plants in the world. Legality of the source is part of prescribing 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.

Tikta, katu and madhura 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.

The name Kushtha is the same word as the disease category kushtha, skin disease, which is the use the texts most associate it with — the dravya and the condition share a name.

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.

Because wild trade is barred, substitution is the norm rather than the exception. Inula racemosa, Pushkaramoola, is the commonest substitute and is itself a legitimate dravya with different properties. Other Saussurea species and unrelated aromatic roots are also sold as kuth. A buyer offered wild kushtha cheaply is being offered something that is either not kushtha or should not be for sale.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Saussurea lappa is a synonym and is the name most Ayurvedic literature uses. This is the most strictly protected plant in the library: it is on CITES Appendix I, the highest level, which effectively bans commercial international trade in wild material.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Saussurea honours Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. Costus is the ancient Greek and Latin name for this very root, traded from Kashmir to Rome. Kushtha is one of the oldest named drugs in the world.

Kushtha is named in the Charaka Samhita and described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu, and shares its name with the disease category it is used in. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the root does in a body.

Constituents. The root carries sesquiterpene lactones, principally costunolide and dehydrocostus lactone, along with an essential oil.

• 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.