Kutaja

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Kurchi

What the texts say Kutaja does

• Sangrahi — binds the stool
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Jwaraghna — used in fever
• Raktastambhana — checks bleeding (haemostatic)

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive upset
• Constipation
• Bitterness and nausea

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy.; Use in children without a qualified practitioner.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Takra is the classical anupana in atisara and pravahika. Bark and seed (Indrayava) are distinct drugs.

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

Conessine in the bark of Holarrhena pubescens. Wrightia tinctoria is the standing substitute and carries none.

These are the marker and the identity test for this dravya, and they are not a test Laisha has run on anything. Laisha does not state the numeric limits here: the assay, ash and extractive figures must be read from the current edition of the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India, because a wrong limit printed here is a number a laboratory would act on. The entries in this library that DO carry figures carry them because each one was checked.

Tikta and kashaya with sheeta virya and katu vipaka — the profile the texts associate with its action on the bowel.

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.

Kalinga records the country. Girimallika, hill jasmine, describes the white flowers, which is how the tree is spotted on a hillside in the rains.

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.

Wrightia tinctoria is the classic substitute and grows in the same places with similar white flowers and similar long paired pods. The distinction taught in the field is taste: kutaja bark and seed are markedly bitter and Wrightia is not, which is why the Urdu name for the seed is inderjo talkh, the bitter indrayava, against inderjo shirin, the sweet one, which is the substitute.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Holarrhena antidysenterica is a synonym and is the name most Ayurvedic literature uses. The seed, Indrayava, is treated as a separate dravya from the bark.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Holarrhena is holos (whole) + arrhen (male) — the anthers run the whole length. Pubescens means downy. Kutaja means born of a mountain rock.

Kutaja is named in the Charaka Samhita among the dravya used where the bowel is loose, and is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu. 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 bark and seed carry steroidal alkaloids, of which conessine is the principal one. Alkaloid content is much higher in the bark than in the seed.

• 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.