Madanaphala

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Mainphal

What the texts say Madanaphala does

• Vamaka — emetic
• Lekhana — scraping, reduces excess tissue and fat
• Shothahara — reduces swelling
• Vrana shodhana — cleans wounds
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)

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

Side effects and limits

• Vomiting, which is the intended action
• Weakness and thirst after the procedure

Avoid or ask first: Not used outside a supervised vamana procedure.; Not used in the very young, the very old, the debilitated, or in those with cardiac or respiratory disease, following the classical list of ayogya for vamana.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

A quantity for a supervised vamana conducted by a practitioner, never a dose to be taken by anyone on their own.

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, tikta and kashaya with ushna virya and katu vipaka. It is the rare instance where the rasa gives almost no clue to the action, which the texts attribute to prabhava.

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.

Chhardana names the action directly - that which causes vomiting. The texts rarely leave the chief vamaka drug ambiguous.

The fruits of several Rubiaceae are sold as mainphal, and old stock is the commoner problem: the emetic activity falls with storage, so a sample that is genuine but aged simply does not act. Charaka's instruction to collect it in a particular season and store it in a particular way is about potency, not ritual.

Long published as Randia dumetorum, which is the name most Indian textbooks still use. Catunaregam spinosa is the accepted name in the current backbone and both refer to the same plant.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Catunaregam is from the Malayalam katuna regam. Spinosa, for the thorns. Madana means intoxicating or maddening; the fruit was also used to stupefy fish, which is the same property read from the other end.

Charaka gives the first chapter of the whole Kalpasthana to Madanaphala and names it the foremost of the vamaka dravya. That is what the tradition records and where it is set down.

• 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.