Madhuka

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Mahua

What the texts say Madhuka does

• Balya — strengthening
• Brimhana — nourishing, builds tissue
• Vrishya — aphrodisiac, supports reproductive vigour
• Stanyajanana — promotes breast milk
• Dahaprashamana — relieves burning
• Kasahara — relieves cough

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive heaviness
• Loose stool in quantity

Avoid or ask first: Diabetes, as regards the flower in quantity, given its sugar content.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Madhuca longifolia, the mahua. NOT Madhuyashti, which is yashtimadhu — and in Charaka's medhya rasayana list 'Madhuka' means yashtimadhu.

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.

A single rasa, madhura, with sheeta virya and madhura 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.

Gudapushpa means jaggery-flower and Madhusrava means honey-flowing: both describe the sweetness of the fallen corolla, which is collected from the ground at dawn.

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.

Madhuca neriifolia and other Madhuca species are collected with it. The serious confusion in practice is with Madhuyashti, yashtimadhu, which is Glycyrrhiza glabra and an unrelated family — the names are close enough that prescriptions are misread, and liquorice carries cautions about blood pressure and potassium that madhuka does not.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Bassia latifolia and Madhuca indica are synonyms. Not to be confused with Madhuyashti, which is yashtimadhu, liquorice — the names are close and the plants are unrelated.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Madhuca is the Sanskrit madhuka Latinised — madhu means honey, for the sweet flowers that are collected and eaten. Longifolia means long-leaved.

Madhuka is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu among the fruits and is recorded as balya. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the flower does in a body.

Constituents. The flower is largely sugars. The seed carries a fat and saponins; the saponins are what make the seed cake a fish poison and a detergent rather than a food.

• 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.