Manjishtha

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Majith

What the texts say Manjishtha does

• Raktashodhana — purifies the blood
• Varnya — improves complexion
• Vishaghna — antidote (against poison)
• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Vranaropana — heals wounds
• Shothahara — reduces swelling

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

Side effects and limits

• Red colouring of urine, which is harmless
• Digestive upset

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

The classical raktashodhaka and varnya matra. Colours the urine red — warn the patient or they will alarm themselves.

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

Rubia cordifolia root. The anthraquinone pigments are the markers and also the visible character.

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, kashaya 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.

Raktangi, red-bodied, names the colour of the root. Yojanavalli, the creeper that runs for yojanas, describes how far the straggling stems reach.

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.

Rubia tinctorum, the European madder, and other Rubia species are substituted, and roots of unrelated red-rooted plants are sold where the buyer judges by colour alone. Because the root is also an article of the dye trade, spent root from which the colour has been extracted is dried and sold as medicine and looks nearly right.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The same plant is a dye as well as a dravya, and the red it gives is where both its Sanskrit name and its English one come from.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Rubia is from ruber, red — the dye. Cordifolia is heart-leaved. Manjishtha means the bright red one. Genus, epithet and Sanskrit all agree: a red dye with a heart-shaped leaf.

Manjishtha is named among the Varnya group in the Charaka Samhita and is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu as acting on the blood. 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 anthraquinones including purpurin and munjistin. Related anthraquinones in the European madder are the subject of the warning below.

• 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.