Maricha

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Kali mirch

What the texts say Maricha does

• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Pachana — digests ama (digestive)
• Kaphaghna — pacifies kapha
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Shirovirechana — clears the head (nasal errhine)

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

Side effects and limits

• Burning sensation
• Aggravation of acidity
• Irritation of the stomach in quantity

Avoid or ask first: Conditions aggravated by ushna and tikshna dravya, including acid dyspepsia and peptic ulcer, in medicinal quantity.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Small matra by design — the ushna tikshna guna is the whole point and is also the limit.

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

Papaya seed is the classical adulterant of black pepper and lowers the piperine. Exhausted pepper does the same.

These are the pharmacopoeial limits for the article, not a test Laisha has run on anything. They are here so a practitioner can ask a supplier for a certificate of analysis and know what the numbers on it should say.

A single rasa, katu, with ushna virya and katu vipaka — as plain a profile as Dravyaguna has, and the standard example of a katu dravya.

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.

Krishna means black and names the dried fruit. Vellaja records where it comes from. Ushana names the virya directly, which is unusual — the name itself tells you it is heating.

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.

Papaya seed is the classic adulterant of whole black pepper — it is close in size and colour and hard to see in a heap. Once ground, the adulteration problem widens to spent pepper, starch and millet flour. Light berries that float rather than sink are the traditional test and it still works.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. One of the three of Trikatu, with shunthi and pippali. Native to the Malabar coast, and the reason European ships came looking for India at all.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Piper is from the Sanskrit pippali, through Greek peperi — the word pepper is Sanskrit. Nigrum means black.

Maricha is named as one of Trikatu in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu and is recorded throughout the classical literature as deepana and pachana. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the fruit does in a body.

Constituents. The fruit carries the alkaloid piperine, which gives it its pungency, along with an essential oil. Piperine is the compound behind the documented interaction described in the safety section.

Grown as a crop: how to grow black pepper, from sowing to harvest, in Laisha's grow guides.

• 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.