Matulunga

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Bijora

What the texts say Matulunga does

• Ruchya — improves taste
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Pachana — digests ama (digestive)
• Chhardinigrahana — relieves vomiting (anti-emetic)
• Hridya — good for the heart
• Vatanulomana — moves vata downward, relieves wind

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

Side effects and limits

• Acidity and heartburn
• Increased sensitivity of skin to sunlight after handling the peel
• Tooth enamel erosion from the acid

Avoid or ask first: 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

The ancestral citrus; classical deepana and vatahara.

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.

The pulp is amla, the rind is madhura and tikta, and the texts give them different virya — the rind is described as ushna and the pulp as sheeta in some recensions.

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.

Bijapura, full of seeds, names the fruit's most obvious feature. Ruchaka names the action — it restores appetite — which is the use it is named for.

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.

Lemon and other citrus are sold as matulunga, and the true citron — thick-rinded, heavy, with little juice — is now uncommon in markets that once carried it. Because most people have never seen a citron, a lemon passes easily.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The oldest citrus known in India and one of the three ancestral citrus species from which most others descend. Distinguished in the texts from Nimbuka, the lime.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Citrus is the old Latin for the citron. Medica means of Media, in Persia, where Greeks first met it. This is the ancestral citrus.

Matulunga is described in the Charaka Samhita among the fruits and in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu with each part distinguished. 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 rind carries an essential oil with limonene and furocoumarins. The pulp carries citric acid and vitamin C.

• 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.