Musta

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Nagarmotha

What the texts say Musta does

• Grahi — digestive that absorbs excess fluid and binds the stool
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Pachana — digests ama (digestive)
• Jwaraghna — used in fever
• Stanyashodhana — purifying breast milk
• Medohara — reduces fat

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive dryness
• Constipation in those of vata constitution

Avoid or ask first: No absolute contraindication is documented here. This is written deliberately rather than left blank.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

The standard grahi-deepana matra; one of the six of Shadanga Paniya.

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

Cyperus rotundus tuber. Cyperus scariosus is traded under the same market name and is more strongly aromatic.

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, katu and kashaya with sheeta virya and katu vipaka. The combination of katu rasa with sheeta virya is unusual and is worth noticing.

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.

Bhadramusta is the paryaya used where a superior grade is meant. Varida and Ghana both carry the sense of cloud or rain, recording the wet ground it grows in.

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.

Cyperus scariosus is traded as Nagarmotha and is a different species, more aromatic and used in perfumery as well as medicine; the two names are used loosely in the market. The more practical problem is that the tuber is collected from cultivated fields where it is a weed, which means it may carry whatever was sprayed on the crop it was growing in.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. This is the plant agronomists call the world's worst weed, and the same tuber that ruins a field is the dravya — a student may enjoy telling a farmer that.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Cyperus is the Greek kypeiros. Rotundus means round, for the tuber. It is the world's worst weed and one of Ayurveda's best digestives, which is the fact worth carrying.

Musta is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu and heads the Lekhaniya group in the Charaka Samhita. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the tuber does in a body.

Constituents. The tuber carries an essential oil with sesquiterpenes including cyperene and the cyperotundone group. Content varies with population and with season.

• 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.