Pushkaramoola

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Pushkarmool

What the texts say Pushkaramoola does

• Shwasahara — relieves breathlessness
• Kasahara — relieves cough
• Hridya — good for the heart
• Shoolaprashamana — relieves colicky pain
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Jwaraghna — used in fever

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

Side effects and limits

• Contact allergy and skin rash
• Digestive upset
• Burning sensation

Avoid or ask first: Known allergy to plants of the Asteraceae family.; Pregnancy.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

The classical hridroga and shwasa root.

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.

Tikta and katu 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.

Kashmira records where it grows. Kushthabheda — the one that splits from kushtha — is the paryaya that names the substitution relationship directly, which is unusually candid of the tradition.

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.

The relationship with Kushtha runs both ways and both are problems. Because Saussurea costus is CITES-restricted and scarce, Inula racemosa is sold as Kushtha; and because Inula is itself becoming scarce, Saussurea and other aromatic roots are sold as Pushkaramoola. Inula royleana and Inula helenium, the European elecampane, are also traded under the name.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Widely used as a substitute for Kushtha, which is under CITES Appendix I restriction — so a great deal of what is sold as one is the other, in both directions.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Inula is the classical Latin name. Racemosa means flowers in a raceme. Pushkara-moola means lotus-root, for the shape, not the relationship.

Pushkaramoola is named in the Charaka Samhita for difficulty in breathing and pain in the side, and described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu. 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 sesquiterpene lactones including alantolactone and isoalantolactone, the same class as in kushtha.

• 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.