Saptaparna

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Chhatim

What the texts say Saptaparna does

• Jwaraghna — used in fever
• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Kushthaghna — used in skin disease
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Stanyashodhana — purifying breast milk
• Shothahara — reduces swelling

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive upset
• Nausea from the bitterness
• Skin irritation from the latex

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 jwarahara and krimighna bark; echitamine is cytotoxic in quantity.

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 kashaya with ushna virya and katu vipaka. Among the most intensely bitter barks in the materia medica.

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.

Saptaparna means seven-leaved and Saptachhada says it again: the leaves are in whorls, typically of seven, and that whorl is the identification from a distance.

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.

Alstonia venenata and Holarrhena species are collected and sold as saptaparna, and Holarrhena is itself kutaja, a separate dravya. Because all three are bitter barks of the same family, taste does not distinguish them.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. The species epithet scholaris comes from its wood having been used for school writing boards.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Alstonia honours Charles Alston. Scholaris means of the school — the soft wood was cut into writing boards for schoolchildren. Sapta-parna means seven-leaved, for the whorl of leaves.

Saptaparna is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu and is named in the classical literature among the dravya for fever. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the bark does in a body.

Constituents. The bark carries indole alkaloids including echitamine and ditamine.

• 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.