Sariva

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Anantmul

What the texts say Sariva does

• Raktaprasadana — improves the quality of the blood
• Daha prashamana — relieves burning
• Kandughna — relieves itching
• Stanya shodhana — purifies breast milk
• Varnya — improves complexion
• Mutrala — diuretic

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

Side effects and limits

Long used, and used in quantity, in classical preparations. The caution that matters here is identity rather than toxicity: three different roots are sold under this name, and one of them, Decalepis, is collected from wild populations that are now protected in parts of India. Anyone pregnant, on medication or managing a diagnosed condition should speak to a doctor or a qualified practitioner first.

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 classical raktaprasadana matra.

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

Hemidesmus indicus root. The aldehyde is what gives the root its vanilla-like smell, so the field test and the laboratory test are the same compound.

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.

Madhura and tikta with sheeta virya and madhura vipaka — a rare combination, and the reason it is used where a cooling drug must also nourish rather than deplete.

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.

Ananta, the endless one, records the running root. Shyama belongs properly to the dark-rooted Krishna Sariva and is one route by which the two get confused.

The commonest substitution is Cryptolepis buchananii, sold as Krishna Sariva, and Decalepis hamiltonii, whose root is eaten as a pickle in south India and has a similar smell. Decalepis is now itself threatened by that collection. The vanilla-like odour of true Hemidesmus root is the practical check, and a root that smells of nothing is not this dravya.

Hemidesmus indicus is Sveta Sariva. Krishna Sariva is a different plant, Cryptolepis buchananii, and the two are sold under one name. The classical lists name both separately, which is the clue that they were never meant to be interchangeable.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Hemidesmus is Greek hemi, half, and desmos, a band — for the partly-joined filaments. Indicus, of India. The root smells of vanilla, which is the field test that no book can give you.

Sariva heads the Sarivadi gana in the Sushruta Samhita and is named among the Varnya and Jwarahara mahakashaya in the Charaka Samhita. That is what the tradition records and where it is written down, not a finding about what the root does in a body.

• 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.