Shalmali

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Semal

What the texts say Shalmali does

• Grahi — digestive that absorbs excess fluid and binds the stool
• Sangrahi — binds the stool
• Raktastambhana — checks bleeding (haemostatic)
• Vrishya — aphrodisiac, supports reproductive vigour
• Balya — strengthening
• Vranaropana — heals wounds

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

Side effects and limits

• Constipation
• Digestive heaviness

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

Mocharasa, the dried gum, is the classical raktastambhana and is used in Pushyanuga churna.

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.

Kashaya and madhura with sheeta virya and madhura 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.

Kantakadhya, rich in thorns, names the conical prickles that cover a young trunk and are themselves used. Picchila, slimy, names the gum.

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.

Mocharasa is a dried gum lump and is bulked with gum arabic, with tragacanth and with cheaper tree gums, none of which is visible once mixed. Semal musli, the young root, is substituted with Safed musli, which is Chlorophytum and a different family, because the names overlap in the market.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Salmalia malabarica is a synonym. The tree whose red flowers cover bare branches before the leaves come, and whose gum — Mocharasa — is a separate dravya with its own name.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Bombax is bombyx, silk — the seed floss. Ceiba is the Caribbean name for the related silk-cotton tree.

Shalmali is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu, where the gum is treated separately from the tree. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the gum does in a body.

Constituents. The gum carries tannins, mucilage and catechin. The root carries starch and mucilage.

• 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.