Shankhapushpi

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Shankhahuli

What the texts say Shankhapushpi does

• Medhya — supports intellect and memory
• Rasayana — rejuvenative
• Balya — strengthening
• Nidrajanana — induces sleep
• Apasmaraghna — used in epilepsy (apasmara)
• Kanthya — good for the throat and voice

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

Side effects and limits

• Drowsiness
• Digestive upset

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

At least four unrelated plants are sold under this name. It also lowers phenytoin levels — a documented seizure risk.

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

Four different plants are sold as Shankhapushpi. No assay is meaningful until the botanical source is established, so the species is the test.

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, kashaya and madhura with sheeta virya and madhura vipaka — the profile the texts associate with medhya dravya generally.

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.

Shankhapushpi means conch-flowered, describing the pale flower's shape. That description is loose enough to fit several unrelated plants, which is exactly how the confusion below arose.

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.

Four unrelated plants are sold as Shankhapushpi across India, and all four usages are old and regional rather than fraudulent: Convolvulus prostratus, which the pharmacopoeia takes as the source; Evolvulus alsinoides, called Vishnukranta and widely used in the south; Clitoria ternatea, the blue pea, whose flower genuinely resembles a conch; and Canscora decussata. They are in three different families. A student asked to name Shankhapushpi should know that the honest answer begins with which plant, and that no textbook list can substitute for a botanical name on a label.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Convolvulus pluricaulis and Convolvulus microphyllus are synonyms. This is the second great name collision in the library after Brahmi, and a larger one: at least four unrelated plants are sold as Shankhapushpi across India. That is set out below rather than resolved.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Convolvulus is convolvere, to twine. Prostratus means lying flat. Shankha-pushpi means conch-flower. Remember this one as the second great name collision after Brahmi.

Shankhapushpi is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu and is grouped by commentators among the medhya rasayana. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the herb does in a body.

Constituents. The herb carries alkaloids including shankhapushpine, along with flavonoids and coumarins. Composition differs entirely between the four plants traded under this name, which is the practical consequence of the confusion above.

• 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.