Shatapushpa

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Soya

What the texts say Shatapushpa does

• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Pachana — digests ama (digestive)
• Vatanulomana — moves vata downward, relieves wind
• Garbhashaya shodhana — cleanses the uterus
• Stanyajanana — promotes breast milk
• Shoolaprashamana — relieves colicky pain

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

Side effects and limits

• Increased sensitivity of skin to sunlight
• Allergic reaction in those sensitive to Apiaceae
• Digestive irritation in quantity

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy, in medicinal quantity.; Known allergy to plants of the Apiaceae family.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Anethum graveolens, dill. Contraindicated in medicinal quantity in pregnancy, and the name is interchanged with Mishreya, which is fennel.

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.

Katu and tikta 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.

Shatapushpa means hundred-flowered and describes the wide flat umbel. Shatahva says the same thing again. Shatapushpa and Mishreya are genuinely interchanged in the nighantus and in practice, and the two plants are not the same: Mishreya is Foeniculum vulgare (fennel, saunf) and Shatapushpa is Anethum graveolens (dill, soya). Both carry the paryaya Misi. This is not a tidy-up Laisha can do on the texts' behalf — it is a live ambiguity, and it matters clinically: Shatapushpa in medicinal quantity is contraindicated in pregnancy, and a reader who follows that name to the wrong plant has followed it to a different drug. Check which species a prescription or a supplier means.

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.

Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare, is the standing confusion and the two fruits look similar; fennel is sweeter and longer. Anethum sowa, Indian dill, is a closely related form with a different oil profile and is often not distinguished at all. Old fruit that has lost its oil is bulked into new.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Peucedanum graveolens is a synonym. Commonly confused with Mishreya, fennel, which is a different genus with a sweeter profile.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Anethum is the Greek anethon, dill. Graveolens is heavy-smelling — the same epithet as celery. Shata-pushpa means hundred-flowered, for the big umbel.

Shatapushpa is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu and is named in the classical literature for use after childbirth. That is what the tradition holds and where it is written down, not a finding about what the fruit does in a body.

Constituents. The fruit carries an essential oil with carvone and dillapiole. Dillapiole is an apiole-type compound, which is the reason for the pregnancy caution below.

Grown as a crop: how to grow dill, from sowing to harvest, in Laisha's grow guides.

• 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.