Vidanga

TRADITIONAL VIEW, WITH SAFETY LIMITS

Hindi name: Vaividang

What the texts say Vidanga does

• Krimighna — anthelmintic (against worms)
• Deepana — kindles digestion (appetiser)
• Pachana — digests ama (digestive)
• Rasayana — rejuvenative
• Shoolaprashamana — relieves colicky pain
• Vibandhahara — relieves constipation

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

Side effects and limits

• Digestive upset
• Burning sensation

Avoid or ask first: Pregnancy.; Anyone trying to conceive, in light of the above.

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

AS THE CLASSICAL TEXTS AND THE API PRESCRIBE

Classically followed by a virechana to expel what has been killed.

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

Embelia robusta and the fruits of other species are substituted and carry little or no embelin.

These are the pharmacopoeial limits for the article, not a test Laisha has run on anything. They are here so a practitioner can ask a supplier for a certificate of analysis and know what the numbers on it should say.

Katu and kashaya 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.

Krimighna and Jantughna both name the same action against worms, and no dravya in the materia medica is more singularly identified with it. Chitratandula, speckled grain, describes the fruit.

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.

Embelia tsjeriam-cottam is collected and sold as vidanga and is the commonest substitute. Because vidanga so closely resembles black pepper, the two are also found in each other's sacks — vidanga bulking pepper, which is fraud against the pepper buyer, and pepper sold as vidanga, which is fraud in the other direction. The test is the tail: vidanga fruit carries a short stalk and a beak-like tip that pepper does not.

Matched live against the GBIF backbone on 28 September 2026 at 99 per cent confidence. Embelia tsjeriam-cottam is a related species traded under the same name and is discussed below. This species is assessed as threatened in parts of its Indian range, which is recorded in the cultivation note rather than passed over.

A WAY TO REMEMBER IT

Embelia is from the Sinhalese embilla. Ribes is from Arabic ribas, sour — the same word behind the currant genus Ribes.

Vidanga heads the Krimighna group in the Charaka Samhita and is described in the Bhavaprakasha Nighantu. 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 embelin, a benzoquinone, which is the constituent commercial material is assessed on.

• 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.