Witnessed by: Ayurveda
Palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer), of the Arecaceae family. Tall fan-palm with a stout ringed trunk and a crown of fan-shaped leaves; native range: dry tropical plains of India and Southeast Asia. Globally recognized as tāla in Sanskrit, tar · tal in Hindi, panai in Tamil, and palmyra palm · toddy palm · fan palm in English. The part used is fruit and sap; the alkaline ash of the flower-spike (tāla kṣāra). Sweet, cooling, jelly-like fruit pulp and a sweet fresh sap that ferments to toddy; the flower-ash by contrast sharp and alkaline.
In this cross-tradition database, we analyze how this substance operates across world medicine systems — tracking its traditional tastes, temperatures, tissue affinities, post-digestive effects, and planetary correspondences across Ayurveda, Unani, and Western herbalism.
PALMYRA PALM
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- palmyra palm
- Scientific name
- Borassus flabellifer L.
- Family
- Arecaceae
Form
- Part used
- fruit and sap; the alkaline ash of the flower-spike (tāla kṣāra)
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- Ayurveda
- sweet
Temperature
- Ayurveda
- cooling (shita)
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- Ayurveda
- the sweet pulp and sap — brmhana (nourishing), vrishya (aphrodisiac), mutrala (diuretic) and refrigerant; the flower-ash (tāla kṣāra) — dipana and lithontriptic
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