Witnessed by: Ayurveda

Gaub persimmon (Diospyros malabarica), of the Ebenaceae family. Evergreen tree of the riverbank with a dark trunk and glossy leathery leaves, the fruit a rusty-coated globe seated in a woody calyx; native range: riverbanks and moist forest of India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia. Globally recognized as tinduka · viralā · kālaskandha in Sanskrit, tendu · gaub in Hindi, gab in Bengali, and gaub persimmon, Malabar ebony, river ebony in English. The part used is unripe fruit, bark, and the fruit juice. A round fruit clothed in rusty scurf, its flesh full of a sticky gum that clings to the knife and blackens on the air; the unripe taste harshly astringent, puckering and drying the whole mouth, the ripe fruit merely sweetish and dull.

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.

This is the card. Sign in for the full four-tradition entry — the aligned TCM · Ayurveda · Western · Unani reading, actions, dosing and cautions.