Witnessed by: TCM · Ayurveda · Unani
Pearl, of the Pteriidae (Bivalvia) family. The marine pearl oyster of warm coastal seas; the drug is the concretion it forms within its mantle; native range: the pearl oysters of the warm seas — the Gulf, the Mannar and Indian coasts, the South China Sea and the Japanese waters. Globally recognized as zhen zhu (真珠) in Chinese, mukta, mauktika in Sanskrit, moti in Hindi, marwareed, lulu in Arabic, and pearl in English. The part used is the pearl (levigated or powdered to impalpable fineness). Small lustrous white to cream spheres and baroques with an iridescent sheen, hard and heavy for their size, gritty between the teeth, faintly salty, without odour.
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.
PEARL
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- pearl
- Family
- Pteriidae (Bivalvia)
Form
- Part used
- the pearl (levigated or powdered to impalpable fineness)
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- TCM
- sweet (甘) · salty (咸)
- Ayurveda
- sweet (madhura)
- Unani
- bland (practically tasteless, faintly of the sea)
Temperature
- TCM
- cold (寒)
- Ayurveda
- cooling (shita)
- Unani
- cold & dry (1st degree)
Affinity
where in the body it travels
Organs / channels
- TCM
- Heart · Liver
- Unani
- heart · brain · stomach
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- TCM
- settles the heart and calms the spirit, clears the liver and brightens the eyes, and generates flesh and closes sores
- Ayurveda
- pittashamaka (cools pitta), hridya (cardiac tonic), balya (strengthening), and a rasayana for the wasted
- Unani
- muqawwi-e-qalb (cardiac tonic), mufarrih (exhilarant), muqawwi-e-basar (eye tonic), habis-ud-dam (haemostatic)
Cautions
- Contraindications
- cold and deficient patterns without heat
- Toxicity
- low toxicity; must be levigated or powdered to impalpable fineness, since a gritty powder abrades the gut and the eye
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