Witnessed by: Ayurveda
Wild mango (Spondias pinnata), of the Anacardiaceae family. Deciduous tree with a soft trunk, pinnate leaves crowded at the branch-ends and drooping panicles of small flowers; native range: the moist forests of India, Southeast Asia and southern China; planted about villages for its fruit. Globally recognized as āmrātaka in Sanskrit, amra, ambara in Hindi, amra in Bengali, and wild mango, hog plum, Indian hog plum in English. The part used is fruit (and its expressed juice); bark. Oval yellow-green fruits with a large fibrous stone, the flesh thin, intensely sour when unripe and turning sweetish-sour and turpentine-scented as it ripens.
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.
WILD MANGO
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- wild mango
- Scientific name
- Spondias pinnata (L.f.) Kurz
- Family
- Anacardiaceae
Form
- Part used
- fruit (and its expressed juice); bark
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- Ayurveda
- sour (amla) · astringent (kashaya, in the unripe fruit), turning sweet (madhura) as it ripens
Temperature
- Ayurveda
- cooling (shita in the ripe fruit, the unripe reckoned heating)
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- Ayurveda
- the ripe fruit — brimhana (nourishing), balya (strengthening), hridya (good for the heart), rochana (whets the appetite), vata-pittahara; the unripe sour fruit — dipana (kindles digestion), grahi (binds the stool), kaphavatahara; the bark kashaya (astringent) and vranaropana
Cautions
- Contraindications
- the sour unripe fruit is avoided in pitta conditions, acidity and skin disease
- Toxicity
- an edible fruit; no toxicity on record, though the very sour unripe fruit in quantity sets the teeth on edge and provokes acidity
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