Witnessed by: TCM · Ayurveda · Western · Unani
Haritaki (Terminalia chebula), of the Combretaceae family. Large deciduous tree with a spreading crown and rusty-hairy young shoots; native range: Deciduous forests of South and Southeast Asia — India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, southern China and Myanmar. Globally recognized as haritaki / abhaya / pathya in Sanskrit, harad / harra in Hindi, he zi (訶子) in Chinese, halela (هليلج) in Arabic, and chebulic myrobalan, black myrobalan in English. The part used is dried ripe fruit (and the immature fruit). A small ribbed drupe, yellow-brown to near-black, hard and wrinkled; the pulp is intensely astringent and sour-bitter, puckering and drying on the tongue.
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.
HARITAKI
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- Haritaki
- Scientific name
- Terminalia chebula Retz.
- Family
- Combretaceae
Form
- Part used
- dried ripe fruit (and the immature fruit)
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- TCM
- bitter · sour · astringent
- Ayurveda
- dominant: astringent (kashaya) · then: sweet · sour · pungent · bitter
- Western
- astringent, sour
- Unani
- astringent · sour
Temperature
TCM: neutral
Ayurveda: heating (ushna)
Western: cool
Unani: cold & dry (2nd degree)
convergence: a genuine divergence — Ayurveda reads the fruit as warming and digestive, while Galenic Unani ranks the astringent myrobalan cold and drying
Affinity
where in the body it travels
Organs / channels
- TCM
- Lung · Large Intestine
- Western
- bowels · intestines · lungs
- Unani
- intestines · stomach · liver
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- TCM
- binds up the Intestines and stops chronic diarrhoea, astringes Lung qi to quiet chronic cough and wheeze, and benefits the throat to restore the voice
- Ayurveda
- anulomana (guides downward), dipana-pachana (kindles digestion, scrapes ama), rasayana, medhya, chakshushya (benefits the eyes), a gentle laxative in large dose and an astringent in small
- Western
- astringent, tonic laxative, alterative and rejuvenative; carminative and mildly expectorant
- Unani
- qabiz (astringent), mushil-e-balgham-o-sauda (purges phlegm and black bile), muqawwi-e-dimagh (brain tonic) and muqawwi-e-basar (eye tonic)
Cautions
Contraindications: emaciation and severe debility, dehydration, in pregnancy, and in acute vata depletion; excess dries the body
Toxicity: practically non-toxic in food and medicinal dose; large amounts may over-purge or over-dry
Interactions
- Western
- antidiabetic agents: additive blood-glucose lowering
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