Witnessed by: Ayurveda

Elephant grass, cattail (Typha elephantina), of the Typhaceae family. Tall stout marsh perennial with long flat leaves and the dense brown club of packed flowers; native range: marshes, tank margins and river sand of the Indian subcontinent, from the Indus and Gangetic plains to Bengal. Globally recognized as gundra, eraka in Sanskrit, pater, patera in Hindi, hogla in Bengali, and elephant grass, cattail, reed-mace in English. The part used is rhizome (mula), pollen. A thick, white, jointed rhizome, sweetish and starchy on the tongue, cool and faintly slimy at the cut.

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.

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