Ayurveda
01Indian subcontinent · c. 1500 BCE
Reads a plant through rasa (taste), virya (heating or cooling energy) and vipaka (post-digestive effect). Sourced from the Charaka and Sushruta Samhitas.
A practitioner's codex
Check your symptoms against four lineages of plant medicine.
One plant read through Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Unani and the Western tradition — with the preparations, dosages and cautions each one carries.
Four ways of reading a plant
Every monograph is cross-examined, not just collected.
Traditional Chinese Medicine
02China · Han dynasty onward
Classifies each substance by nature, flavour and meridian entered — the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing remains its founding materia medica.
Unani & Greco-Arabic
03Greece → Persia → India
The Hippocratic four humours carried through Galen and systematised in Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine, still practised across South Asia.
Western Herbalism
04Dioscorides → Culpeper → Eclectic
From Dioscorides' De Materia Medica through the Physiomedicalists and Eclectics, into the modern phytotherapy dispensary.
The method
One plant, read four ways.
Licorice is a demulcent to an English herbalist, a Qi tonic to a Chinese physician, a Pitta-pacifier in Ayurveda and a soother of the chest in Unani. None of them is wrong. The codex keeps all four readings beside the plant, so you can see what each one notices and where they genuinely disagree.
How the traditions differI
Describe the presentation
A symptom, a pattern of symptoms, or a plant you have been given. Plain language is enough.
II
Read the traditions side by side
The same plant appears under its Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic and Latin names, with each system's own reasoning.
III
Check the preparation and the cautions
Part used, form, dose range, contraindications and known drug interactions — never one without the other.
From the dispensary
Three to begin with.
RootFabaceae
Licorice
Glycyrrhiza glabra
Yashtimadhu in Ayurveda, Gan Cao in Chinese medicine. Harmonises formulae and soothes irritated mucosa — yet raises blood pressure in excess.
DemulcentAdaptogenAnti-inflammatory
RootSolanaceae
Ashwagandha
Withania somnifera
A classical rasayana for depletion and disturbed sleep. Warming, heavy and grounding — traditionally taken with milk in the evening.
AdaptogenNervineRestorative
Fruiting bodyHericiaceae
Lion's Mane
Hericium erinaceus
Hou Tou Gu in Chinese practice, used for the gut and the nerves alike. The clearest modern example of a fungus earning a place in the dispensary.
Nervine trophorestorativeDigestive
Read this first
The cautions are the part that keeps you safe.
This library records what the traditions taught and what the pharmacology now shows. It cannot diagnose, and it does not know your history, your medication or your constitution. You know those things. Put the two together before you take anything.
Do not treat these at home
- Chest pain, breathlessness or fainting
- Sudden weakness, numbness or slurred speech
- A fever that will not settle, or a stiff neck
- Uncontrolled bleeding, or blood in vomit or stool
- Severe abdominal pain, or a sudden severe headache