Choosing between Ayurvedic preparations

The rest of this reference answers what a substance is. These pages answer the question that follows: which one, and how would you tell. Each is built on material published elsewhere on this site, with the source named on the page it came from.

• What the formulary fixes, and what it leaves to the manufacturer

  Classical Ayurvedic preparations have an official, legally scheduled composition. Here is what it binds, what it does not, and how to read a label against it.

• Why one Ayurvedic herb has several botanical names

  Shankhpushpi is sold as three different plants, and a fourth name that is the same plant renamed. Here is why, which name the Pharmacopoeia settles on, and what it means when you are buying.

• Which Ayurvedic manufacturers publish what is in the bottle

  A classical Ayurvedic preparation has an official composition. Whether you can check a product against it depends entirely on which company made it. Measured on 6,086 product pages across 16 of the 20 companies surveyed.

• What the label says to take, against what the formulary says

  The Ayurvedic Formulary of India states a dose for the classical preparations it defines. 22 manufacturers state their own on their product pages. Compared on 129 product pages across 27 preparations, read on 10 October 2026.

• Why a free translation cannot cite Charaka in the standard form

  The only public-domain English Charaka and Sushruta number their verses differently from the modern editions every paper cites, and the modern numbering is in copyright. Measured across 389 classical citations, with every equivalence this project can state.

• Ayurvedic herbs linked to liver injury, and what the reports show

  Giloy, ashwagandha, turmeric supplements, bakuchi, Garcinia cambogia, oral aloe vera and senna each have published reports of liver injury. What the case series and the NIH LiverTox database actually found, how strong each link is, and what the reports do not show.