Skip to content
Adhatoda / Vasaka / Malabar Nut (Justicia adhatoda)
Materia Medica
Family: Acanthaceae
Accepted botanical name: Justicia adhatoda L.
Historical botanical name: Adhatoda vasica Nees
Common names: Malabar Nut, Adhatoda, Vasaka, Vasa, Adulsa, Adusa
Traditional names: Vāsā, Vāsaka, Aruṣa, Adulsa, Adathodai, Addasaramu
Parts used: Leaves, roots, flowers, stem bark
Principal drug material: Leaf
Growth habit: Dense evergreen shrub
Primary traditions: Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, South Asian folk medicine, historical British pharmacy
Actions & Energetics
Rasa: Tikta, Kaṣāya — bitter, astringent
Guṇa: Laghu, Rūkṣa — light, dry
Vīrya: Śīta — cooling
Vipāka: Kaṭu — pungent post-digestive effect
Doṣa action: Kapha-Pitta śāmaka
Traditional actions: Kāsahara, Śvāsahara, Raktapittahara, Svarya, Jvaraghna, expectorant, antitussive, and hemostatic.
Botanical Description
Justicia adhatoda is a dense evergreen shrub commonly about 1–3 m tall, sometimes larger in favorable tropical conditions. Leaves are simple, opposite, short-petioled, elliptic-lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, entire to slightly crenate, dark green above and paler beneath.
The flowers are large, white, and bilabiate, with rose, purple, or reddish markings in the throat. They are borne in short dense axillary spikes surrounded by conspicuous green bracts. The fruit is a club-shaped capsule containing several seeds.
Name Confusion & Synonyms
Adhatoda vasica is the older name found throughout herbal, pharmacological, and pharmacy literature. The accepted botanical name is Justicia adhatoda. The English name Malabar Nut refers to this same plant. The traditional names Vasa and Vasaka also refer to this species.
Traditional Indications
Ayurvedic and regional materia medica records Vasa for kāsa, śvāsa, raktapitta, jvara, kṣaya, and conditions involving thick or difficult sputum, cough, wheezing, bronchial congestion, bleeding from the respiratory tract, and other bleeding disorders. Leaves are the principal respiratory drug material, while roots and flowers also appear in older formulas and regional practice.
Preparations & Dosage
The amounts below are pharmacopoeial, classical Ayurvedic, historical pharmacy, or study-specific records. They document how Vasaka was actually prepared and used; they are not a universal modern self-dosing recommendation.
Fresh Leaf Juice — Vasa Svarasa
Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia dose: 10–20 mL of fresh leaf juice.
Basic expressed-juice method: Wash mature fresh leaves, chop or bruise them, crush or grind thoroughly, then press and strain the juice. The old British pharmacy preparation Succus Adhatodae used the same basic form: freshly bruised leaves were pressed and the expressed juice was strained.
Historical British succus dose: 1–4 fluidrachms, approximately 3.7–14.8 mL.
For the official Ayurvedic Vasavaleha process, the fresh leaves are washed, chopped to about 2.5 cm, ground to a paste, and the Vasa juice is prepared by the traditional puṭapāka method before it is concentrated with the other ingredients.
Dried-Leaf Decoction — Vasa Kvatha
Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia drug quantity: 10–20 g of dried Vasa leaf for decoction.
The pharmacopoeial leaf monograph gives the drug quantity but does not give one universal household water volume or reduction endpoint. Rather than inventing one, the exact documented Vasa decoction below is retained from a classical fermented formulation.
Documented Vasa Decoction Base for Vasarishta
Formal batch: 9.6 kg coarsely prepared Vasa with 24.576 L water.
Method: Boil the Vasa in the measured water until the liquid is reduced to 6.144 L, then filter. This concentrated Vasa decoction is the base to which jaggery and the remaining fermentation ingredients are added for Vasarishta. This is a classical manufacturing batch and should not be treated as a casual household scaling formula.
Vasavaleha — Official Ayurvedic Linctus
Official formulation:
- Fresh Vasa leaf juice: 768 g
- Sugar candy: 384 g
- Cow ghee: 96 g
- Pippali fruit powder: 96 g
- Honey: 384 g
Method: Prepare the fresh Vasa juice; dissolve the powdered sugar in it with mild heat and filter through muslin. Concentrate the sweetened juice over low heat with continuous stirring. Add the ghee and finely powdered Pippali and continue heating until the preparation reaches avaleha consistency, traditionally checked by formation of a soft mass that does not disperse in water. Cool to room temperature, then add the honey and mix thoroughly.
Official dose: 6–12 g.
Historical Tincture of Adhatoda
Formula: 125 g dried Adhatoda leaf in No. 40 powder with 60% alcohol to make 1000 mL.
Method: Moisten the powdered leaf with about 100 mL of 60% alcohol, then complete the preparation by percolation with additional 60% alcohol to a final volume of 1000 mL.
Historical dose: approximately 1.8–3.7 mL (½–1 fluidrachm).
Historical Liquid Extract of Adhatoda
Formula: 1000 g dried powdered Adhatoda leaf with 60% alcohol to make 1000 mL liquid extract.
Method: Moisten the powdered leaf with about 400 mL of 60% alcohol, pack in a percolator, saturate, close and allow to stand for 48 hours. Percolate gradually until exhausted. Reserve the first 850 mL of percolate; remove alcohol from the later percolate by distillation, evaporate that residue to a soft extract, dissolve it in the reserved portion, then add enough 60% alcohol to make 1000 mL.
Historical dose: 20–60 minims, approximately 1.2–3.7 mL.
Study-Used Vasa Preparations
A clinical comparison of several traditional Vasa dosage forms used the following adult regimens:
- Vasa extract (Ghana): 2 g twice daily
- Vasa Ghrita: 10 g twice daily
- Vasa Avaleha: 10 g twice daily
- Vasakasava: 20 mL twice daily
- Vasarishta: 20 mL twice daily
These are study regimens for specific prepared products, not interchangeable dose conversions among raw leaf, juice, decoction, tincture, extract, ghrita, avaleha, asava, and arishta.
Other Traditional Dose Records
Ayurvedic materia-medica sources also record leaf powder around 1–2 g, root decoction 40–80 mL, and flower juice 10–20 mL. Because those references give the final dose but do not provide one standardized preparation ratio for every form, they are retained here as dose records rather than presented as invented recipes.
Children & Adolescents
No single well-established pediatric medicinal dose for raw Justicia adhatoda leaf, juice, decoction, tincture, or liquid extract has been established in modern clinical literature. Historical adult doses should not simply be scaled down for children. Pediatric use of concentrated preparations belongs under appropriately qualified clinical guidance.
Classical & Traditional Formulations
- Vāsāvaleha — a classical Ayurvedic linctus centered on Vasa/Vasaka; official Indian Ayurveda guidance and CCRAS records document the formulation.
- Vāsāriṣṭa / Vāsakāsava — traditional fermented Vasa preparations recorded in Ayurvedic materia-medica sources.
Vasa also appears in many compound decoctions and regional formulations. Formula names and ingredients vary by text, so only preparations that can be tied clearly to a documented Vasa formula are listed here.
Constituents
The leaves contain pyrroloquinazoline and quinazoline alkaloids, especially vasicine, vasicinone, vasicinol, vasicinolone, adhatodine, anisotine, and related compounds. Other reported constituents include flavonoids, tannins, phenolic compounds, carotenoids, and minor volatile components.
Modern Research
Constituent pharmacology is not uniform: older CCRAS experimental work reported bronchodilator activity for vasicinone, while vasicine showed a different bronchial effect. For that reason, the whole herb should not be simplified to a single constituent-level “bronchodilator” action.
A randomized double-blind study in 177 adults with acute upper-respiratory infection tested a fixed combination containing Justicia adhatoda, Echinacea purpurea, and Eleutherococcus senticosus. The combination was given at 30 mL per day for 5 days and produced greater cough relief than placebo. Because the product contained three herbs, the clinical effect belongs to the combination preparation.
A separate randomized open-label study in people with mild COVID-19 used a whole water-soluble Adhatoda vasica extract at 500 mg twice daily for 14 days. Viral-clearance and laboratory outcomes were measured along with clinical symptoms, and the investigators reported no adverse effects from the trial drugs.
Adverse Effects
Serious adverse effects have not been shown. In the human clinical studies reviewed, the available trial data reported good tolerability.
In a randomized 14-day clinical trial that included a single-herb Adhatoda vasica extract group receiving 500 mg twice daily for 14 days, the investigators reported that none of the participants reported adverse effects from the study drugs. The trial also monitored vital signs, hematology, liver and kidney-related laboratory measurements, coagulation markers, and other biochemical parameters.
A separate randomized double-blind trial in 177 adults evaluated a fixed respiratory formula containing Justicia adhatoda with Echinacea purpurea and Eleutherococcus senticosus. Safety and adverse events were secondary outcomes, and the combination showed a good tolerability and safety profile. Because this was a three-herb product, its safety findings cannot be attributed to Adhatoda alone.
These clinical findings do not erase the separate reproductive concern associated with vasicine and related alkaloids. Pregnancy risk is addressed below under Pregnancy & Breastfeeding. Older materia medica also describes the drug as intensely bitter and records nausea or emetic effects with stronger preparations.
Interactions & Contraindications
No specific clinically documented human herb-drug interaction for Justicia adhatoda was identified in the human evidence reviewed for this article. This section therefore does not list theoretical interaction warnings as though they were established clinical interactions.
The major evidence-based contraindication is pregnancy-related medicinal use because vasicine and related alkaloids have documented uterine-stimulant activity. That concern is addressed separately below.
Pregnancy & Breastfeeding
Medicinal use during pregnancy should be avoided. Vasicine has a documented history of uterine-stimulant and abortifacient research. The evidence includes animal studies, isolated human uterine tissue, and older human investigations in which vasicine produced uterine contraction. Those data do not establish a safe oral dose in pregnancy and support treating concentrated Vasa/Vasaka preparations as inappropriate during pregnancy unless directed by a specialist familiar with the drug.
Reliable human breastfeeding safety data are inadequate. Concentrated medicinal use during lactation therefore should not be assumed safe simply because the plant has a long traditional history.
Habitat & Cultivation
- Native range: Afghanistan through the Indian subcontinent to parts of mainland Southeast Asia
- Habit: Dense evergreen perennial shrub
- Habitat: Plains, lower hills, roadsides, hedges, village margins, and cultivated medicinal gardens
- Light: Full sun to partial shade
- Climate: Tropical and subtropical
- Moisture: Moderate moisture with good drainage
Propagation
Propagation is by seed and stem cuttings. Vegetative propagation is useful where a known medicinal line or hedge form is being maintained. Established shrubs branch readily after pruning.
Harvesting, Drying & Storage
Mature leaves are the primary drug material. Leaves are collected from healthy shrubs, cleaned, and dried in shade with good airflow. Dried leaves become dull brownish green and retain a strongly bitter taste. Flowers and roots are collected separately when those specific drug materials are required.
Storage: Once thoroughly dry, keep the leaf drug in a clean, tightly closed container protected from moisture, excessive heat, and direct light. Fresh material and prepared liquid forms should not be stored as though they were interchangeable with the dried leaf drug.
Historical Pharmacy
Adhatoda entered British pharmacy as a recognized leaf drug and appeared in the British Addendum of 1900. The 1918 United States Dispensatory recorded the fresh and dried leaves and listed the liquid extract, expressed juice, and tincture with their historical doses. The leaf was described as bitter, tea-like in odor, opposite, lanceolate, and short-petioled.
Food Use
Vasaka is a medicinal plant rather than an ordinary culinary food. Traditional syrups, juices and decoctions are medicinal preparations and should not be described as routine food use.
Household & Agricultural Use
Adhatoda also has a documented non-medicinal history as a plant-based insect deterrent. Experimental and agricultural literature has examined leaf material and extracts against stored-grain and crop insects. These uses belong to the plant’s practical and agricultural history and should not be confused with evidence for human medicinal treatment.
Folklore & Spiritual Use
Vasa is deeply embedded in South Asian medicinal culture, but the sources reviewed did not establish one standardized historical magical, astrological, or divinatory correspondence for the plant. None is assigned here rather than inventing a spiritual tradition that cannot be documented.
History & Cultural Use
Vasa has a long place in Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani, and village respiratory practice across South Asia. It is widely grown as a hedge and medicinal shrub. Traditional use includes fresh leaf juice with honey, decoctions, syrups, avaleha preparations, and compound respiratory formulas.
Materia Medica Summary
Adhatoda / Vasaka / Malabar Nut (Justicia adhatoda) is a bitter, astringent, cooling respiratory herb centered on the leaf. Pharmacopoeial and historical records include 10–20 mL fresh leaf juice, 10–20 g dried leaf as the drug quantity for decoction, official Vasavaleha at 6–12 g, a historical tincture made from 125 g dried leaf with 60% alcohol to 1000 mL, and a historical 1:1 liquid extract prepared by percolation with 60% alcohol. Modern human evidence includes a 14-day study of Vasa Ghan at 500 mg twice daily; in the human clinical studies reviewed, serious adverse effects have not been shown. The plant contains vasicine, vasicinone, and related alkaloids and has a long Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani, and historical pharmacy record for respiratory complaints. Medicinal use during pregnancy is contraindicated by the uterine-stimulant evidence for vasicine.