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Properties or Gunas of the herbs act as a medium for understanding the peculiarities of the herbs. Each and every guna has a definite action i.e. karma. A single herb may have many properties and a specific property may be present in many herbs.
The properties are classified into three groups:
- Vaisheik gunas (related to the sensory organ)
- Samanya gunas (general)
- Atma gunas (related to the soul)
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| 1) Vaisheik Gunas
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- Shabda (sound) - [ear] akash
- Sparsha (touch) - [skin] vayu
- Roopam (shape/colour) - [eyes] teja
- Rasa (savour) - [tongue] jala
- Gandha (odour) - [nose] prithvi
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2) Samanya Gunas
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- Guru (heavy)
- Manda (dull)
- Hima (cold)
- Snigdha (moist/unctuous)
- Shlakshna (smooth)
- Sandra (viscous)
- Mridu (soft)
- Sthira (immobile)
- Sookshma (extremely fine or minute)
- Vishada (clean)
- Laghu (light)
- Teekshna (sharp)
- Ushna (hot)
- Ruksha (dry)
- Khara (rough, irregular)
- Drava (liquid)
- Kathina (hard)
- Sara (fluidity)
- Sthoola (abundance of constituent components)
- Pichchila (mucilaginous)
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3) Atma Gunas
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- Buddhi - intellect
- Ichha - desire
- Dwesh - aversion (jealousy)
- Sukha - pleasure
- Dukkha - pain
- Prayatna - effort
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Other physical properties are as follows
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- Vyavayi - Drugs that
spread throughout the body without first getting digested
are known as vyavayi. Their digestion begins after they spread throughout the body, e.g. Poisons, narcotics, strong liquor,
opium etc.
- Vikasi - Drugs after reaching the body, cause depletion of oja (essence of taste, energy during digestion and post digestive taste, i.e. essence of a product after digestion). These dravyas cause loosening of major joints between the constituents of various dhatus and bones, ligaments and also of numerous minor joints within the body, thus these dravyas bring about considerable decrease in the strength of the body, e.g. Tobacco, supari etc.
- Sugandha (Fragrance) - Particular sense-object.
- Durgandha (odour) - Antagonist of sugandha, which causes anorexia and discomfort; acts as an adjunct to vamana and reduces
vata-kapha.
- Ashukari (Quick) - The Ashukari guna dravyas is responsible for producing prompt action of these dravyas, e.g. drop of oil spreads immediately on water.
- Shushka (Dry) - Antagonist of dravya (liquid)
guna.
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