Abstract

COMPARATIVE PHARMACEUTICAL STUDY OF VAIKRANTA BHASMA PREPARED FROM TWO DIFFERENT SAMPLES

Nagaveni B.* and Gopikrishna M.

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Abstract

Introduction: Vaikranta is one of the most important mineral mentioned in the Maharasa and Uparatna vargas in many of the Rasa shastra texts. It is identified as various minerals and a confusion regarding the authenticity of the drug prevails even today. It is considered and accepted as Tourmaline by few authors while others opine of it being Fluorspar or Manganese. Vaikranta bhasma is considered and used as a substitute for Vajra Bhasma as it is considered to have similar therapeutic properties. Though Vaikranta Bhasma has abundant therapeutic value, it is not used extensively in clinical practice due to its availability, higher expense and the complex pharmaceutical procedure in the preparation of bhasma and also mainly difficulty to decide the correct Vaikranta. Methodology: It involves preparation of two samples of Vaikranta i.e., Fluorite and Tourmaline, which were prepared by subjecting them to shodhana and marana, as mentioned in classics. Observations and Results: The sources of both the samples were different, the first one being Fluorite and the other black Tourmaline. Though the nature and number of Putas mentioned for the Vaikranta is 8 Gaja puta, practically the bhasma was obtained in 11 and 9 putas respectively for Fluorite and Tourmaline. The color of both bhasma were similar in color, light brownish, with mild differences in the chemical compositions. Conclusion: After Marana the color of both the samples of Bhasma were similar in color, composition and nature.

Keywords: Vaikranta, Fluorite, Tourmaline, Maharasa, Uparatna, Shodhana, Marana.