Lashuna (Garlic)

What is Lashuna?

Lashuna is the common garlic, Allium sativum, the same pungent bulb kept in kitchens across the world. It belongs to the onion family, set today in the Amaryllidaceae and in older books among the Liliaceae. The plant grows from a compound bulb made of several small segments, the cloves, each wrapped in a papery skin and packed tightly around a central stalk. It is this bulb, and above all its cloves, that Ayurveda has valued for a very long time, both as food and as one of its more forceful medicines.

The Sanskrit names for garlic are unusually telling. The plainest, Lashuna, is the everyday word. Ugragandha means “sharp-smelling,” a candid note on the strong scent that clings to the herb and to anyone who has eaten it. Mahaushadha, “the great medicine,” records the high regard in which the tradition held it. But the name the classical writers dwell on most is Rasona, and it carries a small story of its own. Rasa here means taste, and una means wanting or lacking, so Rasona is “the one that lacks a taste.” Ayurveda counts six tastes in all, and the tradition explains that garlic carries five of them and is missing only the sour, the Amla. The account given in the classical books places the five tastes in the different parts of the plant, with the pungent concentrated in the bulb, and holds that only the sour is absent altogether. A herb that is pungent to the tongue yet reckoned to hold five of the six tastes is already an unusual thing, and the name fixes that idea for study.

Garlic is one of the herbs where the classical picture and modern chemistry meet neatly. When a clove is cut or crushed, it releases a sulphur compound called allicin, the source of much of its sharp smell and of a good deal of scientific interest, particularly in work on the heart and the blood vessels. That is set down here purely as a point of chemistry and modern study, not as a health claim, but it sits comfortably beside the old reading of a warm, penetrating bulb with a strong effect on the body.

What Ayurveda uses it for

In the classical texts Lashuna is treated first and foremost as a remedy for the disorders of Vata. The great chapter on Vata diseases in the Charaka Samhita praises Rasona in this role, and it is by this action that the herb is best known in the dravyaguna literature. Its warm, unctuous, penetrating nature is the opposite of Vata’s own cold, dry, mobile quality, and the tradition reads it as settling that aggravated Vata directly. Alongside this it is grouped with the Deepana herbs that kindle the digestive fire, counted a Rasayana and Vrishya for its rejuvenating and strengthening reputation, and named among the Krimighna herbs that clear the worms.

Within that broad standing the classical writers describe the bulb as traditionally indicated in a familiar set of conditions, each named here in its classical Sanskrit term with a plain gloss:

• Vata-vyadhi: the whole class of Vata disorders, the herb’s foremost domain, taking in Gridhrasi (the pain that runs down the leg, sciatica in the modern sense), Sandhigata Vata (the joint complaints of aggravated Vata), Pakshaghata (one-sided weakness of the body) and Apatanaka (the convulsive, spasmodic states the texts place under Vata).
• Hridroga: the complaints of the region of the heart as the classical texts understand them, for which the herb is called Hridya.
• Krimi: the worms and the broad classical category of internal parasites.
• Kasa and Shwasa: cough and laboured, obstructed breathing.
• Agnimandya: weakness of the digestive fire, sluggish or feeble digestion.
• Medoroga: the disorders of excess Meda, the fatty tissue.
• Kushtha: the wide classical class of skin disorders.
• Karnashula: pain in the region of the ear, for which the medicated oil is the usual form.

These are the traditional textual indications recorded in the classical literature. They set out how Ayurveda has long understood the herb and are given for reference and study, not as statements of medical effect or as advice to treat any condition.

Its qualities, in plain words

Ayurveda describes every herb by a short list of qualities, the gunas and tastes that explain how it behaves in the body, and for Lashuna they read as a single, coherent picture of a warm and forceful bulb.

Its taste is above all pungent, the Katu that you meet at once on the tongue, and pungency in Ayurveda is a warming, drying, moving taste that stirs the body and kindles digestion. Behind that lead taste the tradition finds four of the remaining five present as well, the sweet, the bitter, the astringent and the salty, with only the sour absent, which is the whole point of the name Rasona. That mixture is unusual and helps explain why one herb was thought to act in so many directions.

In its other qualities it is unctuous and heavy, so it is oily and grounding rather than light and drying, which is part of why it suits the dry, depleted quality of Vata; penetrating, the sharp Tikshna that lets it reach deep into the tissues and open the fine channels; and slimy or unctuous in texture, the quality the texts call Pichchhila. Its potency is warming, the Ushna virya that is the key to almost all of its actions, and after digestion it finishes pungent again, the Katu vipaka, which keeps its warming, drying influence working through the later stages of digestion rather than turning sweet and building.

Put together, these qualities describe a warm, oily, deeply penetrating bulb. That is exactly why the tradition settles most firmly on its action against Vata and Kapha: the warmth and unctuousness answer cold, dry Vata, while the pungency, heat and penetrating quality cut through cold, heavy, sticky Kapha. The same heat, however, means it can raise Pitta and warm the blood, so the sources are equally clear that it is not a herb for a Pitta constitution to take freely. It settles Vata and Kapha and provokes Pitta, and that plain balance governs how it is used.

How it is taken

The part used is the bulb, and in practice the individual cloves. The classical writers describe several ways of preparing it, chosen to suit the aim and, importantly, to soften its heat.

The simplest form is the fresh clove itself, peeled and taken in small quantity, sometimes lightly crushed. Because the raw bulb is so heating and so strongly scented, the tradition often tempers it. A very common classical method is to take garlic with milk, boiling the cloves in milk so that the milk carries and cushions the herb’s sharpness, a preparation that turns the fierce bulb into something gentler and more nourishing and that is the usual vehicle when it is used as a Rasayana. Warming, unctuous carriers such as ghee are used in the same spirit. For the ear, the tradition prepares a medicated oil, the form named for Karnashula, where the properties of the bulb are drawn into a base of oil for external use.

From the bulb the classical pharmacy built a number of named preparations. Garlic gives its name to the Lashunadi group of formulas, and it stands at the centre of the classical Rasona Kalpa, a structured rejuvenating course built around the herb and taken over a defined period rather than as a single dose. Fermented and decoction-based medicines of the Arishta and Kashaya types also carry it. In every case the pattern is the same: the raw force of the bulb is set within a preparation, and often within a fatty or milky vehicle, so that its warming, penetrating action can be directed and its heat kept in check.

Good to know

Lashuna is one of Ayurveda’s more forceful herbs, and the tradition treats it with a corresponding care. It is strongly heating and strongly scented, and both facts shape how it is used. Because of its heat it is used cautiously in Pitta constitutions, in the hot season, and where there is already heat or irritation in the body, since the same warmth that settles Vata can aggravate Pitta and stir the blood. The classical writers also counsel care in pregnancy. Its powerful smell, the quality that gives it the name Ugragandha, is simply part of the herb and part of why it is so often prepared with milk or another carrier that softens it.

Set against those cautions is the high regard the same tradition holds for it: the name Mahaushadha, “the great medicine,” is not given lightly, and reflects the breadth of action the classical texts read into a single common bulb. It is a herb to be used thoughtfully, matched to the constitution and the season, rather than freely, and that measured use is itself part of the classical understanding.

This entry describes the classical Ayurvedic understanding of the herb. It is not medical advice, and anyone with a health condition should speak to a qualified practitioner.

Frequently asked

Why is garlic called Rasona, “the one that lacks a taste”? Ayurveda counts six tastes in all, and the tradition holds that garlic carries five of them and is missing only the sour, the Amla. The name Rasona records exactly this: rasa is taste and una is wanting, so it is “the taste-lacking one.” The pungent taste sits chiefly in the bulb, with the sweet, bitter, astringent and salty also present, and only the sour absent.

Which dosha does Lashuna suit, and which should be careful of it? It is foremost a settler of Vata, and it clears Kapha as well, because its warm, oily, penetrating nature answers both the cold dryness of Vata and the cold heaviness of Kapha. The same heat, though, can raise Pitta and warm the blood, so a Pitta constitution, and anyone already carrying heat, uses it with care.

Why is garlic so often boiled in milk? Because the raw bulb is very heating and very sharp. Boiling the cloves in milk lets the milk carry the herb while cushioning its fierceness, turning a forceful bulb into a gentler, more nourishing preparation. This is the classic vehicle when garlic is used as a Rasayana, and warming carriers such as ghee are used in the same way.

What does modern chemistry say about garlic? When a clove is cut or crushed it releases a sulphur compound called allicin, which accounts for much of its strong smell and has drawn wide scientific study, particularly around the heart and the blood vessels. This is noted purely as a matter of chemistry and modern research, and it sits alongside, rather than replaces, the classical reading of a warm, penetrating bulb.