Nili

What is Nili?

Nili is the shrub Indigofera tinctoria, a modest, branching member of the legume family with small compound leaves and slender spikes of pinkish flowers. To look at, it is unremarkable, the kind of plant that grows freely on waste ground and field edges across the warm country of India. What made its name is not its appearance but what comes out of its leaves: the deep, lasting blue dye known the world over as indigo.

The name says as much. Nili comes from the word for the colour blue, and the plant carries the synonyms Nilini and Ranjani, this last meaning “the one that colours” or “that which dyes.” In English it is called true indigo, and in the languages of India it is widely known as Neel and, in the south, as Avuri. Long prized by dyers, the same leaves and the root were taken up by the Ayurvedic writers, who valued the plant as a medicine in its own right. In that setting it is chiefly the leaf and the root that are used.

What Ayurveda uses it for

More than anything, the tradition links Nili with the hair. In Ayurvedic terms it is keshya, a herb that cares for and supports the hair, and it is this quality, together with its natural colour, that placed it among the classical plants worked into hair oils and hair dyes to keep the hair dark. Beyond the hair, the dravyaguna texts describe it as kushtha-ghna, a herb that cleanses and purifies the skin, and they connect it with the yakrit, the liver, and the pliha, the spleen. Its bitter, warming, drying nature was understood to settle both the heavy quality they call Kapha and the sharp, heating quality they call Pitta.

Within that role the classical writers describe the leaf and root as traditionally indicated in a familiar set of conditions, each named here in its classical Sanskrit term with a plain gloss:

• Palitya and the care of Kesha: premature greying and the hair, its most famous use, where the plant’s colour and its keshya quality come together.
• Kushtha: the broad classical category of skin disorders, for which the herb is named as skin-purifying.
• Yakrit and Pliha complaints: the classical disorders of the liver and the spleen, which the tradition connects with this herb.
• Udara: distension and enlargement of the abdomen.
• Krimi: the classical category of intestinal worms.
• Vrana: wounds, where the herb is described in external application.

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 each herb by a short list of qualities, and for Nili they sit together in a clear pattern.

Its taste is bitter, with a pungent and astringent edge, and these are the tastes the tradition links with cleansing and clearing rather than nourishing. It is light and dry, so it does not sit heavily in the body, and it is warming in its overall effect. Put together, the texts read Nili as a herb that clears the heavy, sluggish quality they call Kapha while its bitterness settles the sharp, heating quality they call Pitta, all with a gentle warmth of its own. That drying, clearing, faintly warm character is exactly what the tradition wanted for the scalp and the skin, and it is why the sources return again and again to its work on the hair and on skin complaints.

How it is taken

The classic use is external. The leaf, fresh or dried, is cooked into sesame or coconut oil to make a hair oil that is worked into the scalp, and the plant is also made into pastes and hair dyes valued for the dark colour it lends. In this outward form it sits alongside the other great hair herbs of the tradition, often paired with them in the same oils.

Nili is also taken internally, as a powder of the dried leaf or root, in the liver and skin formulations the classical writers set down. Because it is a strong, drying, warming herb, internal use belongs more properly with a practitioner, who will judge the amount and the pairing. It should not be confused with the plant sometimes called Bhu-nimba or with other blue-flowered herbs; the classical Nili is Indigofera tinctoria, the indigo plant itself.

Good to know

Nili is one of the clearing, drying herbs rather than the nourishing ones, and the tradition treats its internal use with a measure of care because of that heating, drying strength. Its best-loved role is the gentler one: worked into oils and pastes for the hair and the scalp, taken up steadily over time in the way the old writers favoured for such preparations. The plant’s fame as the source of indigo dye should not overshadow the point that, in Ayurveda, it is above all a herb of the hair and the skin.

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 Nili linked with the hair? Because the tradition counts it among its leading keshya, or hair-supporting, herbs, and because the plant is the natural source of a deep blue-black colour. Those two things together, its care of the hair and its darkening quality, are why it was long worked into classical hair oils and hair dyes.

Is Nili the same plant as indigo dye? Yes. Nili is Indigofera tinctoria, the true indigo plant from whose leaves the famous blue dye is drawn. Ayurveda took up the very same plant as a medicine, using chiefly the leaf and the root.

Which part of the plant is used? Chiefly the leaf and the root. The leaf is the part most often named for the hair oils and dyes, while the leaf and root together appear in the classical skin and liver preparations.