Materia Medica
Medicinal substances from the Tibetan pharmacopoeia — high-altitude plants, minerals, and animal-derived preparations classified by taste, potency, and nyepa effect.
A-ru-ra
A-ru-ra, the chebulic myrobalan, is the King of Medicines in Sowa Rigpa — held in the right hand of Sangye Menla and said to harmonize all three nyepa at once.
Ba-ru-ra
Ba-ru-ra, the belleric myrobalan, is the second of the Three Fruits — the Sowa Rigpa workhorse for Bad-kan of the chest, chronic cough, and voice disorders.
Chu-rtsa (Tibetan Rhubarb)
Tibetan rhubarb root — bitter, cold, powerfully purgative. Used for heat-type mKhris-pa disorders, liver heat, and stubborn constipation. The same plant is Da Huang in Chinese medicine, one of the great purgatives of Asian pharmacology.
Cong-zhi (Stalactite / Calcium Carbonate)
Calcined stalactite — a classic Tibetan mineral medicine for stomach heat, hyperacidity, and mKhris-pa digestive disorders. A doorway into the sman-rdo tradition, where rocks, metals, and gems are processed into medicine.
Dza-ti (Nutmeg)
Dza-ti is the heart seed of Sowa Rigpa — a warm, oily, heavy spice that settles Srog-'dzin rLung, quiets the racing mind at night, and anchors the life-wind back into the heart cavity. It is one of the three classical heart remedies and the king ingredient of the bcud-len ('essence-extraction') rLung powders.
Ga-bur
Camphor — a cooling, aromatic crystalline substance distilled from the camphor laurel. The signature heat-clearing ingredient in Tibetan precious pills and a classical revival medicine for high fevers and collapse.
Gur-gum
Saffron — the red-gold stigma prized across Tibetan medicine as the supreme liver and blood medicine, classically drawn from Kashmir and reserved for high-heat conditions of mKhris-pa.
Li-shi (Clove)
Li-shi is the heating counterpart to dza-ti in Sowa Rigpa's heart medicine — a sharp, penetrating flower bud that cuts through cold rLung pressing on the heart and restores the warmth of the life-wind's seat. It is the fire-bringer of the Agar-35 formula and a first-line remedy for cold-pattern chest and digestive disorders.
Pad-ma dkar-po
Snow lotus — a dense, woolly-white alpine perennial flowering only a few weeks a year on scree slopes above 4,000 meters. A classical Tibetan medicine for joint and bone pain, cold-damp womb disorders, and altitude-related depletion. Now endangered in the wild.
Pi-pi-ling
Long pepper — the deep-heating, penetrating fruit that ignites digestive fire and clears cold phlegm. Imported into Tibet for over a millennium and indispensable in Bad-kan and cold rLung formulations.
Shug-pa (Himalayan Juniper)
Himalayan juniper — berries, needles, and ritual smoke — opens channels, purifies rLung disorders, and carries the sang offering that joins airborne medicine to Buddhist and Bön practice.
sKyu-ru-ra
sKyu-ru-ra, the Indian gooseberry, is the cooling third of the Three Fruits — Sowa Rigpa's leading medicine for ripened mKhris-pa, heat in the blood, and the gentle renewal of depleted tissues.
Sug-smel
Cardamom — the aromatic seed from Kerala that cools without drying, soothes the kidneys, and appears in nearly every Tibetan formulation addressing the urinary channel and heart heat.
Tsan-dan dmar-po (Red Sandalwood)
Tsan-dan dmar-po is Sowa Rigpa's blood-cooling heartwood — a dense, bitter-astringent red wood used for bile-heat disorders, fevers that have entered the blood, and inflammatory skin conditions. Paired with and distinguished from its cousin tsan-dan dkar-po (white sandalwood), it anchors the small family of 'wood medicines' at the cooling end of the materia medica.
Yartsa gunbu
Caterpillar fungus — the most iconic medicine of the Tibetan plateau, a parasitic fungus that mummifies a moth larva and pushes a dark fruiting body up through the frozen earth. A tonic for lung, kidney and essence, and the single largest wild-harvested revenue source in rural Tibet.