The medicinal properties of Adhatoda vasica Nees (Natural Order: Acanthaceae), called Vasa or Vasaka in Sanskrit, have been known in India and several other countries for thousands of years. The plant has been recommended by Ayurvedic physicians for the management of various types of respiratory disorders.

As the study of medicine propels itself through time, the scope of pharmocology has stretched between laboratory biosynthesis and drug isolation from natural resources. Natural medicine has a practical side; but it is often popularized in the race for cures . One can not help but be enticed by the thought that a simple backyard plant may hold the key to nature's miracles. In countries such as India, plant medicine has connected a large spiritual and cultural heritage, like Ayurveda (Sanskrit for "the science of life")[1], spanning millenia. A hardy shrub, commonly known as Vasaka, is a plant of wide medicinal value in several such cultures. Vasaka has been well studied and used for centuries as a multifunctional medication and resource[2]

Adhatoda vasica is a small evergreen shrub.

It grows to about 3 m, with leaves about 10-15 cm long and 5 cm wide, and white or purple flowers and 4-seeded fruits.

Native to India, it is commonly cultivated in the tropics.

The leaves are sometimes used as an insecticide and this small evergreen shrub has been used in traditional Indian medicine for more than 2000 years.

The leaves and roots contain alkaloids, vasicinone, vasicinolone and vasicol, which may have a bronchodilatory effect of the bronchii.

Benefits of Adhatoda vasica

The juice from the leaves and the decoction of the leaves and roots are helpful in asthma, bronchitis, and chronic coughs and breathlessness.

commonly used for bleeding due to idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, local bleeding due to peptic ulcer, piles, menorrhagia.

relief in pyorrhoea and for bleeding gums (applied locally) antispasmodic (relieves or eases muscular spasms, cramps or convulsions)

oxytocic (stimulates contraction of the uterine muscle, facilitating or speeding up childbirth)

lowers blood pressure