Concept of sankha shodhan and its marana

Today ayurvedic medicines gain popularity world wide, as a safer therapy. The demand of herbal drugs is increasing day by day due to their excellent efficacy, fewer side effects and good faith by Indian community on herbal medicines and also their products. Rasashastra is a branch of learning of Ayurveda pharmaceutics, specially dealing with the mercury, minerals, metals and animal origin drugs having therapeutic and alchemical importance. In ayurveda, all metals, minerals, gems, animal products and plant products etc.are not used as such. They are subjected to certain pharmaceutical processes like shodhan (purification), marana (incineration) etc. to convert the drug into suitable compound form. The drug selected for the study is Sankha bhasmas. Bhasma, the herbometallic formulation is prepared by a special process known as Bhasmikaran by which the toxicity is reduced or diminished to a negligible amount. Shankha bhasma is an Ayurvedic preparation commonly used for peptic ulcer, piles, cough and for some types of gastrointestinal disorders. It is the shell of a marine creature called Turbinella pyrum. The chemical composition is CaCO3.In the present study, shanka bhasma was prepared by traditional methods and note effects of shodhan and marana process on sankha.