# Picrorhiza (Picrorhiza kurroa)

*Kutki, katki, katula, bitter root; Sanskrit *kutaki*, *katu-rohini*; Marathi *bal-kadu*, ‘children’s bitter’; *Picrorhiza kurroa* Royle ex Benth.; in pharmacy *Picrorhizae kurroae rhizoma et radix**

**Known today as.** *Picrorhiza kurroa*, a plant of the alpine Himalaya from Kashmir to Sikkim, of the family Plantaginaceae (the Scrophulariaceae of the older books), whose root is the drug.

Kind: Plant

> **Caution.** No European monograph sets out its safety, and none of the sources read for this entry reports on it.

## What was it used for?

A bitter for the liver and the bowels. Dymock, Warden, and Hooper record that the Nighantas describe it as “digestive, bitter, pungent, dry, aperient, light and cold” and recommend it for worms, asthma, bile, phlegm, and fever; it was a favourite remedy in bilious dyspepsia with fever, given in decoction with liquorice, raisins, and neem bark, and was often prescribed for children with worms, whence its Marathi name, “children’s bitter.”

## What does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee declined to adopt a monograph on the root (public statement of 2015): it could find neither the recognised efficacy and safety required for well-established use nor evidence of thirty years of medicinal use, fifteen of them in the European Union.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

**Mechanism.** Not established in the sources read for this entry.

**Standing.** There is no European monograph: the European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee declined to adopt one (public statement of 2015).

## What lore surrounds it?

Muslim writers, Dymock, Warden, and Hooper note, gave katki or kutki as an Indian name for black hellebore and described that plant instead, a mistake that misled most European writers on Indian drugs.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Dymock, Warden, and Hooper, *Pharmacographia Indica* (1893).** The drug is the *kutaki* of the Sanskrit writers, who call it “the plant eaten by Dhanvantari,” the physician of the gods, produced at the churning of the ocean holding a cup of *amrita* in his hands, and the author of the Ayurveda. Chakradatta gives the powdered root with sugar and warm water as a gentle aperient.

## Sources

- Dymock, W., Warden, C. J. H., & Hooper, D. (1893). *Pharmacographia Indica*, vol. 3, “Picrorhiza kurrooa.” Internet Archive, b20413415_003.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Public statement on Picrorhizae kurroae rhizoma et radix (Katula)*. EMA/HMPC/161476/2014, 28 January 2015.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Public statement on Picrorhizae kurroae rhizoma et radix (Katula)*. EMA/HMPC/161476/2014, 28 January 2015.

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*Picrorhiza.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/picrorhiza

Historical description, not medical advice.