Rasayana for Childcare

Vacha/Sweet Flag
Botanical Name: Acorus calamus L. (Acoraceae)
Sanskrit Names
Ugra gandha, Shadgrantha, Golomi
Shataparvika, Lomasha
Local Names
Sweet Flag (English)
Vacha (Hindi)
Baje (Kannada)
Vayambu (Malayalam)
Vasambu (Tamil)
Vasa (Telugu)
Part used
Dry Rhizome
Availability
Dry Vacha rhizomes are available at Ayurvedic and
other herbal medical stores.
A few Vacha plants can be grown as a pot herb
or in the back yard and the rhizomes harvested
and dried as required. Vacha saplings are generally
available at nurseries.
Vacha / Sweet Flag has been a very important
item of trade over centuries and across cultures.
It is a valued medicinal plant drug in Indian
medical traditions like Ayurveda, Unani and
Siddha traditions. In fact, it has a long history of
medicinal use in systems of medicine all over the
world. It is found globally across Europe, China,
Asia Minor, India, South-East Asia, as well as
southern Canada and northern USA. In India, it is
found all over, in marshy places, both as a wild
and a cultivated plant. The plant was a favourite
of the naturalist poet-philosopher Henry David
Thoreau and also finds mention as a symbol of
love in the Calamus section of Walt Whitman’s
poem “Leaves of Grass”.
Vacha is known as an intellect and speech promoter
in Ayurveda. This aromatic is a trusted
remedy for stammering, delayed speech and
problems of mental development. The rhizome
is cut into disc-shaped beads, and made into
bracelets worn by new-borns as a talisman, in
Tamil Nadu. In Native American Penobscot culture
it is believed that stringing Vacha in homes,
wards off sickness.
100