Chemical Investigations of Some Commercial Samples of Calcium Based Ayurvedic Drug of Marine Origin: Kapardika Bhasma

Kapardika bhasma is an important Ayurvedic drug of marine origin. Even though it is composed of mainly of calcium carbonate it exhibits excellent medicinal properties which are not associated with standard calcium carbonate. In the present study four commercial samples are characterized using techniques like EDX, SEM, IR, UV,XRD and TG analysis to throw light on their chemical composition and chemical properties .Such comparative study may help to standardise and to interpret the biological and medicinal properties of such traditional drug. I Introduction Ocean is the biggest natural repository providing a huge number of materials many of which are pharmaceutically important. Among these, there is a specific group of marine products of animal origin whose pharmaceutical utility and medicinal importance was recognized long ago by traditional pharmacists. This group includes five calcium based materials namely Counch ( terbinella rapa ), Counch shell (xan thus pyrum), Kapardika ( cypraea moneta ), Praval ( coralliun rubrum ) and Pearl ( pinctada margarifiera ). In Indian systems of medicine a huge number of pharmaceutical preparations are established according to procedures reported in ancient ayurvedic texts. Kapardika bhasma is one of these drugs which is the subject of present investigation. Kapardika Bhasma is a valuable Ayurvedic drug which is used as powerful antacid and many stomach problems. It is prepare from Kapardika powder. Various methods are reported in Ancient Ayurvedic literature such as Rasatarangani, Charak Sanhita. These procedures are followed by Ayurvedic pharmacy still today. Therefore, most of these formulations are considered as traditional medicines and they are not acceptable as approved drugs on international level. Actually due to their natural and biological origin they possess several merits as compared to their equivalent drugs in current use. Economically also, they are much cheaper due to easily available raw material in huge quantity at a lower cost. Hence if their pharmaceutical and biomedical chemistry is reinvestigated by standardizing synthetic procedures and methods of characterization on the basis of modern analytical techniques, all these formulations will receive international appreciation and acceptance on wider scale. Literature survey reveals that studies on chemical investigations of some Ayurvedic bhasmas of mineral origin are reported In the present study Chemical investigations of some commercial samples of Kapardika bhasma are done using modern techniques such as EDX, SEM, Solid state UV, Solid state IR, TGA and XRD. Such study may throw light on chemical composition as well as structural properties of Kapardika bhasma and hence the origin of its medicinal properties. Four samples from reputed pharmacies (K-1, K-2, K-3 and K-4) from different parts of India are selected for current study in order to understand the current status of these bhasmas.