Shilajit an elixir of Ayurveda: A literary review of traditional usage as well as modern findings

Abstract

Shilajit is being widely used to cure a number of diseases across the world. It has wide medicinal values in various traditional systems of medicine worldwide. Shilajit has an important place in the Ayurvedic classic texts and being used as like a panacea, as Acharya Charaka cited in their popular verse that there is no curable decease on the earth, which could not be treated with the proper administration of Shilajit Rasayana. In modern days a number of research have been conducted across the world on parameters as defined and established on modern paradigms, and it has been concluded that Shilajit may play an important Roles in curing various life style deceases or infectious deceases. The aim and objective of current study to summarize the modern findings available online or offline on resources like Pub-Med, Google Scholar, and Science direct and another database, and cross relate the same with the establishment and verses of classical Ayurvedic Texts. The physical and chemical properties of Shilajit has also been discussed and summarized with special reference to modern findings. After going through a number of literature it may be concluded that Shilajit obviously have miraculous property as described in classical text and folk lore, but there is a limitation when reviewed on modern parameters, and that limitations is definitely lack of appropriate numbers of double blinded clinical trials and efficacy evaluation. Maximum studies available now a days are either in-vivo or in-vitro study, only a few human clinical trials are present.