Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Post-e-Pipal is the dried bark of the peepal tree, or sacred fig. Its Latin name is Ficus religiosa. In Unani medicine it is a single drug: one plant part used on its own, not a mixed formula.
Healers used it as a cooling astringent. An astringent is a substance that tightens tissue. It was given for loose stools, for mouth and skin problems, and later for high blood sugar.
In practice you will meet it as a coarse bark powder. You may also meet it as a decoction, which is bark simmered in water and then strained.
Unani texts group it with drying, binding remedies. They pair it with honey, milk or rose water, depending on the complaint.
Here is the honest verdict. The bark has deep traditional standing in South Asian and Persian-influenced systems. But almost all modern research is lab and animal work.
Long use tells you a remedy has been used and tolerated. It does not prove it works. We say that here, at the start, and not again in every section below.
The short answer is that no one has shown how it works in people. The studies needed have not been done.
Unani theory explains it by temperament. The bark is classed as cold and dry. So it was given to dry up wet, loose states such as diarrhoea, weeping skin sores and heavy discharge.
That is a traditional framework, not a biological one.
Lab work offers a different guess. Peepal bark is rich in tannins. Tannins bind proteins and can tighten the surface of sore, irritated tissue.
The bark also holds plant compounds that lowered blood sugar in rats and mice. Whether any of this happens at a safe dose in the human body is not known.
You will usually find it in one of these forms:
- Dried bark pieces, simmered into a decoction (bark boiled in water, then strained) - Coarse or fine bark powder, often called safoof, taken with water, honey or milk
- Bark ash or charred powder, used traditionally on the skin or gums - Capsules and standardised extracts from supplement makers, usually with no stated strength you can compare across brands - A part of compound Unani preparations, where the bark is one of several ingredients
Peepal is a sacred tree in India. It has been a medicinal plant there for well over two thousand years. Ayurvedic texts list it as ashvattha.
Siddha and folk healers used the bark in the same way.
Unani medicine grew from Greek and Persian medicine. It settled in South Asia from about the 13th century onward. It took the bark into its own drug list as Post-e-Pipal.
Persian and Urdu formularies call it cold and dry. They give it for diarrhoea, ulcers, skin disease and, later, for diabetes.
Its standing is truly classical, and it is shared by more than one tradition.
See a doctor if diarrhoea lasts more than two days, or sooner if you see blood in the stool, have a high fever, severe stomach pain, or signs of dehydration such as very little urine, dizziness or a dry mouth.
Get urgent help for signs of low blood sugar that do not clear after eating something sweet: shaking, heavy sweating, a racing heart, confusion or fainting.
Stop and seek care straight away if you get a rash, swelling of the lips, face or throat, or trouble breathing.
Also book an appointment if a mouth ulcer lasts more than three weeks, if a skin sore spreads or oozes pus, or if you are using this bark for blood sugar and your home readings swing up or down.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Post-e-Pipal is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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