DOI: 10.36347/sajb.2020.v08i03.002

Pages: 63-67

Medicinal as well as aromatic plants have been utilized over the ages for their poetncy and negligible side effects. As a result of this, the exploration is at its highest possible peak. Seeing this phenomenon, the climbing plant ‘Clitoria ternatea, (CT) coming from the Fabaceae family and frequently referred to as 'Butterfly pea' and ‘Shankpushpi’. Traditionally named as Aparajitha pushpam, has been used in Traditional Ayurvedic Medicine, due to its varied usages over centuries as a memory booster, nootropic, antistressor, anxiolytic, antidepressant, anticonvulsant, tranquilizing as well as sedative agent. A vast range of secondary metabolites consisting of triterpenoids, flavanol glycosides, anthocyanins and steroids has been extracted from Clitoria ternatea. Its extracts have a variety of medicinal properties such as antimicrobial, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, diuretic, anesthetic, antidiabetic, insecticidal, blood platelet aggregation-inhibiting as well as vascular smooth muscle tissue relaxing properties. This plant has a longstanding history in Traditional Ayurvedic medication for a number of diseases and the scientific and clinical research studies has reconfirmed those with modern relevance. The plant holds several active constituents like alkaloids, glucosides, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, carbs and so on. This review is an initiative effort to explore the phytochemical components as well as pharmacological studies of Clitoria ternatea, which have remained in professional usage in the Ayurvedic system of medicine along with an essential assessment of its future ethnopharmacological potential in the perspective of many recent findings of importance on the well-known plant species.