Food is the necessity of life. People are concerned with the food so far as it relieves their hunger or satisfies their appetite, and not with whether it supplies their body with all components of good nutrition. Once inside the alimentary tract, the appeal for different types, forms, textures, flavors of food is no longer relevant, because the processes of digestion reduce them all to the same common denominators in a size and form capable of absorption and transportation to individual cells thus providing nutrition. Medicine too is a conditioned necessity of life. Food and medicine consumed according to the needs and conditions of the body are the paramount essentials to sustain the life. Though they share many common parameters, they definitely have individuality. The present communication uplifts the specificity of concept of Rasa and Veerya and their relation to food and medicine respectively. It accepts the accreditation of Chakrapani's quote 'Veerya Pradhanam Aushadha Dravyam, Tatha Rasa Pradhanam Aahaara Dravyam ca|' which denote concepts of Rasa (nutrition) as food determinant and Veerya (potency) as medicine determinants.

Any drug to act as a medicine essentially should be potent. Potency is an expression of the activity of a drug in terms of the concentration or amount of the drug required to produce a defined effect, whereas clinical efficacy judges the therapeutic effectiveness of the drug. Potency is a good preclinical marker of the therapeutic potential of a drug. Ayurveda mentions a term 'Veerya' in context of modus operandi of a drug which indicates the 'potency of the drug'. Dual potency either as cold or hot is also the contributory theory of Ayurveda. Possibility to identity the nature of potency through current sophisticated tools is interrogated in the present communication. The paper focuses on HPTLC finger print profile of useful parts of 15 medicinal plants possessing Sheeta Veerya (cold potency) according to Ayurveda. For ethanol extract of randomly selected 15 plants of cold potency, a plate was developed in mobile phase of Toluene: Ethyl acetate: (8:2), scanned under UV at 254 nm, 366 nm, and derivatized after dipping in vanillin-sulphuric acid. Rf value, colour of spots and densitometric scan were recorded. 15 test samples followed a typical HPTLC fingerprint pattern on densitometric scanning at different wavelengths, which was further analyzed based on principles of Dravyaguna including panchamahabhoota principle to rationalize specificity of Rf value, and found relevant. The experiment is an evidence to authenticate the concept of 'Cold Potency' delineated in Ayurveda facilitating the global acceptance of its principles.

Lagerstroemia speciosa (L.) Pers (Hindi - Jarul, Taglog - Banaba) a member of Lythraceae family is found all over India, specially in Bengal, Assam and Deccan Peninsula. The leaves of L. speciosa is widely used for lowering blood sugar levels in Philippines, Japan and Taiwan. Pharmacognostical investigation of leaves of L. speciosa was done by evaluating its morphological, microscopical studies, Physicochemical and phytochemical parameters. Rasa Nirdharana was done. Microscopical study revealed presence of epidermal cells contained clusters of rosette aggregate calcium oxalate crystals and few cells were mucilaginous. Lower epidermis showed the presence of anomocytic stomata. Physical constants of leaf powder showed, loss on drying - 3.8%, total ash - 6.7%, acid insoluble ash - 1.039%, water soluble extractive value - 8.88%, alcohol soluble extractive value - 4.49% and pH - 5.75. Preliminary phytochemical study revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, triterpenes, tannins, proteins and iron. Rasa Nirdharana confirmed the leaves are Kashaya in Rasa. The Pharmacognostical study was useful for authentication of leaves of Lagerstoemia speciosa.