Clove (Lavanga) in Ayurveda: Traditional Use, Research and Safety

Clove is the small, nail-shaped spice that sits in nearly every Indian spice box. In Ayurveda it is called lavanga, and it has two lives: a fragrant whole spice dropped into hot oil, tea and rice, and a strongly scented oil that households have long associated with the mouth and teeth.

This page explains how the tradition describes clove, then sets out what modern sources say about its safety. The headline is simple. Whole clove as a seasoning is an ordinary food. Clove oil is a concentrated substance that can be dangerous when swallowed, especially by small children, and that is the part to remember.

What it is

Cloves are the dried, unopened flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum, an evergreen tree of the myrtle family. The buds are picked while still pink, then dried until they turn dark brown. The tree is native to the Maluku islands of Indonesia and has been traded across the Indian Ocean for a very long time. Today it is grown in several tropical countries, including south India.

• Sanskrit: lavanga (Sanskrit lists also use names that point to its fragrance)
• Hindi: laung or lavang
• English: clove
• Plant part used: the dried flower bud

The main aromatic compound is eugenol, which gives clove its sharp, warm, slightly numbing smell. Eugenol is also found in smaller amounts in other spices and leaves, and it is the reason clove oil is so potent.

The traditional view

Later materia medica such as the Bhavaprakasha describe each substance by its taste (rasa), its heating or cooling energy (virya) and its effect after digestion (vipaka). The profile most often taught for lavanga is as follows, although teachers do not all word it in the same way.

• Taste (rasa): pungent (katu) and bitter (tikta)
• Qualities (guna): light (laghu) and dry
• Energy (virya): sources differ. Several classical lists call it cooling (sheeta), while many teachers note that it feels warming on the tongue and in practice.
• After-digestion effect (vipaka): pungent
• Effect on the doshas: said to calm kapha most clearly, with some accounts adding pitta. Because it is drying and sharp, tradition cautions that a great deal of it may aggravate vata.

If these terms are new, the page on the six tastes explains how Ayurveda reads flavour, and the qualities of foods explains words such as light and dry.

In the classical literature, lavanga is placed among aromatic substances connected with the mouth, with digestion and with the throat. Household custom adds the familiar habits: a clove held in the cheek, a clove added to a cup of tea when the weather turns damp, a bud pressed into an orange or a pot of rice. We report these as what the tradition and families say. They are cultural and historical facts, not medical findings, and nothing here says clove treats any condition.

In the kitchen

Clove is one of the stronger spices, so most recipes use only a few buds. It is among the spices that appear in garam masala, and it is part of the wider group described in spices in the Ayurvedic kitchen.

Common ways it is used as food:

• Whole buds tempered in hot ghee or oil at the start of a pulao, biryani or curry
• Simmered in tea, often with cardamom, cinnamon and ginger
• Ground into spice blends, usually in small proportion to the other spices
• Studded into onions or oranges in some regional cooking, to flavour a stock or a sauce

Whole cloves are not meant to be eaten as they are. Most cooks pick them out or leave them on the side of the plate, because a bud is hard, intensely flavoured and can numb the mouth if bitten. Ground clove is easier to blend into a dish but also loses its aroma quickly, so a small quantity bought often is better than a large jar kept for years.

If you enjoy the warming spice family but feel overheated after strong food, the pitta-focused eating page and the wider guide to cinnamon and cardamom offer gentler companions. The tradition’s general advice is to notice how your own body responds, and to use strong spices lightly.

What research says

We could not find a dedicated page on clove from the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, so we do not report trial results for clove here, and we do not say that clove is proven to help with any condition. Much of what appears online about clove comes from laboratory studies of eugenol, which cannot tell us what happens when a person eats a meal seasoned with a few buds.

What we can draw from a source we checked is the safety picture. The LiverTox database from the US National Library of Medicine has an entry on eugenol, the main compound in clove oil, and it is the most useful reference for the questions that matter in a home.

Safety and interactions

• Clove oil is concentrated. LiverTox describes eugenol in low doses as having few side effects other than local irritation, rare allergic reactions and contact dermatitis. Swallowing a large amount, as in an overdose, can cause agitation, drowsiness leading to coma, seizures and severe liver and kidney injury. The reports it describes were mostly in infants who swallowed clove oil that was kept in the home.
• Keep it out of reach. Store clove oil and any product that contains it where children cannot reach them, in a closed container, away from food and drink. If a child has swallowed any, seek emergency medical help straight away.
• Liver rating. LiverTox gives eugenol a likelihood score of C[H], meaning a probable cause of clinically apparent liver injury in overdose. It notes that the low concentrations used in cooking and in topical products have not been convincingly linked to liver injury.
• Skin and mouth. Undiluted clove oil can irritate the gums, tongue and skin. Anyone with a sore tooth or gum should see a dentist, because pain in the mouth has causes that a spice cannot address.
• Allergies. Rare allergic reactions are described. Stop and seek advice if you develop a rash, itching or swelling.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding. We found no dedicated source covering clove supplements or oil in pregnancy or breastfeeding. Food amounts are part of ordinary cooking, but please ask your doctor or midwife before using clove oil or capsules.
• Medicines. NCCIH’s herb and drug interaction digest calls most interactions theoretical and singles out warfarin, digoxin and cancer chemotherapy, where the margin for error is narrow. It does not name clove. If you take any of those, or medicines for diabetes or blood clotting, ask your pharmacist before adding concentrated clove products. Tell your surgical team about every herbal product before an operation.
• Quality. Some imported Ayurvedic preparations have been found to contain lead, mercury or arsenic, so where a compound product comes from matters. This is a general point from NCCIH and not a finding about cloves.

This page is education, not medical advice. Please read our medical disclaimer, see a doctor for any health concern, and consult a registered Ayurvedic practitioner (BAMS in India) before considering any Ayurvedic treatment.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: LiverTox: Eugenol (Clove Oil), NCCIH: Herb-Drug Interactions, NCCIH: Ayurvedic Medicine in Depth.