I think there is need of extensive comparative pharmacological studies on various botanical claims of Tinisa for usage described as in ancient text.  Many people resolved such type of controversy of botanicals due to mis-interpretation. As in case of Shankhpushpi.

• @ Neeraj Sethiya
• With due respect to you sir, may I say that your approach is partially correct. Let me put some logical point of views on this issue.
• You are partially correct because hypothetically first thing that comes to a researcher mind is to evaluate the subjected drug by its Pharmacological action, which comes through sequential proceedings under Preclinical study. If a drug satisfies the researcher with its desired therapeutic activities then it can be subjected for the Toxicological study and if the drug passes toxicity study thereafter it may get the nod for its clinical study to evaluate the true utility of a particular drug. In this point of view there is no denying of the fact that Pharmacological study is a significant tool to resolve the controversy over actual source of a particular medicinal plant. But on practical field, this approach too is lack of true preciseness in order to diminish the controversy over source plants, specifically in absence of proper support from Pharmacognosy [Botany]. I should now discuss this ‘lack of preciseness’ to some extent.
• If we go through any Indian Compendium or Data Base [or such kind of texts like API] on Medicinal Plants, we can easily mark that a particular pharmacological activity [say hypoglycaemic or other activities] is overlapping in the property of a number of medicinal plants. It is even worse when multiple pharmacological activities match with several different source plants. In this situation Pharmacology cannot pick up a single source plant [with botanical identity] and eliminate the controversy by designating it with an Ayurvedic identity. But a Pharmacologist can rightly argue subsequently at this point of debate but that point again comes under some kind of volatility [ I can explain if required].

Dear  Proshanta 

If you develop complete standardization as per guideline given in WHO on all claims of your Tinisa. Then it is possible to you that you can predict various differentiation and similar characters involved for identification of each sources. This problem generally arises only when people working with powder or with extract of controversial sources. 

You must go with these article.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217696/

http://chromsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/5/816.short

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3645359/

http://indianmedicine.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/root/S4/259s/

http://www.jcimjournal.com/en/showAbstrPage.aspx?articleid=jcim20091101

• @ Neeraj Sethiya
• Dear sir, I should start this post by stating that I have gone through your review article on ‘Shankhpushpi’ to enable myself to put my view in the context of your last post. I thank you for your consecutive attention & engagement in this particular topic. In your column you overwhelmingly emphasized the necessity of modern techniques [such as UV, TLC, HPTLC, HPLC etc. given by WHO] which are needed to be incorporated & that in turn according to you can resolve the controversy over Ayurvedic source plants.
• With this introduction I express my regret for not being able to agree with your above comprehension. I should now explain why that is so.
• Let me start with an example that will simplify the whole scenario for its better understanding. Mr. X was an eminent merchant who lived in a modern & civilized urban town. During a time of emergency Mr. X had to shift from his home town to an isolated island [where modern civilization had not touched it yet]. He was allowed to carry with very little amount of necessaries. He thought, even if he takes 10 kg of food, it will exhaust soon. So he took 20 gold coins in his pocket for his expenditure. But when he reached the island he did not find a single trader with whom he could exchange those gold coins for some foods. He started lamenting & cursed his own fate. While doing so he forgot to realize that island was full of green trees bearing plenty of delicious fruits. In due time he realized it & felt happy when he got some fruits. Then he pick up those gold coins on his palm & smiled [because, even though those were gold coins but in that circumstances those coins were worthless].
• I should now enter into logical discussion. From here we should proceed with stepwise manner. First of all we need to set up an aim. Because it will lead us to logical conclusion. So let our aim to be – “To propose a suitable candidate to be designated as [any ayurvedic name, say Tinisa] among the 4 different botanical source plants.”
• Now to proceed further we need to deal with comprehensive information about all four drugs along with a collective data set on 'Tinisa' [or any Ayurvedic drug which comes under controversy] in the context of our aim. Then obviously we will compare those data to come to a logical conclusion.  To do this, first we have to categorise our data sets into their relative groups. Let us assume that we have 3 categories of data sets. CAT-I, CAT-II & CAT-III. Among these three categories CAT-III represents Pharmacological data, CAT-II represents Q.C [quality control protocols, say analytical, physicochemical etc.] & CAT-I represents Botanical descriptions & study of etymological derivation of Sanskrit synonyms.
• As I have mentioned before, to have a logical conclusion we need to have a comparative data set. Now let us see what we have with us & what we are lacking of. Here I am taking Sankhpushpi for an eg.
• CDS [Comparative Data Sets]:
• 1. CAT-III:
• Sankhpushpi: Karma,  Roga & Cikitsa [Pharmacological action, disease & treatment] are well documented in every ancient Text [say Caraka Samhita] 
• 4 botanical source plants: Pharmacological action, disease & treatment can be evaluated & documented for all four Botanical source plants
• Productive/ Non- productive to resolve the controversy: Productive data
• 2. CAT-II:
• Sankhpushpi: All those modern technique such as TLC, HPTLC, NMR, MASS spectroscopy to name a few, cannot be found in Caraka Samhita or in other ancient texts. Because in that period those technique were not available
• 4 botanical source plants: All these modern technique such as TLC, HPTLC, NMR, MASS spectroscopy etc. can be incorporated in the research study to generate a set of comprehensive analytical, phytochemical, Physicochemical  data [I only named a few of them].
• Note: These data sets are similar to golden coins of our Merchant in the story.
• Productive/ Non- productive to resolve the controversy: Non-productive data. Because one set of data is completely missing. But that does not mean that we do not need such kind of data. These data are elemental in standardisation aspects of any drug subject.
• There are some exceptional cases for eg. in case of Bhasmas there are some Q.C. protocol like Varitara, Rekhapurnata etc. which were mentioned in ancient text. I will deal it later.
• 3. CAT-I:
• Sankhpushpi: Sanskrit synonyms, often depicting Botanical description can be found in almost every ancient text. Etymological derivation of Sanskrit synonym with proper explanation can be obtained from reliable sources to understand & describe those plants in more detail. This is evident in almost all ancient text where many plant drugs were classified under the headings of nature of habit, habitat, flower, fruits of a particular plant. Sometimes plants were classified under a particular disease and sometimes plants were classified under the heading of a prototype drug for an eg. Guruchadi varga.  
• 4 botanical source plants: Morphological, macroscopical, microscopical & all other Pharmacognostical characters of all 4 botanical source plant can be generated to compare with data obtained from  similar category of Shankhpushpi.
•  Note: One can raise a fragile argument here by indicating that Pharmacognostical study has been mentioned in WHO guidelines. I agree to some extent but it never opined or conceptualized in the perception of resolving controversial aspect of source plant. I must say they never emphasized on value of Sanskrit synonym in a true sense, at least in a similar way that I have done here.
• Productive/ Non- productive to resolve the controversy:Very much productive and helpful in order to come to a logical conclusion.
• As I have said earlier that I have gone through your Shankhpushpi article. But in your discussion or conclusion I have not found you to propose a particular source plant that is most suitable to be designated as ShANKHPUSHPI. The reason behind it I suppose, I have explained properly. Please don’t take my comment in a wrong way. My only intention was to have a logical point of view when we are solving controversial aspects of Ayurvedic drugs. I hope you understand me & will excuse me because I am not a good writer; to top that I was poor in my Literature during my schooling days. In contrast to this, I request you to take a look at the discussion & conclusion parts of my article ‘A COMPARATIVE PHARMACOGNOSTICAL & PHYTOCHEMICAL STUDY ON DIFFERENT PLANT SOURCES OF PARPATAK’; where I was able to come to a concise conclusion by following the same principles. [Please look at the attachment file]
• Though I had conceptualized these principles long back but I did not share it with a knowledgeable person like you until now. So if you find any inconsistency in my above said concept, you are very much welcome to correct me.

Dear  Proshanta 

First thing I must clear for you as medicine prospect of view, we are much concern with pharmacological action. As India is a nation with variety of languages and culture. Most of the ancient text are written in many language. Due to personnel error many people interpreted text. This might be one of the reason to create such type of controversy. But being a medicine people our main purpose is to resolved such type of controversy. As we always understand a drug with better action is always most suitable candidate for major action. So., being a modern medicine era, we don't have to take any objection with common name. Now the era of standard medicine started. Where drug is not known by the common name instead of botanical sources.

We are still in progress to conclude our studies for the best nervine tonic to pin point most suitable sources of Shankhpuspi according to pharmacological action.