Behman Safed and Surkh: Paired Unani Roots Nobody Can Fully Identify
Behman safed and behman surkh (white behen and red behen) are two dried roots that Unani pharmacy almost always prescribes together, as a heart and general strengthener. Here is the fact that every seller’s page skips: nobody can say with confidence which plants they are. Indian pharmacopoeial sources name Centaurea behen for the white root and the trade names Salvia haematodes for the red, but older Persian texts and the roots actually sold in the bazaar do not line up with either, so any confident claim about their chemistry is built on sand.
Before you buy
- English: white behen root, red behen root (also “behmen”)
- Urdu/Hindi: behman safed, behman surkh, bahman lal
- Arabic/Persian: bahman abyaz (white), bahman ahmar (red)
- Scientific: uncertain. Safed is usually assigned to Centaurea behen L. (Asteraceae); surkh is trade-assigned to Salvia haematodes or Salvia hydrangea (Lamiaceae). Market material is unverified
- Form: dried root pieces or powder, sold by weight; also inside khamiras and majoons
- Traditional roles: muqawwi-e-qalb (heart tonic), general tonic, nerves, “weakness” in men and women
- Evidence: one small human trial on Centaurea behen root in heart failure; otherwise animal and lab work only
- Safety flag: MEDIUM. Mostly unknowns, not known harms
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What are behman safed and behman surkh?
In the Unani materia medica “bahman” is a root drug that arrived from Persia, and from the earliest Arabic texts it came in two colours. The white root (abyaz, safed) is pale, light and spongy; the red root (ahmar, surkh) is darker, denser and reddish-brown in section. Hakeems describe both as hot and moist in the second degree, and they are listed together in almost every compound meant to strengthen the heart, calm palpitations from “weakness”, lift mood and restore a body worn down by illness or age. They turn up in khamira formulas, in majoon recipes, and in the standard “men’s weakness” prescriptions alongside shaqaqul misri, salab misri and musli.
Because they were always imported and always paired, the names stuck to a function rather than a plant. That is the root of the identity problem.
Which plants are they? The honest answer is “probably, not certainly”
Modern Indian pharmacopoeial and trade sources settled on two species:
- Behman safed = Centaurea behen L., a thistle relative in the daisy family. It grows wild from Lebanon and Iraq across Iran to Central Asia. Its thick roots are brown outside and white inside, and the plant is cultivated in a small way in northern India for the root. Nineteenth-century colonial pharmacographies already made this assignment.
- Behman surkh = Salvia haematodes Wall. (some sources say Salvia hydrangea), a sage relative in the mint family. Indian and Pakistani sellers, and a 2017 rat study from an Indian pharmacy school, call this plant “red sage, Behman Surkh in Urdu, Lal Behman in Hindi”.
Three problems sit under that neat table. First, classical Persian and Arabic authors describe bahman from Persian mountains, and the match between their descriptions and either species is argued over by historians of medicine, not settled. Second, Salvia haematodes is itself a botanically muddled name, treated by some taxonomists as a form of garden sage and by others as a distinct Himalayan species. Third, and most practically, the roots in a pansari’s drawer have rarely been checked by anyone. A trader buys “behman surkh” from a wholesaler who bought it from a collector; nobody along the chain presses a flower. Sellers themselves warn that the two behmans are different plants and should not be merged simply because they share a name, which is good advice, but it also concedes that identity is being asserted, not verified.
What this means for you is simple. When a product page gives a confident Latin name and then lists “clinically backed” benefits for that species, the chain of reasoning has a broken link. The species in the pack may not be the species in the paper.
The question to ask the pansari
Ask “yeh behman kis ilaqe se hai, aur botanical naam kya hai?” (where is this from, and what is the botanical name?). An honest answer is some version of “it is behman, it comes from Iran or Afghanistan through the Peshawar or Delhi market, and we do not know the species.” That is a seller you can trust, because that is the true state of knowledge. A seller who rattles off “Centaurea behen, boosts testosterone, clinically proven” is reading from a marketing sheet. For the same reason, treat lab-report or percentage claims on behman products as decoration.
What the dried roots look like
| Feature | Behman safed | Behman surkh |
|---|---|---|
| Colour | Greyish-white to pale brown outside, white inside | Reddish-brown to dark brown outside, pinkish or red-brown inside |
| Weight and feel | Light, spongy, breaks easily | Denser, harder, woody |
| Taste | Faintly sweet, then slightly bitter | Astringent, slightly bitter |
| Usual form | Sliced root pieces or powder | Root pieces or powder |
These are trade descriptions, not botanical keys. Stale roots of either kind go grey and lose smell; powder hides everything, so buy pieces and have them ground.
What tradition claims, and what the evidence can carry
What people say
Online, behman safed is sold for “taqat”, male strength, stamina, low sperm count and nerves; behman surkh for heart weakness, palpitations, low mood and “khoon ki kami”. The two are offered together as a tonic pair.
Hakeems class both roots as muqawwi-e-qalb (heart strengthener), muqawwi-e-dimagh (brain strengthener) and mufarreh (exhilarant). They are given to convalescents, to the elderly, to people with palpitations attributed to weakness rather than disease, and in the men’s formulas meant for sexual weakness. The pairing is deliberate: the two colours were believed to balance one another.
Our honest take Tradition is rich; proof is thin and tied to a species that may not be in your pack
- Preliminary, in people: a small randomised trial from Iran gave Centaurea behen root to patients with systolic heart failure alongside their standard treatment and reported improved quality-of-life scores. One small trial, soft outcome, a species identity that the trial’s own supply chain had to assume.
- Preliminary, in animals and the lab: Salvia haematodes root extract improved memory tasks in rats given an amnesia-inducing drug; Centaurea behen compounds show antioxidant and cell-killing activity in dishes. None of that tells you what a human taking the root feels.
- Tradition only: palpitations from weakness, low mood, convalescence, general tonic.
- Unsupported: testosterone raising, sperm count, erectile strength, “blood making”. No human data for any of these.
On men’s health specifically: weakness, low desire and weak erections are medical symptoms with medical causes, from diabetes and blood pressure to thyroid and mood, and weak erections can be an early sign of heart disease. Our mardana kamzori page sets out when to see a doctor. A root pair with uncertain identity is not a substitute for that visit, and “herbal” men’s products in general have a record of hidden prescription drugs, which can be deadly with nitrate heart medicines.
On palpitations: a racing or thumping heart has a checklist of its own (chai, anxiety, thyroid, anaemia, rhythm problems), covered in palpitations: chai, anxiety or rhythm?. A heart tonic tradition does not replace an ECG.
How behman is used, and where it turns up
Hakeems give the roots powdered, usually both together, in honey or in a sweetened paste, or as part of a compound. They are standard ingredients in several khamiras and majoons sold for the heart and for weakness; our khamira marwareed and gaozaban page explains what sits inside those jars and why the sugar matters. This page gives no amounts. The pack or a qualified practitioner sets the quantity and the length of a course, and the usual rule applies: if nothing has changed in two to three months, stop and ask rather than doubling up.
Behman is not a kitchen spice and has no food, cosmetic or fragrance use worth describing.
Price and how it is sold
Both roots are sold by weight at pansari shops and online herb stores in Pakistan and India, as whole or sliced root and as powder, typically in 50 g to 250 g packs, and surkh usually costs a little more than safed. Prices move with the Afghan and Iranian supply and with the rupee, so we are not quoting figures; compare per 100 g on the day. Two buying rules follow from everything above: buy pieces rather than powder, because powder can be anything; and be suspicious of a “premium” grade justified by a Latin name and lab claims, since nobody is testing the species.
The herb most often sold beside behman is shaqaqul misri, which has the same identity problem and the same tonic reputation; see our shaqaqul misri guide. For the testosterone marketing pattern applied to another root, gokshura is the worked example.
Side effects and who should avoid behman
Behman’s main risk is the unknown, not a known poison. Because the species in the pack is unverified, nobody can rule out contamination with a lookalike root, and because there are no human safety studies, the usual precautions apply in full. Pregnancy and breastfeeding: avoid; no data. Children: not for children. Heart disease, arrhythmia, heart failure: do not add a “heart tonic” without telling your cardiologist; the one human trial used it alongside standard treatment, never instead of it. Diabetes: behman is often sold in sugar-based khamiras and majoons; count the sugar. Blood thinners, blood-pressure and heart medicines: interactions are unstudied, so ask your doctor or pharmacist before combining. Allergy: Centaurea is in the daisy family; people with ragweed or chrysanthemum allergy should be alert to itching, rash or wheeze. Stop and ask for palpitations that get worse, dizziness, fainting, a rash, stomach pain or yellowing of the eyes.
Not for a hakeem or a tonic at all: chest pain or pressure, breathlessness lying flat or on mild effort, fainting, a pulse that is very fast or irregular at rest, swelling of both ankles, or weak erections in a man with diabetes or high blood pressure. These need a doctor and tests this week.
Bottom line
Behman safed and behman surkh are a classical Unani pair with a long tradition as heart and general strengtheners. Their botanical identity is genuinely unresolved: the textbook assignments (Centaurea behen, Salvia haematodes) may or may not be what the bazaar sells, so no species-specific chemistry or “proven benefit” can honestly be claimed for the roots in your hand. Human evidence amounts to one small heart-failure trial on one of the candidate species. Treat them as tradition, buy them as pieces from a seller who admits what is not known, keep them away from pregnancy and children, and never let a tonic stand in for a cardiologist or a urologist. More explainers like this are in Unani & Herbal, Decoded.
Behman safed and surkh: the questions people ask
Behman safed kya hota hai?
It is a pale dried root used in Unani medicine as a heart and general strengthener, almost always paired with the red root behman surkh. Indian sources assign it to the plant Centaurea behen, but the identity is not settled.
Behman safed in English?
White behen root (also spelled behmen). The red partner is red behen root. Both are Persian-origin Unani drugs, so the English names are just translations of the colours.
Behman surkh ka botanical name kya hai?
The trade assigns it to Salvia haematodes (some say Salvia hydrangea), a sage relative. Classical descriptions and market samples do not clearly match, so the botanical name should be read as “probably” rather than “certainly”.
Behman safed aur surkh ke fayde kya hain?
Tradition uses them for heart weakness, palpitations from weakness, low mood, convalescence and general strength. Human evidence is limited to one small trial of Centaurea behen root in heart failure, used alongside standard treatment.
Behman safed benefits for male?
Unani men’s formulas include it as a general strengthener, and sellers market it for stamina and sperm count. There is no human evidence for any sexual or hormonal effect. Weak erections or low desire deserve a doctor, because they often point to diabetes, blood pressure or heart problems.
Behman safed ki taseer kaisi hai?
Hakeems class both behmans as hot and moist in the second degree, which in Unani terms makes them nourishing strengtheners rather than drying or cooling drugs. The pairing of white and red is traditionally meant to balance them.
Behman surkh ke nuksan?
No specific harms are documented, mainly because no one has studied it properly in people. The risks are the unknowns: unverified species, no pregnancy or child data, unstudied interactions with heart and blood-pressure medicines, and sugar in the khamiras it comes in.
Behman safed ka price per kg?
It is sold by weight at pansari shops and online in Pakistan and India, with surkh usually a little dearer than safed. Prices follow Afghan and Iranian supply and the exchange rate, so compare per 100 g on the day rather than trusting an old figure.
Shaqaqul misri aur behman safed sath kyun liye jate hain?
Both are classical tonic roots in the same Unani prescriptions for weakness and convalescence, and both arrived through the Persian trade, so hakeems combined them. Both also share an unresolved botanical identity.
Is behman safe for the heart?
Unknown. Tradition calls it a heart tonic, and one small trial added Centaurea behen root to standard heart-failure treatment with reported improvement in quality of life. Anyone with heart disease should tell their cardiologist before taking it and never use it instead of prescribed medicine.
Can behman safed be taken in pregnancy?
No. There are no safety data in pregnancy or breastfeeding, and the species in the pack is unverified. Avoid it and the compound products that contain it.
How do I know my behman is real?
You mostly cannot, beyond the basics: white root should be light, spongy and white inside; red root denser and red-brown in section; both should smell fresh rather than musty. Buy pieces, not powder, and prefer a seller who admits the species is uncertain.
Sources
- Centaurea behen: distribution, root description, use as Behman Safed (citing Dymock et al., Pharmacographia Indica, 1891)
- Effectiveness of Centaurea behen root on quality of life in patients with systolic heart failure: a randomized clinical trial. Journal of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Research, 2023
- Protective effect of hydro-alcoholic extract of Salvia haematodes Wall root on cognitive functions in scopolamine-induced amnesia in rats. Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, 2017 (names the plant Behman Surkh / Lal Behman and lists its traditional uses)
- Screening of several biological activities induced by different sesquiterpene lactones isolated from Centaurea behen L. Natural Product Research, 2018