Standardization of herbal formulations is essential in order to asses the quality of drugs for therapeutic value. The World Health Organization (WHO) in 1999, has given a detail protocol for the standardization of herbal drugs comprising of a single content, but very little literature is available for the standardization of poly-herbal drugs. We have developed a simple scheme for the standardization and authentification of Panchasakar Churna comprising of four botanical ingredients. Three samples from different manufactures were procured and subjected to various physicochemical analyses and HPTLC fingerprinting along with in-house formulation. The set parameters were found to be sufficient to standardize the Panchasakar Churna and can be used as reference standards for the quality control/ quality assurance study. The laxative activity of the aqueous extract of Panchasakar Churna was also evaluated to justify the traditional claim.
