Ayurveda consist of two words ‘Ayur’ and ‘Veda’. It is a Sanskrit term and it literally means the science of life (Sharma, 1979). The scope of Ayurveda is vast. It not only deals with the prevention of disease and promotion of health and longevity but it also cures the disease. It also deals with rejuvenation. It can also be called the science of living and it is upveda of Atharva veda. It treats an individual as a whole and not only the symptoms or the affected parts, unlike modern medicines. India due to its unique variety of geographical and climatic factors had a rich and varied flora of medicinal plants. No wonder that out of a total number of over 15,000 plant species in India, about 2000 are known to have medicinal properties and some of them are used even as home remedies in the rural and remotest parts of our country (Arora, 1985). According to Sushruta, no plant in this world is useless. A large number of crude drugs used in Ayurvedic system employ plants of family Fabaceae. The family Fabaceae popularly known as legumes, is the third largest order of seed-plants containing about 600 genera with 12,000 speices. They are usually arranged in three well defined sub families and they are Papilionaceae, Caesalpiniaceae and Mimosaceae. The members of sub family Papilionaceae are herbs, shrubs or trees found in all climates but mostly between and near the tropics and are more abundant in the old than in the New World. The family includes the greatest number of Legumes, comparising 400 genera with about 7000 species. It is an extremely important family and its members yield nutritious food, fiber, shelter, valuable medicines and also virulent poisons (Datta and Kumar , 1985). The members exhibit most varied properties, some are amylaceous, other oleaginous, many yield resins, balsams and dyes, a few are astringent, acrid and bitter, narcotic and poisonous, emetic and purging, tonic and restorative . The seeds are often anti periodic and the root anthelmentic. The term pharmacognosy derived from Greek, pharmakon, a drug, and gignosco, to acquire knowledge of. Pharmacogonasy is mainly concerned with naturally occurring substances having a medicinal action. It also includes the study of other material used in pharmacy such as flavouring and suspending agents, disintegrants, filtering and support media and so on. It is closely related to both botany and plant chemistry. Pharmacognosy has been generally pursued for utilitarian ends and may thus be called an applied science. It has played an important role in the development of the pure sciences, e.g. in descriptive botany, plant classification (taxonomy) and plant chemistry (phytochemistry). Chemical plant taxonomy, genetical studies, involving secondary metabolites are now attracting the attention of more and more botanist and chemists.