TAMARINDUS INDICA L. OR “ASAM JAWA” : The sour but Sweet and useful Andreanus A.Soemardji Visiting Professor of The Institute of Natural Medicine University of Toyama – Japan ( July – September 2007 ) ABSTRACT Indonesia as a tropical country has grown up various kinds of plants. Most of them could cure many kind of illnesses and to make human’s body still healthy. Traditional medicines made from a certain ingredient of these plants are called “JAMU”. One of the healing plants or herbal traditional medicines is Tamarindus indica L. (scientific name) with common name Tamarind or Asam Jawa in Indonesia. Indonesia people call asam according to its sour taste and jawa because there’s a lot in Centre Java (asam in Javanese language is sour and Jawa is Java).It comes originally from Africa (Savana Africa) but has grown in Indonesia for century. Asam Jawa (fruit) is known to have ability of curing many kinds of diseases such as rheumatism, cough ,fever, allergy and oral ulceration. Besides it’s also used as antidotes in several cases. There are many other uses of this plant, like to keep body healthy and fresh, to eliminate body fat, to enhance body’s vitality, to provide vitamins B and C, and to cure many diseases. This article reviews the characteristics, common usages, traditional medicines usages, chemical contents, pharmacological, toxicological and clinical studies of “Asam Jawa” (Tamarindus indica L.). INTRODUCTION Indonesia is an archipelago country that lies between two continents, Asia and Australia hand two oceans, the Indian and Pacific. The geographical position of Indonesia is 6 o NL (North Latitude) – 11 o SL (South Latitude) and 95 o - 141 o EL (East Longitude). Conferring this fact, Indonesia is passed by the equator. This equator makes Indonesia has a tropical climate with two kinds of seasons, dry and wet season (1, 2). This climate makes Indonesia get sun light for the whole year. No wonder