The physico-chemical stability of aucubin, a hepatoprotective iridoid glucoside, in buffered aqueous solutions was studied using a stability-indicating reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography. The degradation of aucubin followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics. In strong acidic regions, aucubin was rapidly degraded by the specific acid catalysis, forming dark brown precipitates. From the rate-pH profiles, it was found that aucubin was most stable at the pH of about 10. From the temperature dependence of degradation, activation energies for aucubin at pH 2.1 and 4.9 were calculated to be 22.0 and 24.3 kcal/mole, respectively. The shelf-life $(t_{90%})$ for aucubin at pH 9.07 and $20^{circ}C$ was predicted to be about 603 days. A higher ionic strength accelerated the degradation of aucubin at pH 4.01. The effect of metal ions on the degradation rate of aucubin at pH 7.16 was in the rank order of $Cu^{2+};>;Fe^{3+};>;Co^{2+};>;Fe^{2+};>;Mg^{2+}$. On the other hand, $Mn^{2+};and;Ba^{2+}$ slowed the degradation rate.