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āhārayato
āhārayanta
masc dat sg of āhārayanta (prp); nt dat sg of āhārayanta (prp); masc gen sg of āhārayanta (prp); nt gen sg of āhārayanta (prp)
- eating; taking food; consuming; lit. causing to take here
Built from
- ā — prefix · toward, up to
Reversal prefix: changes the directional sense of the verbal root, here turning √har's grasping sense into 'bringing toward the speaker.' In eating, food comes up to and into oneself.
- har — root · seize, grasp, take
The concrete root meaning 'grasp' underlies the idea of taking food into oneself. The causative -yati layer adds the sense of 'causes to take.'
- ya — ending · causative
The causative suffix -ya- (here integrated into -ayanta) turns the simple root into an agent noun: one who causes the taking.
- nt — ending · participial
The present participle ending -nt (masculine) or -anta (when declined) marks the word as a 'taking/eating' one (participle agreeing with the dative singular noun).
- a — ending · masculine nominative stem
Forms the stem before case endings (dative -to, genitive -o).
- to — ending · dative singular
Dative case ending: marks the word as indirect object or 'for/to' the eating/eating one.
Analysis. ā + hārayanta: ā (toward, up to) + hārayanta (causing to take, from √har
Etymology. [Causative] ā-hārayati is the causative of ā-harati. ā (toward, up to the speaker) reverses the motion sense of √har, which originally denoted seizing or grasping; the causative intensifies this to 'causes to seize or bring.' The prefix's concrete sense—drawing things inward and up to oneself—is preserved in the idea of intake: one 'causes food to come toward' oneself, to be eaten. √har does not survive transparently in English, but Latin *harpare (capture) shares the I-E root.