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ākiñcaññāyatanaṁ

ākiñcaññāyatana

neuter accusative singular

1. the realm of nothingness (one of the four immaterial spheres)
2. the third formless attainment

Built from

• ā — prefix · toward, up to
  Directional prefix marking approach and arrival. No common European cognate.
• kiñc — root · something, anything
  Indefinite pronoun stem; negated here by the following element to mean 'no-thing'.
• añña — stem · other, another
  Used here in the sense of 'thing' or 'entity'; the form kiñcañña means 'anything' and by context in this compound 'no-thing'.
• āyatana — stem · sphere, realm, dwelling-place
  Compound stem formed from ā + √i (go), meaning a place or domain one enters; here denotes one of the four immaterial (arūpa) spheres of meditative attainment.

Analysis. ā- (toward) + kiñcañña (something, anything) + āyatana (sphere, realm). Literally 'the sphere of no-thing-ness', the meditative domain where consciousness rests on the absence of any particular object.

Etymology. From āyatana (sphere, dwelling-place) and the negated indefinite kiñcañña (anything). The prefix ā- marks direction and approach. The term is a canonical Pali coinage for this specific meditative attainment with no standard European cognates.

Meanings from the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary; morphology and etymology by Claude.

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