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anālayo

anālaya

masc nom sg of anālaya (noun)

1. non-clinging; non-attachment; non-reliance; unstuck; epithet of Nibbāna; lit. not sticking here
2. aversion; lit. not sticking here

Built from

• an- — prefix · not, without
  Plain negation. Cognates: English un-, Greek a(n)-. Strips away the attachment expressed by ālaya.
• ālaya — stem · clinging, sticking, reliance
  From ā (toward, inward) + √lay/slay (stick, adhere). The concrete image is adhesion into a surface or matrix; transferred to mental clinging, greed, and self-identification.

Analysis. an- (not) + ālaya (clinging, sticking, reliance); literally 'not sticking here'. The word pairs clinging (ālaya) with its negation to denote a state free from attachment—a cardinal mark of Nibbāna and the liberated mind.

Etymology. an- is the Pali negation prefix (Sanskrit a-, Greek a(n)-). The root ālaya comes from ā (toward) + √slay or √lay, 'to stick, cling, rest'. The concrete image is adhesion or embedding; the prefix ā- reverses motion toward the speaker, so ālaya captures the notion of something (greed, hate, delusion) adhering inward. In the Dhamma, anālaya denotes the mind freed from all inward clinging.

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

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