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anupādisesā

anupādisesa

masc nom pl of anupādisesa (adj); fem nom sg of anupādisesa (adj); fem nom pl of anupādisesa (adj); nt nom pl of anupādisesa (adj); …

1. with no grasping; with no residual clinging; with no fuel remaining
2. with no residue remaining; with nothing left over

Built from

• anu- — prefix · along, following
  Marks completion or thorough exhaustion of the state that follows. PIE *anu-; Greek ana- (along, up through).
• pādi — stem · fuel, grasping
  From √pad (to nourish, feed); cognate Sanskrit pādya. The concrete image: fuel that feeds a fire, here the mental fuel of craving that perpetuates existence.
• sesa — stem · remainder, residue
  Sanskrit śeṣa. Completes the compound to mean 'without residual fuel'—the canonical image of extinction of all that feeds rebirth.

Analysis. anu-pādi-sesa: anu (along, following) + pādi (fuel, grasping) + sesa (remainder). The term builds on upādāna 'clinging' (fuel taken up by fire) with the prefix anu- emphasizing the complete trailing-away or exhaustion of that clinging; sesa adds the sense of 'what remains'. In Pali Buddhist usage, anupādisesanibbāna is the final nirvana 'without residual clinging', where all fuel for rebirth is extinct.

Etymology. Compound of anu- (along, following; from PIE *anu-) + pādi (cognate with Sanskrit pādya, from the root √pad 'to nourish, feed') + sesa (remainder, from Sanskrit śeṣa). The prefix anu- originally carries the concrete sense of following or trailing behind; here it emphasizes the thorough exhaustion of clinging. The root √pad underlying pādi yields pādu and pādaka in Pali meaning fuel or nourishment—the metaphor of fire consuming fuel runs through the image of craving as the fuel of existence.

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

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