‹ Back to the text

araññabhūtanti

araññabhūta

past participle (accusative singular masculine + iti quotative particle)

1. became a forest; lit. become forest

Built from

• araññā — root · forest, wilderness
  Feminine noun. The underlying root araṇa- means 'desolate' or 'empty'; the sense of remoteness and untamed growth.
• bhū — root · become, is
  Root bhavati. Cognates: English 'be', Latin 'futurus', Sanskrit 'bhavati'. The concrete sense is 'grow, come into being'.
• ta — ending · past participle
  Suffix forming the past participle; here nominalized in the accusative singular masculine form araññabhūtaṃ.
• iti — ending · quotative particle
  Marks the preceding word or phrase as reported or cited; often used after participles or nouns in narrative.

Analysis. araññabhūtaṃ + iti: araññabhūta 'forest-become' (past participle of araññabhavati) + iti quotative particle 'thus, so'. The -ṃ is accusative singular agreement with a noun or participle functioning as the object of the quotative frame.

Etymology. araññabhūta compounds araññā 'wilderness, forest' (from araṇa- 'desolate', of uncertain origin) + bhūta, past participle of bhavati 'becomes, is' (cognate with English 'be', Latin futurus, Sanskrit bhavati, from Indo-European *bheuH- 'grow, become'). The imagery is literal: something that has transformed into forest or taken on the quality of wilderness.

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

Lite mode — plain HTML for e-readers and old browsers. Full version