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avijjānusayo

avijjānusaya

masc nom sg of avijjānusaya (noun)

1. underlying tendency towards ignorance; inherent inclination towards not understanding; lit. not knowing sleeping alongside

Built from

• a — prefix · not, without
  Plain negation. Cognate: English un-, Greek a(n)-.
• vijjā — stem · knowing, understanding
  From √vid (to see, know); cognate with Latin videre, English wit, German wissen.
• anu — prefix · along, after, trailing
  Indicates motion or association following behind; here suggests a tendency lying dormant alongside consciousness. Cognate: Greek ana- (in sense of along, up through).
• saya — stem · lying down, inclination, tendency
  From √śī (to lie, sit); cognate with English sit, Latin sedēre. The concrete image of lying dormant folds into the abstract sense of latent propensity.

Analysis. a-vijjā-nu-saya: negation-knowing + along-lying-down = the tendency to ignorance lying dormant alongside the mind, one of the four or five anusaya (underlying tendencies) that propel rebirth in the cycle.

Etymology. From a- (not) + vijjā (knowing, from √vid cognate with Latin videre, English wit), compounded with anusaya (a tendency, from anu- along + √śī to lie, cognate with English sit). The prefix a- is plain negation (like Greek a(n)-); anu- preserves its concrete sense of trailing behind or lying alongside; together the compound names the dormant force of non-knowing that clings to the mind.

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

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