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dayāpanno

dayāpanna

masc nom sg of dayāpanna (adj)

1. compassionate; sympathetic; full of kindness; lit. accomplished in kindness

Built from

• dayā — stem · compassion, kindness
  From √dā 'give' (Latin dō, English donate); compassion as the virtue of giving. The root's concrete sense of handing over something becomes the abstract sense of benevolence toward another.
• panna — stem · accomplished, skilled
  Past participle of pa + √jñā 'know distinctly' (pa- 'forth' + jña 'know'), so literally 'knowing well' or 'well-versed'; here used attributively to mean 'accomplished in' or 'full of'.

Analysis. dayā (compassion, kindness) + panna (accomplished, skilled) — one accomplished in kindness; the stem dayā is the absolutive of dāti 'gives' and carries the sense of giving/generosity that underlies compassion.

Etymology. dayā derives from √dā 'give' (cognate with Latin dō, English donation, Sanskrit dadāti), with the prefix da- intensifying the root into an abstract noun for the virtue of giving and thus compassion. Panna is the past participle of pa-√jñā 'know distinctly', so the compound literally pictures one who 'knows compassion well' or 'is skilled in compassion'.

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

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