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devamanussānanti

devamanussā

masculine accusative plural + iti (quotative particle)

1. gods and human beings; deities and men

Built from

• deva — root · god, deity
  From PIE *dyeu- 'to shine'; the shining ones. Cognates: Latin deus, Greek Zeus, English divine. In Buddhist usage, devas are the long-lived, pleasure-bound inhabitants of the celestial realms.
• manussā — root · human being, man
  From Skt. manu, the primordial man and ancestor. Cognate with Latin homo and English man through different Indo-European branches. In Buddhist cosmology, humans occupy a middle realm between the devas above and the lower realms.
• aṃ — ending · accusative marker
  The accusative plural form signals the compound as a direct object or the object of reported speech, often used in nominative function with iti to cite a category or term being discussed.
• iti — ending · quotative particle, thus
  Marks the end of direct speech, a category name, or a conceptual unit; here it crystallizes devamanussā into a recognized pair or formula in the doctrinal tradition.

Analysis. devamanussānaṃ (accusative plural of devamanussā, itself a dvandva compound: deva "god" + manussā "human being") + iti (quotative particle marking reported speech or a category name). The iti here marks the compound as a complete term or category being invoked in the text.

Etymology. Compound of deva (Skt. deva, from PIE *dyeu- "to shine"; cognates: Latin deus, Greek Zeus, English divine) and manussā (Skt. manuṣya, from Skt. manu "man", the primordial ancestor; cognate with Latin mensis "month" and English man through the same ancestral root). Dvandva compounds like this pair cosmic and human realms as complementary divisions of sentient existence.

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

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