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dosakkhayo

dosakkhaya

masc nom sg of dosakkhaya (noun)

1. wearing away of ill-will; extinction of aversion

Built from

• dosa — root · ill-will, aversion
  From √dus (to go wrong). The sense of something going amiss, deteriorating, is the concrete root of moral badness and aversion.
• kkhaya — root · wearing away, decay
  From √kṣi (to wear away). The physical image of erosion and dissolution becomes the doctrinal goal—defilements wearing away until they are extinct.

Analysis. dosakkhaya is a tatpuruṣa compound: dosa (ill-will, anger) + kkhaya (wearing away, decay). It denotes the gradual elimination of aversion as a defilement.

Etymology. dosa derives from √dus- (to go wrong, become bad), cognate with Greek dys- (bad, as in dystopia). kkhaya is from √kṣi (to wear away, decay), cognate with Greek phthiein (to decay) and Latin cadere (to fall). The spatial imagery of decay—things wearing down and away—becomes in Buddhist doctrine the goal of gradual elimination of mental defilements.

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

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