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dukkarakārikāya

dukkarakārikā

fem instr sg of dukkarakārikā (noun); fem dat sg of dukkarakārikā (noun); fem abl sg of dukkarakārikā (noun); fem gen sg of dukkarakārikā (noun); …

1. practice of austerities; extreme asceticism; gruelling discipline; lit. performance of what is difficult to do

Built from

• du — prefix · bad, hard
  Spatial imagery of going wrong or downward; cognate with Greek dys- (dysfunction, dystopia). Here it marks difficulty or adversity.
• kara — stem · doing, making
  Derived from √kar 'make, do'; cognate with English craft, Latin crāre. The root is the core sense of action or creation.
• kārikā — stem · practice, performance
  A feminine agent-noun or abstract noun from √kar + -ikā suffix, denoting the action or practice of doing something. The -ā ending marks the feminine nominative singular stem.

Analysis. dukkarakārikā is a compound: dukkara 'difficult to do' (du- 'bad' + kara 'doing', from √kar 'make') + kārikā 'practice, performance' (from kāra 'doing' + -ikā, a feminine suffix denoting action or quality). Literally 'performance of what is difficult to do'.

Etymology. dukkara < du- (bad, gone wrong; cognate with Greek dys- in dysfunction) + √kar (make, do; cognate with English craft, Greek kairo 'time of action'). kārikā < √kar + -ikā (feminine abstract suffix). The spatial prefix du- (downward, bad) retains its sense of going wrong or being difficult; kar- means to make or perform.

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

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