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dukkhakkhayāya

dukkhakkhaya

masc dat sg of dukkhakkhaya (noun)

1. wearing away of suffering; extinction of stress; termination of tension

Built from

• du — prefix · bad, wrong
  Negating prefix indicating something gone wrong or harmful. Cognates: Greek dys-, English dys- (dysfunction).
• kkha — root · empty, hollow
  Early sense of emptiness; in compounds like dukkha, it emphasizes the painful, hollow quality. Related to Sanskrit kha.
• kha — root · decay, wear away
  Root √khī; the process of disintegration. Cognate Sanskrit kṣaya-, related to Greek thisis 'wasting'.
• ya — ending · dative marker
  Dative singular ending -āya (here -ya after a vowel), marking the goal or purpose: 'toward' or 'for the sake of.'

Analysis. Compound: dukkha (suffering) + khaya (decay, wearing away). The suffix -āya is the dative ending, marking the goal or purpose: 'toward the destruction of suffering.' A cardinal doctrinal term denoting the cessation that is the Third Noble Truth and the aim of the Path.

Etymology. dukkha from du- (bad, wrong; cognate Greek dys-, English dys-) + kha (empty space, emptiness in early usage, here deployed as the opposite of fullness). khaya from √khī (to decay, cognate with Sanskrit kṣaya-, Greek thisis 'consumption'). The compound's force is intensified by du-, turning 'decay' into 'bad-decay,' i.e., the suffering whose removal is salvation.

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

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