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gosiṅgasālavanadāye

gosiṅgasālavanadāya

masc acc pl of gosiṅgasālavanadāya (noun); masc loc sg of gosiṅgasālavanadāya (noun)

1. name of a monastery; lit. cow-horn sal tree forest monastery

Built from

• go — root · cow
  Cognate with English cow, Latin bōs, Greek βοῦς. The monastery took its name from Gosiṅga Rock.
• siṅga — root · horn
  Cognate with English sting, Latin singulum. The rock resembled a cow's horn.
• sāla — root · sal tree
  A large hardwood tree (Shorea robusta) native to India and valued in Buddhist construction.
• vana — root · forest, wood
  Cognate with English wood, German Wald, Latin silva. Concrete imagery: a wooded place.
• dāya — stem · endowment, gift
  From √dā (give); the suffix -āya nominalizes the action. Denotes a place given or endowed.

Analysis. gosiṅga (cow-horn) + sāla (sal tree) + vana (forest) + dāya (gift, endowment); a compound place-name denoting a monastic settlement named after a distinctive sal-tree grove near Nālandā in Magadha.

Etymology. gosiṅga from go (cow) + siṅga (horn) — the site had a distinctive rock formation resembling a cow's horn; sāla is a large timber tree (Shorea robusta), valued in Buddhist architecture; vana (forest) cognate with English wood, German Wald, Latin vānum; dāya from √dā (give), cognate with English do, Latin dāre, denoting an endowed or given place.

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

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