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kāmāsavāpi

kāmāsava

masc., nominative singular + api (emphatic particle)

1. effluent of sensual pleasure; oozing sensual desire

Built from

• kāma — root · desire, lust
  From √kam 'to crave or move toward'. The concrete sense is appetite or longing; in Buddhist doctrine, sensual craving is kāma-taṇhā, the thirst driving rebirth.
• ā — prefix · toward, up to
  Directional prefix marking motion toward the speaker or a goal; here it shapes √sav into āsava, suggesting a flowing toward or emanation from.
• sav — root · flow, ooze
  Root meaning 'to seep or ferment'. Cognate with Sanskrit sravati 'flows'. In āsava, the sense is of mental poisons oozing out or leaking from the mind.
• a — ending · masc. nom. sg.
  The nominative singular masculine ending -a on the compound kāmāsava.
• api — prefix · also, even
  Enclitic emphatic particle; does not affect the preceding noun's case or form, only adds emphasis or inclusion ('even sensual effluent').

Analysis. kāmāsava + api: the nominative form kāmāsavaṃ (or kāmāsava in nom. sg.) takes the enclitic particle api ('also, even, indeed'), which appends without sandhi change; the surface kāmāsavāpi reflects the sandhi where final -aṃ or -a before api becomes -ā. Kāmāsava itself is a dvandva compound: kāma 'sensual desire' + āsava 'effluent, intoxicant'.

Etymology. Kāma: from √kam 'to desire', related to English 'come' (etymologically 'to move toward') and Sanskrit kāma. Āsava: from √su 'to flow' or √sav 'to ooze', yielding the sense of mental intoxicants (āsavā: lust, hatred, delusion, ignorance) that leak out of the untrained mind. The metaphor is of fermentation or seeping: taints that flow forth from craving. Āsava is a cardinal doctrinal term in the Four Noble Truths and the path to arahantship.

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

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