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kāyadaṇḍanti

kāyadaṇḍa

masculine noun, nominative singular + quotative particle iti

1. (Jain) physical action

Built from

• kāya — root · body
  From PIE *keue- 'to swell, body'; cognates English cow, Sanskrit kāya. Literal sense 'swollen form', hence the physical frame.
• daṇḍa — root · rod, stick, force
  Obscure origin; in compounds denotes physical force or action. Here combined with kāya to form the compound noun.
• iti — ending · thus, quotative
  Particle marking reported speech or categorical naming; here signals kāyadaṇḍa as a named doctrinal term.

Analysis. kāyadaṇḍa (kāya 'body' + daṇḍa 'rod, stick, force') + iti (quotative 'thus, saying'). The compound kāyadaṇḍa denotes bodily force or physical deed; the particle iti marks it as a quoted term or category label.

Etymology. kāya from PIE *keue- 'to swell' (Sanskrit kāya, English cow from PIE *gwou-); daṇḍa 'rod, stick, force' of obscure origin, possibly from Dravidian. In Jain philosophy, kāyadaṇḍa is contrasted with speech and mind as one of three channels of karma.

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

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