‹ Back to the text

kammanti

kamma

3rd person singular present indicative of kammati

1. action; deed; doing
2. work; job; occupation
3. (vinaya) legal act; legal procedure; formal action
4. (gram) object of the verb
5. (gram) passive voice; lit. action
6. volitional action

Built from

• kamm — root · do, make
  Cognate with Sanskrit √kṛ 'make' via Indo-European *k̑er-. The concrete sense 'to fashion, effect' underlies all action and work.
• a — stem · thematic stem-former
  Forms the noun and verbal stem kamma from the root.
• nti — ending · 3rd sg. pres.
  Thematic present indicative ending marking third person singular ('he/she/it acts'); from Indo-European *-onti.

Analysis. kamma (action, deed) + inti (3rd person singular present ending). The form treats kamma as a verb stem, though kamma itself is primarily a noun; here it is verbalised as 'to act' or 'to do'.

Etymology. From √kamm-, cognate with Sanskrit karman (action, deed, work) and English 'grammar' (from Greek grammata, the written record of action). The root's concrete sense is 'to make, to do, to effect'; it lies beneath most Indo-European languages' words for craft and art (Greek cheirurgos, Latin manus). In Pali doctrine, kamma is the volitional deed that bears fruit (phala) in this life and future rebirths—the engine of saṁsāra.

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

Lite mode — plain HTML for e-readers and old browsers. Full version