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pañcavaggiye

pañcavaggiya

masc acc pl of pañcavaggiya (adj); nt acc pl of pañcavaggiya (adj); masc loc sg of pañcavaggiya (adj); nt loc sg of pañcavaggiya (adj); …

1. belonging to the group of five

Built from

• pañca — root · five
  From PIE *penkʷe. Cognates: Sanskrit pañca, Greek pénte, Latin quinque, English five. The concrete sense of a hand's fingers extends to the number.
• vagg — stem · group, class
  Root vagga (or varg-) meaning 'row, division, class'. Related to Sanskrit varga. The sense is of things arranged or divided together.
• iya — ending · belonging to, -ary
  Adjectival suffix forming possessive or descriptive adjectives, here creating 'belonging to the group' or 'of the group'.

Analysis. pañca 'five' + vaggiya 'grouped, formed into a group'; a descriptive compound indicating the five ascetics who were the Buddha's first disciples. The word is frequently used in the Vinaya and Suttas to denote this specific group mentioned in the founding narratives.

Etymology. pañca < PIE *penkʷe (also Sanskrit pañca, Greek pénte, Latin quinque, English five); vaggiya is the derived adjective from vagga 'group, class' (cognate with Sanskrit varga 'row, class'), itself from an old root meaning 'to turn' or 'to divide'. The compound reflects the doctrinal importance of the first five ordained disciples in the Buddhist community.

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

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