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paṇḍitānañca

paṇḍita

nominative plural masculine + ca (and); from adjective paṇḍita

1. wise; intelligent; astute; learned; knowledgeable; skilled
2. sage; intelligent person; wise man; smart person

Built from

• paṇḍita — root · wise, learned
  Likely a Dravidian loanword or substrate term for scholarly knowledge and discernment. Not decomposable into Indo-European morphemes.
• ānaṃ — ending · genitive plural
  The genitive ending -ānaṃ (< -ānām in Sanskrit) marks the plural form as dependent, 'of the wise ones'.
• ca — prefix · and
  Postpositive conjunction attaching to the preceding word; it links clauses or noun phrases coordinatively, here joining paṇḍita to an antecedent nominal or verbal idea.

Analysis. paṇḍitānaṃ + ca: 'of the wise ones' (genitive plural) + 'and'; ca serves as a postpositive conjunction linking paṇḍita with a preceding noun or clause, here rendered 'and of the wise' or 'and the wise'.

Etymology. paṇḍita is of uncertain origin within Pali; it may derive from a Dravidian source (compare Tamil paṇḍitam, Telugu paṇḍita) or an Indo-Aryan collateral form. No clear Indo-European cognates. The word entered Sanskrit and the Indian languages as a learned term for an expert or scholar. In Buddhist canonical usage, paṇḍita denotes both the intellectual virtues (discernment, learning) and the person embodying them — a stock figure in canonical lists of the five kinds of persons.

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

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