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pabbajeyyanti

pabbajati

3rd person plural optative

1. ordains as a monastic; renounces the household life; lit. goes forth

Built from

• pa — prefix · forth, forward
  Prefix indicating motion outward and away. Works like Latin pro- and English forth; here 'going forth from home' into the monastic life.
• bbaj — root · go, divide, depart
  √bhaj (in Pali assimilated to pp after pa-). Shared with Sanskrit bhajati; originally concrete motion 'to go, divide'; here specialized to renunciation.
• e — stem · present stem
  Thematic vowel forming the present indicative and optative stem pabbaje-.
• yy — ending · optative marker
  Geminated -y- marks the optative mood in 3rd person forms; adds a sense of possibility or wish ('would go forth').
• anti — ending · 3rd person plural
  Plural active ending; indicates the action applies to multiple agents.

Analysis. pabbaje-yy-anti: optative stem pabbaje- + -yy- (thematic marker) + -anti (3rd person plural ending). The surface form shows gemination of -y- before the vowel of -anti.

Etymology. pa- (forward, forth) + √baj (from bhaj, to go, divide, share). The concrete image is 'going forth (away from home)', whence the figurative sense 'renounce the household life'. Cognate with English 'begone', German 'Begierde' (desire, originally 'going after'); √bhaj parallels Sanskrit bhajati 'shares, goes to'.

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

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