‹ Back to the text

parisāya

parisā

fem instr sg of parisā (noun); fem dat sg of parisā (noun); fem abl sg of parisā (noun); fem gen sg of parisā (noun); …

1. assembly; meeting; forum; council; gathering; lit. sitting around
2. retinue; community; circle; following

Built from

• pari — prefix · around, all the way round
  The prefix pari- carries the sense of completeness and encirclement. From the concrete image of sitting in a circle comes the abstraction of an assembled group.
• sad — root · sit
  √sad means 'to sit' and appears in Latin sedēre, English sit, and Sanskrit sad. Here it forms the agent noun for 'those who sit'.
• ā — ending · nominative/oblique feminine ending
  This ending marks the feminine singular nominative or oblique cases (instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive) in the inflection shown.

Analysis. pari- (around) + √sad (sit), hence 'those sitting around'; often denotes the sangha or a monastic community in the suttas.

Etymology. pari- 'around, all the way round' (from peri-, as in perimeter) + √sad 'sit' (cognate with Latin sedēre, English sit, Sanskrit sad-). The spatial image of people seated in a circle around a central point gave rise to the sense of an assembly or gathering. In Buddhist texts, parisā typically designates the assembled monks, nuns, or lay followers around the Buddha.

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

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