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parisuddhājīvohamasmi

parisuddhājīva

1st person singular present indicative of atthi ('to be'), with locative predicate nominalization; surface form parisuddhājīvohamasmi is a contraction/sandhi variant of parisuddhājīva-o + ahaṁ + asmi (resolved)

1. I am one of purified livelihood
2. my livelihood is completely purified
3. I live by pure means

Built from

• pari — prefix · around, completely
  The spatial sense of completeness and all-roundness ('going completely around') becomes the abstract sense of fullness and perfection.
• suddhā — stem · purified
  Past participle of sudh-, to purify or cleanse; the root imagery is wiping or clearing away. No certain Indo-European cognate.
• jīva — root · livelihood, life
  From √jīv 'to live', cognate with Latin vivus and English 'live'; the noun denotes mode of life or means of subsistence.
• -o — ending · nominative singular masculine
  Marks the subject predicate; agrees with the implicit first-person singular subject.
• aham — root · I (emphatic)
  Emphatic 1st person singular pronoun; often fused with the copula via sandhi.
• asmi — root · am (present)
  1st person singular present indicative of atthi ('to be'); fused with preceding aham via vowel contraction.

Analysis. parisuddhājīva is a bahuvrīhi (possessive) compound: pari-suddhā-jīva, 'having-around-purified livelihood'; the surface form contracts the nominative masculine singular predicate with the 1st person singular present tense of atthi. Pari- conveys the sense of 'all-around, complete'; suddhā is the feminine past participle of suddh- (to purify); jīva means livelihood or mode of life. The -o is nominative singular masculine (agrees with implicit 'I' as subject), then aham + asmi fuses via sandhi into -hamasmi.

Etymology. Pari- (around, completely) + suddha (purified, from √sudh cognate with English 'soot', originally 'to wipe clean') + jīva (livelihood, from the root √jīv 'to live', cognate with Latin vivus, English 'live'). The compound expresses the canonical ideal of right livelihood (sammā-ājīva), one of the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path.

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

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