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pettivisayo

pettivisaya

masc nom sg of pettivisaya (noun)

1. ghost realm; world of the forefathers; realm of the ancestors

Built from

• petta — root · ghost, departed spirit
  From Sanskrit preta (past participle of pra + √i 'go forth'). A being reborn in a lower realm due to karma, typically depicted as suffering from hunger and thirst.
• vi — prefix · apart, spread out
  Prefix indicating extension and pervasiveness; here part of visaya (domain). Cognate with Latin dis-, English divide.
• saya — root · stretch, spread, extend
  √sai in Pali; the root sense 'stretch out' grounds the meaning 'domain' or 'field of activity'. Related to Sanskrit śāya-.
• a — ending · nominative singular masculine
  The thematic vowel -a marks masculine nouns in the -a declension and signals nominative singular form here.

Analysis. petta (ghost, departed ancestor) + visaya (domain, realm, sphere). The term designates the realm inhabited by pretas, spirits of the dead bound by karma to this lower plane of existence.

Etymology. Petta descends from Sanskrit preta, from past participle of pra- + √i (go forth, depart), originally 'the departed'; visaya from vi- + √sai (stretch, extend), literally 'what is spread out', hence domain or sphere. The compound is a Pali doctrinal term for one of the lower realms (gati) in the Buddhist cosmology.

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

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