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purato

pura

nt abl sg of pura (noun)

1. pura (nt): fortified town; castle; fortress
2. purato (ind): in front (of)
3. purato (ind): to the east (of)

Built from

• pura — root · town, fortress
  A noun meaning a walled or fortified settlement, probably from the image of something surrounded or enclosed. Cognate with Latin prora (prow, front of a ship) and English "fore", all from PIE *per- (to go forward, pass through).
• to — ending · ablative, adverbial particle
  The enclitic ablative singular ending -to, here functioning as an adverbial postposition. It marks the point from which something is measured or viewed: "in front of" derives from the ablative sense "away from, at a distance from".

Analysis. pura + to: the ablative singular of pura ("town, fortress") takes the enclitic adverbial particle -to, creating a postposition meaning "in front of" or "from the east of"; the spatial sense of "from a town" → "away from, before" is typical of ablative postpositions in Pali.

Etymology. pura derives from Proto-Indo-European *per- or *prei- (to go forward, traverse), cognate with Sanskrit pura, Latin prora (prow of a ship, front), and English "fore". The sense of "fortified town" arises from the walled enclosure one approaches or passes through; the adverbial ablative sense "from before, in front" flows naturally from the noun's spatial meaning.

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

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