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rūpadassanaṁ

rūpadassana

accusative singular neuter of rūpadassana (noun)

1. perception of form
2. sensory experience of visible objects
3. visual consciousness (in early Buddhist psychology)

Built from

• rūpa — root · form, matter
  Physical material accessible to sense-perception; concretely, the visible and tangible world.
• da — root · see
  From √dassati, the root meaning to perceive or look upon; cognate with Sanskrit dṛś.
• ssana — ending · act of, perception
  Nominalizing suffix creating an abstract noun; marks the noun as feminine neuter in Pali grammar, here functioning as a cognitive or perceptual event.

Analysis. rūpa (form, visible matter, body) + dassana (seeing, perception); a compound denoting the mental act of perceiving physical forms through the eye-contact sense-door.

Etymology. rūpa derives from Proto-Indo-European *rewp- (to break, tear), cognate with Latin rumpo; dassana comes from √dassati (see, perceive), related to Sanskrit dṛś (see) and English theory (from Greek theorein). The compound is technical in Buddhist epistemology, marking one of six kinds of sensory awareness (cakkhudassana, sotadassana, etc.).

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

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