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sāsananti

sāsana

neuter nominative singular (sāsananti: nom. sg. + iti quotative particle)

1. message; letter; lit. instructing
2. teaching; instruction; lit. instructing
3. religion; monastic order; lit. instructing

Built from

• sāsana — stem · teaching, dispensation
  Derived from √śās 'to instruct, command' (lit. 'to point or direct') + -ana suffix forming action nouns. In canonical usage, denotes both the Buddha's doctrinal teaching and the institutional order established to preserve it.
• iti — ending · thus, so
  A quotative particle marking reported speech or the citation of a word as itself a semantic unit. Here it signals that sāsana is being referenced as a concept or term rather than used purely referentially.

Analysis. sāsanaṃ + iti: nominative form of sāsana + the quotative particle iti, 'thus' — used to mark the end of direct speech or introduce a cited word.

Etymology. √śās (Sanskrit śāsati, 'instructs, commands'; cf. German 'Geschoß' from Old High German 'sciozan' 'shoot', and Lithuanian 'šaukti' 'call' from the same root) is ancient and originally meant 'to point, direct'. The noun sāsana, formed with the suffix -ana, denotes the act or content of instruction, especially in Buddhist contexts the Buddha's teaching and the religious order that preserves it.

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

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