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sallekhena

sallekha

masc instr sg of sallekha (noun)

1. effacing; expunging; erasing; wiping out; slowly grinding away; lit. scratching together
2. austere living; self-mortification; asceticism; lit. scratching together

Built from

• sam — prefix · together
  Bringing things into one place or action. Concrete imagery of gathering, combining, or completeness that extends to intensive action.
• lekha — root · scratch, scrape
  From PIE *leigh- "to lick"; cognates include Greek lekhein and Latin lingere. The physical act of scraping or grinding becomes the vehicle for the ascetic metaphor.
• ena — ending · instrumental singular
  Marks the instrumental case, showing means or instrument: "by means of scratching together," or "with austere practice."

Analysis. sam + lekha: "scratching together"; the physical act of scraping or grinding becomes the metaphor for austere practice that wears away defilements.

Etymology. saṁ- (together) + √likh (scratch, scrape). The root likh is cognate with Greek lekhein "to lick" and Latin lingere "to lick, lap"—both from the PIE root *leigh- "to lick, to stick". The spatial prefix saṁ- keeps its concrete sense of gathering or bringing together, so sallekha originally denotes scratching things together (as in scraping food scraps or grinding grain), then generalizes metaphorically to the grinding-down practice of asceticism.

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

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