‹ Back to the text

samaṇo

samaṇa

masc nom sg of samaṇa (noun)

1. ascetic; renunciant; holy man; monk; recluse; lit. who makes an effort; calm one
2. Ascetic; epithet of the Buddha

Built from

• sam — prefix · together, completely
  Brings collected effort into focus; see how sam- unifies disparate parts into one aim.
• aṇa — stem · one who exerts
  From √am (to labor, exert, strive); the agent noun suffix -a forms the noun. Related to Sanskrit āma and the general Indo-European sense of effort and raw striving—the ascetic labors raw and unadorned.

Etymology. From sam- (together) + √am (to labor, exert): one who gathers effort, who labors toward a goal. The root √am appears in Sanskrit āma 'raw, unripe' and relates to the notion of effort and striving. The prefix sam- brings the sense of collected, unified exertion. In early Buddhist usage, the term denotes one who has undertaken the discipline of renunciation—effort unified toward liberation.

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

Lite mode — plain HTML for e-readers and old browsers. Full version