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samavāyo

samavāya

masc nom sg of samavāya (noun)

1. coming together; combination; meeting; lit. coming down together
2. event; lit. coming down together
3. inherence (of cause in effect, according to brahmanical philosophy); lit. coming down together

Built from

• saṁ — prefix · together
  Brings things into one; works like Latin con- or English same. From Proto-Indo-European *sem.
• ava — prefix · down, off
  Downward or inward motion; cognate with Latin au- (aufero 'carry off'). Here intensifying the sense of convergence.
• i — root · go
  Core root meaning motion or coming. Cognate with Sanskrit √yati, English 'to go', German gehen.
• a — stem · nominalizing suffix
  Marks the noun stem, converting the root-prefix cluster into a noun of action or result.
• ṁ — ending · nominative singular masculine
  Marks the subject or predicate nominative in this sentence; -ṁ is the standard masculine nominative singular ending in Pali.

Analysis. saṁ (together) + ava (down) + √i (go) — literally 'going down together', hence convergence or pooling of causes into effect.

Etymology. saṁ + ava + √i (Pali root cognate with Sanskrit √yati 'to go'; related to English 'to go', German gehen). The compound uses the concrete spatial sense of ava (downward motion) combined with saṁ (togetherness) to express the notion of things flowing together or converging into a single state or result. In Brahmanical philosophy, vāya denotes inherence: the way a cause inheres in its effect, brought together in a single substrate.

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

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