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tathāgatassa

tathāgata

masc dat sg of tathāgata (noun); masc gen sg of tathāgata (noun)

1. Such Become; realized; being in such a state; arrived at the truth; epithet of the Buddha

Built from

• tathā — stem · thus, in such manner
  Adverbial form built on the distal demonstrative ta- 'that' with locative suffix -thā. Conveys the sense of 'having gone in the way taught, in the manner prescribed'.
• ā — prefix · toward (reversal)
  Reverses motion: turns √gam 'go away' into āgata 'come, arrive' (toward the hearer/the point of reference). Concrete image: motion directed back to the speaker.
• gat — root · go, reach
  √gam 'to go, move'. Cognate with English come, Latin venīre. In past participle form gata it means 'gone, reached, arrived'.
• a — ending · past participle
  Masculine singular nominative ending marking the past participle form of √gam. Here treated as part of the compound epithet in nominative sense, though the surface form tathāgatassa is inflected (dat./gen. sg.).

Analysis. tathā + āgata: tathā 'in such a manner, thus' (from ta- 'that' + -thā locative adverbial suffix) + āgata 'gone, come' (ā- 'toward' + gata 'gone', past participle of √gam 'go'). Compound epithet: 'one who has come thus', understood as 'one who has arrived at the truth in the way taught' or 'the Thus-Gone One'.

Etymology. āgata from ā- (reversal prefix, 'toward the speaker') + √gam 'go' (cognate with English *come, Latin venīre, Greek *bainō; PIE *gʰem- 'to go'). The prefix ā turns the motion outward: 'has come' (to us, to this point). tathā from proto-Pali *tat-thā, where ta- is the distal demonstrative 'that' and -thā is an old locative adverbial ending; the whole phrase 'in that manner' becomes a characterization meaning 'thus, such'.

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

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