‹ Back to the text

tathāhaṁ

adverb and first-person singular nominative pronoun, a scribal or metrical fusion of tathā + ahaṁ, attested as a surface form in verse

1. thus I
2. in this way I (am)

Built from

• tathā — stem · thus, in this way
  An adverb of manner derived from the deictic demonstrative ta- with locative-instrumental suffix -thā.
• ahaṁ — stem · I (nominative)
  First-person singular nominative pronoun, from Proto-Indo-European *ego-, cognate with English I, Latin ego, Sanskrit aham.

Analysis. tathā (thus, in this manner) + ahaṁ (I, nominative); a contraction found in metrical contexts where two words are fused without full sandhi assimilation, preserving both elements.

Etymology. tathā derives from the deictic root *ta- (that, this) with the adverbial suffix -thā (manner); ahaṁ is the first-person pronoun from PIE *ego-, cognate with English I, Latin ego, Greek ego. The fusion is a metrical convenience rather than a true compound.

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

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