Hi Ben,

You asked:

>
>
>I've been trying to figure out the meaning of the word "ceto". There
>are terms such as cetovimutti, cetopasāda and cetosamatha where ceto
>is used as a prefix. What does ceto mean? Does it have any meaning of
>its own?
>
>I checked this site:
>http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/dict-pe/dictpe-09-c.htm
>
>Here, the meaning of ceto is given as "is the form that ceta takes in
>cpds". I don't understand what cpds means and hence the entire
>meaning. Hope some of you can help me.

cpds meaning 'compounds', such as the examples you gave above like ceto-vimutti. Two words are compounded into a single word.

Ceto means 'mind, heart'. Strange as it may appear, the word is neuter. This is because the original sanskrit word is cetas (ending in a consonant). This turns into ceto in pali, but the instrumental is cetasaa, the genitive cetaso.

So cetovimutti would be 'liberation of the mind' or 'liberation of the heart', and cetosamatha would be 'mental calm' or 'calm in the heart'.

According to PED ceto means the same thing as citta, and is just used as a substitute in certain contexts.

best regards,

/Rett