Re: etymologies of "dukkha"

Jim,

The DPR has a commentary lookup feature; here's what I found searching for
commentarial explanations of dukkha:

DN-a: dukkhanti dukkhayuttaṃ, dukkhamaṃ vā.
Ud-a: dukkhanti pacurajanehi khamituṃ asakkuṇeyyaṃ.
Thag-a: dukkhanti te udayabbayapaṭipīḷanato sappaṭibhayato dukkhamato
sukhapaṭikkhepato dukkhanti vā passa.

It seems "hard to bear" is a commonly agreed upon etymology.  The Vism's
etymology is more exegetical than historical, I think.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo


On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 11:47 AM, Jim Anderson <jimanderson.on@...>wrote:

> **
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> Recently I received the following enquiry about the etymology of "dukkha":
>
> << Since kha is the root for khanti I wondered if "lack of patience" would
> be an adequate transcription for dukkha. >>
>
> Has anyone ever come across the root "kham" (to be patiient; to endure) for
> the "kha" part of "dukkha"? The derivation given at Vism XVI.16 has the
> "kha" part in the sense of "empty" which Aggavaṃsa curiously places under
> the root "khi" {khi or khī khaye = to destroy}. I wonder if "kham" (with
> the -m truncated) would have been a better choice for the ancient
> etymologists. i.e., "dukkha" in the sense of "hard to endure" instead of
> "bad-empty".
>
> Apte's Sanskrit-English dictionary gives the following 3 etymologies for
> "duḥkha":
>
> [ duṣṭāni khāni yasmin, duṣṭaṃ khanati khan-ḍa, duḥkh-ac vā Tv.]
> I think the root "khan" here has the sense of "to dig".
>
> I'd be interested to know of other etymologies. Another one I saw gives
> duḥkha as a Prakritixed "duḥ-stha" (unsteady) in MW's dictionary.
> Wikipedia
> also has something on the etymology of dukkha
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jim
>
> 
>


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