Reply To: Discourse 2 – Icca, Nicca, Anicca

#41890
Lal
Keymaster

Pali words cannot be translated to one’s liking. 

Anicca can be understood in two ways:

  1. Anicca  = na + icca, “cannot be maintained” according to one’s icca. P.S. Similarly, the combination of “na āgāmai” (not coming back to the kama loka) is pronounced, “Anāgāmi.”
  2. Nicca = “can be maintained” according to one’s icca; anicca is the opposite of nicca.

Pali words are not necessarily meant to rhyme with Hindi or Sanskrit. 

  • Icca is pronounced “ichcha” and nicca “nichcha.” P.S. Anicca  = na + icca, is pronounced “anichcha”; Anicca  = a + nicca, is also pronounced “anichcha”
  • Those conventions for writing were adopted by European scholars to shorten the Pali words written with the Latin (English) alphabet.
  • See “Tipiṭaka English” Convention Adopted by Early European Scholars – Part 1” and Part 2.