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kusalo

kusala

masc nom sg of kusala (adj); masc nom sg of kusala (noun)

1. healthy; beneficial; useful; good; wholesome; karmically profitable
2. skilled; clever; competent; expert; adept (in)
3. master (of); expert (in); adept (in) familiar (with); person skilled (in)

Built from

• kusala — root · skilled, wholesome
  The root √kus carries the primary meaning 'to be skillful, expert, apt'. In the doctrine, kusala denotes both practical skill and moral wholesomeness—actions done with wisdom and without greed, hatred, and delusion that ripen in good karma. Sanskrit kuśala; cognate with Greek χρή (chrē, one must, is fitting) in the sense of what is apt or meet.

Etymology. Root √kus (to be skilled, expert); cognate with Sanskrit kuśala. The word carries the sense of skillfulness and moral worth together in Buddhist ethics: a kusala action bears fruit in better rebirth. Related to Greek χρήσιμος (chrēsimos, useful) through the proto-sense of fit, apt; kusala thus represents the convergence of practical competence and ethical rectitude.

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

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