Akusala, Akushala: 25 definitions
Introduction:
Akusala means something in Buddhism, Pali, Hinduism, Sanskrit, Marathi, Hindi. If you want to know the exact meaning, history, etymology or English translation of this term then check out the descriptions on this page. Add your comment or reference to a book if you want to contribute to this summary article.
Alternative spellings of this word include Akushal.
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In Buddhism
Theravada (major branch of Buddhism)
Unwholesome, unskillful, demeritorious. See its opposite, kusala.
Akusala (That which is bad, improper).—Demerit caused by a negative action, a negative word or a negative intention, which does forcibly generate a painful consequence, whether in thos present life or the followings, for the one who does commit it.
All negative actions are akusalas.
There do exist five akusalas (pancanantariyakan) that do prevent one from realising nibbana in this present life:
- matu yataka—Killing ones mother
- phitu yataka—Killing ones father
- arahanta yataka—Killing an arahanta
- lohituppa taka—To inflict an haematoma to a Buddha (it is impossible to kill a Buddha)
- sangha bhedaka—To create a schism or a conflict within the sangha
See Akusala Cittas
'unwholesome',
are all those karmic volitions (kamma-cetanā; s. cetanā) and the consciousness and mental concomitants associated therewith, which are accompanied either by greed (lobha) or hate (dosa) or merely delusion (moha); and all these phenomena are causes of unfavourable karma-results and contain the seeds of unhappy destiny or rebirth.
Cf. karma, paticca-samuppāda (1), Tab. II.
(Unwholesome) = akusala -- or -- karmically: akusala.
Theravāda is a major branch of Buddhism having the the Pali canon (tipitaka) as their canonical literature, which includes the vinaya-pitaka (monastic rules), the sutta-pitaka (Buddhist sermons) and the abhidhamma-pitaka (philosophy and psychology).
Mahayana (major branch of Buddhism)
Akuśala (अकुशल) refers to “that which is bad”, according to Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra (chapter 4).—Accordingly, “[Why is the Buddha called Śāstā Devamanuṣyāṇām]—Śāstā means teacher, deva means gods and manuṣyāṇām means men (in the genitive case). The expression thus means ‘Teacher of gods and men’. Why is he called teacher of gods and men? The Buddha shows [gods and men] what should be done and what should not be done, what is good (kuśala) and what is bad (akuśala). Those who follow his instructions do not abandon the doctrine of the Path and acquire liberation from their passions (kleśavimokṣa) as reward (vipāka). Thus he is called Teacher of gods and men”.
Mahayana (महायान, mahāyāna) is a major branch of Buddhism focusing on the path of a Bodhisattva (spiritual aspirants/ enlightened beings). Extant literature is vast and primarely composed in the Sanskrit language. There are many sūtras of which some of the earliest are the various Prajñāpāramitā sūtras.
General definition (in Buddhism)
Sanskrit word. It means bad Karma.
Languages of India and abroad
Pali-English dictionary
akusala : (nt.) demerit; sin; bad action. (adj.), unskilful.
akusala (အကုသလ) [(ti) (တိ)]—
[na+kusala]
[န+ကုသလ]
[Pali to Burmese]
akusala—
(Burmese text): (၁) အပြစ်နှင့် တကွဖြစ်သော၊ ဘေး မကင်းသော၊ သည်။ (၂) မလိမ္မာသော၊ သူ၊ သည်။ (၃) ပညာမရှိသော သူ၊ သည်။ (၄) အာပတ်။ (၅) အပြစ်လည်းရှိ မကောင်းကျိုးကိုလည်း ပေးတတ်သော၊ ကုသိုလ်၏ ဆန့်ကျင်ဖက်ဖြစ်သော၊ သည် (အကုသိုလ်)။ (၆) အနာရောဂါမကင်းသော၊ သည် (အကုသိုလ်)။ (၇) မလိမ္မာသူ၏အဖြစ်ဟူသော မောဟကြောင့်ဖြစ်သော၊ သည် (အကုသိုလ်)။
(Auto-Translation): (1) One that is accompanied by sin and is without danger. (2) One that is untrustworthy. (3) One that is ignorant. (4) Misery. (5) One that can also bring harm while committing sins, the opposite of merit (bad deeds). (6) One that is not free from disease (bad deeds). (7) One that is caused by delusion as the state of an untrustworthy person (bad deeds).
Akusala (in Pali) can be associated with the following Chinese terms:
1) 不善 [bù shàn]: “unwholesome”.
2) 惡 [è]: “evil”.
Pali is the language of the Tipiṭaka, which is the sacred canon of Theravāda Buddhism and contains much of the Buddha’s speech. Closeley related to Sanskrit, both languages are used interchangeably between religions.
Marathi-English dictionary
akuśala (अकुशल).—a (S) Unskilful, inexpert, unapt, not clever or adroit.
Marathi is an Indo-European language having over 70 million native speakers people in (predominantly) Maharashtra India. Marathi, like many other Indo-Aryan languages, evolved from early forms of Prakrit, which itself is a subset of Sanskrit, one of the most ancient languages of the world.
Sanskrit dictionary
Akuśala (अकुशल).—a. [na. ta]
1) Inauspicious, evil; unlucky, unfortunate.
2) Not clever or skilful.
3) Unpleasant, unwelcome; न द्वेष्ट्यकुशलं कर्म (na dveṣṭyakuśalaṃ karma) Bhagavadgītā (Bombay) 1.1.
-lam Evil; स स्निग्धो ऽकुशलान्निवारयति यः (sa snigdho 'kuśalānnivārayati yaḥ) H.2.141 guards from evils.
Akuśala (अकुशल).—nt. (= Pali °sala), sin, evil; ten (3 of body, 4 of speech, 3 of thought): Mahāvyutpatti 1681—4 (not named); Dharmasaṃgraha 56 (named; opposites of the 10 kuśala, q.v.).
Akuśala (अकुशल).—mfn.
(-laḥ-lā-laṃ) 1. Unlucky, inauspicious. 2. Clumsy, not clever. E. a neg. kuśala lucky, clever.
Akuśala (अकुशल).—adj. unlucky, [Bhagavadgītā, (ed. Schlegel.)] 18, 21; [Rāmāyaṇa] 2, 64, 44.
Akuśala is a Sanskrit compound consisting of the terms a and kuśala (कुशल).
Akuśala (अकुशल).—[adjective] inauspicious, unlucky; incapable, awkward, clumsy.
1) Akuśala (अकुशल):—[=a-kuśala] mf(ā)n. inauspicious, evil, [Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa]
2) [v.s. ...] not clever
3) [v.s. ...] n. evil, an evil word, [Manu-smṛti]
4) [from a-kuśala] n. (with Buddhists) demerit, sin, [Monier-Williams’ Buddhism 124].
Akuśala (अकुशल):—[tatpurusha compound] I. m. f. n.
(-laḥ-lā-lam) 1) Unlucky, inau-spicious.
2) Clumsy, not clever. Ii. n.
(-lam) Misfortune, bad luck. E. a neg. and kuśala.
Akuśala (अकुशल):—(3. a + kuśala)
1) adj. unheilvoll, böse [Amarakoṣa 3, 4, 67] (karman). —
2) n. a) Unheil, Uebel: sarvākuśalamokṣāya [Manu’s Gesetzbuch 11, 221.] — b) unheilvolles Wort: tasmai nākuśalaṃ brūyāt [Manu’s Gesetzbuch 11, 35.]
--- OR ---
Akuśala (अकुशल):—
1) (f. ā): nahi tvasminkule jāto gacchatyakuśalāṃ gatim [Rāmāyaṇa 2, 64, 44] [?(= Daśaratha’s Tod 2, 44).] unglücklich [Suśruta 2, 524, 3.] —
2) a) sa snigdho kuśalānnivārayati yaḥ [Spr. 3223.] akuśalaṃ yo brāhmaṇo lohitamaśnīyāt es bringt Unheil, wenn [Kauśika’s Sūtra zum Atuarvaveda 13.]
Akuśala (अकुशल):——
1) Adj. (f. ā) — a) unerspriesslich , unheilvoll , schlimm. karn [Bhagavadgitā 18,10.] gati [Bhāgavatapurāṇa 2,10,40.] — b) dem es schlimm ergeht , unglücklich. — c) ungeschickt , unerfahren [Indische studien von Weber 1,45.10,62.] —
2) n. — a) Unheil , Uebel. — b) ein unheilvolles , — böses Wort.
Akuśala (in Sanskrit) can be associated with the following Chinese terms:
1) 不善法 [bù shàn fǎ]: “unwholesome qualities/phenomena”.
2) 善等 [shàn děng]: “good”.
Sanskrit, also spelled संस्कृतम् (saṃskṛtam), is an ancient language of India commonly seen as the grandmother of the Indo-European language family (even English!). Closely allied with Prakrit and Pali, Sanskrit is more exhaustive in both grammar and terms and has the most extensive collection of literature in the world, greatly surpassing its sister-languages Greek and Latin.
Hindi dictionary
Akuśala (अकुशल) [Also spelled akushal]:—(a) unskilled; novice, amateurish; hence ~[tā] (nf).
...
Kannada-English dictionary
Akuśala (ಅಕುಶಲ):—
1) [adjective] not skilled; wanting dexterity; not clever; unskilled.
2) [adjective] ill-omened; inauspicious; causing or foreboding evil; unlucky.
--- OR ---
Akuśala (ಅಕುಶಲ):—[noun] an unskilled man.
Kannada is a Dravidian language (as opposed to the Indo-European language family) mainly spoken in the southwestern region of India.
Nepali dictionary
Akuśala (अकुशल):—adj. 1. unskilled; 2. unwell;
Nepali is the primary language of the Nepalese people counting almost 20 million native speakers. The country of Nepal is situated in the Himalaya mountain range to the north of India.
See also (Relevant definitions)
Partial matches (+0): Kushala, A, Na.
Starts with (+25): Akusala Cetasika, Akusala Citta, Akusala dhamma, Akusala kamma, Akusala Sadharana Cetasika, Akusala sanna, Akusala Sutta, Akusala vipaka, Akusala Vipakacitta, Akusala Vitakka, Akusala-khandha, Akusalabhaga, Akusalabhava, Akusalabhisankhara, Akusalabyakata, Akusalacetana, Akusalacittekaggata, Akusalacittuppada, Akusaladhatu, Akusaladhipati.
Full-text (+172): Kushala, Akushalamula, Akusala Citta, Dashakushala, Akushaladharma, Akaushala, Akusala Vitakka, Balavaakusala, Bu shan, Akushalata, Akusala Sutta, Akushalakarman, Akushalanivritavyakrita, Uddhacca, Akushalakarmabhisamskara, Akushaladrishti, Akushalakarma, Akushalamulatraya, Akushaladharmatathata, Akusala Cetasika.
Relevant text
Search found 77 books and stories containing Akusala, A-kuśala, A-kusala, A-kushala, Akuśala, Akusalas, Akushala, Na-kusala; (plurals include: Akusalas, kuśalas, kusalas, kushalas, Akuśalas, Akusalases, Akushalas). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Bhagavad-gita (with Vaishnava commentaries) (by Narayana Gosvami)
Verse 18.10 < [Chapter 18 - Mokṣa-yoga (the Yoga of Liberation)]
A Manual of Abhidhamma (by Nārada Thera)
Form Sphere Consciousness < [Chapter I - Different Types of Consciousness]
Summary of Doors < [Chapter III - Miscellaneous Section]
Consciousness Pertaining The Sensuous Sphere < [Chapter I - Different Types of Consciousness]
Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra (by Gelongma Karma Migme Chödrön)
II. The knowledge of the retribution of actions (karmavipāka-jñānabala) < [Part 2 - The ten powers in particular]
III.a Causality according to the Abhidharma < [Part 1 - Understanding the Conditions (pratyaya)]
Part 6 - Why does the Buddha also speak about contentious subjects? < [Chapter I - Explanation of Arguments]
Dictionaries of Indian languages (Kosha)
Page 20 < [Hindi-English-Nepali (1 volume)]
Page 30 < [Hindi-Gujarati-English Volume 1]
Page 81 < [Hindi-Bengali-English Volume 1]
Buddhist Outlook on Daily Life (by Nina van Gorkom)
Kamma And Its Fruit (by Nyanaponika Thera)