adjective epithet of Saṃsāra “whose beginning and end are alike unthinkable”, i.e., without beginning or end. Found in two passages of the Canon SN.ii.178, SN.ii.187 sq. = SN.iii.149, SN.iii.151 = SN.v.226, SN.v.441 (quoted Kv.29, called Anamatagga-pariyāya at Dhp-a.ii.268) and Thig.495, Thig.6. Later references are Cnd.664; Pv-a.166; Dhp-a.i.11; Dhp-a.ii.13, Dhp-a.ii.32; Sdhp.505. [Cp. anāmata and amatagga and cp. the English idiom “world without end” The meaning can best be seen, not from the derivation (which is uncertain), but from the examples quoted above from the Saṃyutta. According to the Yoga, on the contrary (see e.g. , Woods, Yoga-system of Patañjali, 119) it is a possible, and indeed a necessary quality of the Yogī, to understand the beginning and end of Saṃsāra].

ana (= a neg.) + mata (fr. man) + aggā (pl.). So Dhammapāla (avidit-agga Thag-a.289); Nāṇakitti in Ṭīkā on Dhs-a.11; Trenckner, Notes 64; Oldenberg Vin. Texts ii.114. Childers takes it as an + amata agga, and Jacobi (Erzähl. 33 and 89) and Pischel (Gram. § 251) as a + namat (fr. nam) + agga. It is Sanskritized at Divy.197 by anavarāgra, doubtless by some mistake Weber, Ind. Str. iii.150 suggests an + āmrta, which does not suit the context at all