i-stem and u-stem Nouns
Two smaller masculine classes, for nouns ending in -i and -u. This lesson is deliberately lighter than Lessons 6 and 7: these two classes show noticeably more spelling variation across manuscripts and editions than the a-stem and ā-stem classes did, so the goal here is to recognize their common forms confidently, not to drill every cell of an exhaustive table.
i-stem Masculine: muni, "sage"
The pattern below covers the forms you'll meet most often. Where a case has a well-known alternate, it's listed; where it doesn't, that simply means this course isn't asserting one, not that none exists.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | muni | munayoalso munī |
| Accusative | muniṃ | munayoalso munī |
| Instrumental | muninā | munīhi |
| Dative / Genitive | muninoalso munissa | munīnaṃ |
| Locative | munismiṃalso munimhi | munīsu |
| Vocative | muni | munayoalso munī |
The one pattern worth fixing firmly: the plural regularly lengthens the stem vowel (muni → munī) except in the nominative/accusative/vocative, which instead show the ending -ayo. You will see this same i → ī plural lengthening again in the u-stem class below, and it's the single most useful recognition cue for spotting a plural i-stem or u-stem form on sight.
u-stem Masculine: bhikkhu, "monk"
The same shape as the i-stem class, with u in place of i throughout — and one celebrated irregularity in the vocative plural.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | bhikkhu | bhikkhūalso bhikkhavo |
| Accusative | bhikkhuṃ | bhikkhūalso bhikkhavo |
| Instrumental | bhikkhunā | bhikkhūhi |
| Dative / Genitive | bhikkhunoalso bhikkhussa | bhikkhūnaṃ |
| Locative | bhikkhumhialso bhikkhusmiṃ | bhikkhūsu |
| Vocative | bhikkhu | bhikkhavealso bhikkhavo, bhikkhū |
Bhikkhave is one of the most frequently printed words in the entire Pāli Canon — it is how the Buddha addresses the assembled monks at the start of countless suttas ("Cattārome, bhikkhave...," "Monks, there are these four..."). It is also the plainest possible illustration of why recognition matters more than derivation at this stage: nothing about the regular -u pattern predicts -ave, and no amount of rule-following would get you there. You simply learn it once, as a fixed, extremely common form, the way you already learned Namo tassa... as a fixed unit in Lesson 4 before you could analyze any of its grammar.
Practice: Recognizing the Form
These forms all come from ordinary Pāli you would meet reading real prose. For each, name the case and number.
- bhikkhave
- bhikkhū (in a sentence naming several monks as the subject)
- muninā
- bhikkhuno (in a sentence meaning "the monk's robe")
Check your answers
bhikkhave — vocative plural ("O monks").
bhikkhū — nominative plural (the long ī/ū plural vowel, functioning as subject here).
muninā — instrumental singular ("by/with the sage").
bhikkhuno — genitive singular here ("of the monk"), though the identical form also covers the dative — exactly the dative=genitive syncretism you first saw with the a-stem class in Lesson 6.
Continuing From Here
With Lessons 6–8, you can now recognize the noun forms behind most of the ordinary vocabulary in our Visuddhimagga translation. Lesson 9 leaves nouns aside for pronouns — starting with ahaṃ ("I") and tvaṃ ("you"), the personal pronouns, and the demonstrative ta- ("that, he/she/it") that you've already met piecemeal in tassa since Lesson 4.