Sympathetic, vicarious joy.
Sympathetic, vicarious joy — gladness at the happiness and good fortune of others. One of the four Buddhist brahmavihāras (“divine abodes”).
The direct opposite of Schadenfreude (joy at another's misfortune): an other-directed, relational gladness, and a cultivated meditative virtue rather than a mere reaction — traditionally the hardest of the four brahmavihāras to develop. Its secular cousins are compersion (joy at a partner's happiness with another), Hebrew firgun, and Yiddish naches/kvell. Its “far enemy” is envy; its “near enemy,” grasping exhilaration.
From the root mud- “to rejoice, be glad” + the abstract suffix -tā = “(state of) gladness.”
From the Pali/Sanskrit root mud- “to rejoice” + participial/abstract suffix; the past participle mudita = “delighted, glad,” and the feminine abstract muditā = “joy, gladness.”
Attested across classical Buddhist canonical and commentarial literature (Dīgha Nikāya, Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga) as the third of the four sublime states; its meaning has been stable for over two millennia. No reliable recent shift.
Minor etymological dispute: a minority hypothesis (Senart, PTS) linked Pali muditā to mṛdutā “softness,” but tradition unanimously derives it from mud- “to rejoice.” Popular glosses that reduce it to “the opposite of schadenfreude” are accurate but incomplete — it is a cultivated virtue, not just a reactive feeling.