This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
理
In brief: 王 + 里: principle and rationale
Common reading
The manuscript gives no common reading for this character, so none is given here.
Design reading
The fundamental characteristic of the universe is Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance; the fundamental principle of the world is the three powers of heaven, earth and humanity; 三 contains both inward and outward cognition. In ancient times 玉 and 王 looked alike. The three horizontals of 王 stand for the ways of heaven, humanity and earth, and the central vertical for “one who connects heaven and earth is king” (one who follows the way of heaven and cultivates the laws of heaven, earth and humanity becomes king). “三 + 丨” means “cultivating Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance together is 王”; “王 + 里” (里 standing for what is within) gives 理, meaning principle, rationale and rule. This is how a character’s form is produced from its rationale.
The 里 in 理 serves as the sound component: the sound is obtained from the form.
This sound links the character with meanings in everyday language, and it can express different levels of meaning: reasoning, theory, ethics and so on.
As people gradually become enlightened to each level of 理 in daily life, they come to understand the higher meanings of 理, up to the highest, the Great Law of the universe.
Related characters
About this entry
This entry is taken from the edited manuscript of LI Xutong’s Exploring the Design Mysteries of Chinese Characters. The common reading follows traditional philology, the Shuowen Jiezi and other classics, and modern dictionaries; the design reading recovers the rationale of the character’s formation from the meanings of its strokes, the pairing of yin and yang, and the nine-palace layout, following the New Six Scripts. The premise of the design reading, that the generative mechanism of Chinese characters was designed, is an axiom of this system and differs from the evolutionary account usual in philology; the two readings are kept apart, as surface and depth.