This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
及
In brief: save people in time; seize the chance
Common reading
Compound-ideative. The oracle-bone form is from 人 and from the hand, showing a person behind catching up and grasping the person in front with the hand. Original sense: to catch up, to grasp. Shuowen Jiezi Zhu: “From 又 and from 人; to catch.” Guangya: “及 means to arrive.”
Design reading
In time (及时) is the most common use of 及 today. After the whole universe has entered the Dharma-ending period, human morality and ethics are declining fast; in saving beings, if they cannot be saved in time (及时), many may have to be destroyed, so one must catch up with and seize the chance to save people.
㇋ shows two layers of yin-yang change, and “from 人 and from 又” shows giving people chance after chance. So in expressing “to catch up, to grasp”, it also reminds people: opportunity knocks but once; those who save people must save them in time, and those being saved must also seize the chance.
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.