This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
完
In brief: a body covering the primordial spirit: a complete person
Common reading
The manuscript gives no common reading for this character, so none is given here.
Design reading
The Daoists regard the human body as a small universe. A person has a physical body, but the physical body alone does not make a complete person; there must also be temperament, disposition and a primordial spirit to make a complete, independent person with an individual self. The 宀 (roof radical) on top stands for the function of a roof, a covering: the physical body that covers the primordial spirit; the 元 below is the primordial spirit (元神). Only together are they a complete (完) person.
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.