This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
真
In brief: rectifying the world of the ten directions with the Buddha Fa, giving rise to truth
Common reading
The manuscript gives no common reading for this character, so none is given here.
Design reading
The 十 on top is the swastika symbol, standing for the Buddhist school and the Buddha Fa, and the 八 at the bottom stands for the yin and yang of the Daoist school; yin and yang divided show the distinction between true and false, and also the image of “extinction” at the end of the Dharma period. The square frame in the middle stands for the four and eight directions, the world of the ten directions; the three horizontals in the frame stand for the Great Law, Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, and the long horizontal below for the Fa. Yin and yang divided and unable to cross show that yin and yang cannot give rise to each other, life force is dispersing, and the stage of extinction has come. Together: in the world made up of the Buddhist and Daoist schools there is the Great Law of the universe, Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance; in the Dharma-ending period the Buddha Fa begins to rectify this world of the ten directions and gives rise to 真, truth, in accord with Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, thus solving the problem of this world’s extinction.
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.