This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
扌
In brief: obtaining the Fa, looking inward, rising through cultivation
Common reading
The manuscript gives no common reading for this character, so none is given here.
Design reading
The hand radical. A short horizontal stands for the Dao and the Fa; the vertical crossing it shows that a being fallen into the Three Realms still has the chance to obtain the Fa; the hook below shows that there is still outside help toward salvation, a chance to return; the rising stroke, going up and to the right, shows cultivating one’s xinxing inward, and so one can rise. So the inner meaning of 提 (tí, “to lift”) is to let people obtain the Fa, look inward and rise through cultivation: that is 提.
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.