This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
虫
In brief: a lowly life fallen from a higher realm
Common reading
Originally a general term for insects. 虫 was the ancient form of 虺, read huǐ, a venomous snake; it is now the simplified form of 蟲. Shuowen: “Those with feet are called 虫; those without are called 豸.” Huainanzi, “Jingshen”: “Vexed qi becomes insects.”
Design reading
口 with a vertical through it, and below a rising stroke ㇀ and a dot. 口 stands for a life; the vertical through 口 shows a life that has gone bad and fallen from a higher realm. There is still one dot (㇔), a chance in the world to be saved (㇀) and to obtain the Fa and cultivate; but such a life has become very small and lowly, so it is used to represent 蟲. Insects usually like to live in swarms, so three 虫 are used.
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.