This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
萬
In brief: saving people with the boundless Dao and Fa
Common reading
The manuscript gives no common reading for this character, so none is given here.
Design reading
A horizontal, a left-falling stroke below it, and a horizontal-turn-bend-hook. The horizontal symbolizes the Dao, the left-falling stroke the Dao becoming manifest, and the horizontal-turn-bend-hook saving people with the manifested Dao. The Dao and the Fa are boundless; saving people with this boundless Dao and Fa is 万. The sign of the Buddha (卍) is called the wan symbol: to the ancients 万 was a boundless multitude, and the Buddha Fa is boundless, so the Buddha’s sign is also read as the wan symbol.
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.