This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
貝
In brief: seeing only money, not the Dao
Common reading
Pictographic. The oracle-bone and bronze forms depict a cowrie shell; it is one of the radicals. In ancient times shells were used as money and as ornaments, so characters with 贝 mostly relate to wealth and treasure, ornaments or goods for trade. Original sense: a cowrie.
Design reading
目 with 八 below, used as money in ancient times.
目 is the eye that can see the changes of yin and yang, of the two ways of heaven and earth, behind our material world. 八 is yin and yang divided, separated from the Dao: then one cannot see the Dao behind the material world, only the matter on the surface. Matter on the surface can all be measured in money, which means one can see only money: that is 贝.
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.