This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
兩
In brief: two people together: look inward when there is conflict
Common reading
Compound-ideative: from 一, with 兩 divided equally. Shuowen: “兩: twenty-four zhu make one liang.” Book of Changes, “Shuogua”: “Heaven three, earth two (兩): on these the numbers rest.”
Design reading
A horizontal and a vertical cross and extend downward, showing doing things in a way that accords with the Dao; inside the frame, two 入 sit on either side of the vertical. 入 (rù, “to enter”) stands for looking inward, looking at oneself. Two people together should get along in a way that accords with the Dao, and when there is conflict, each should look inward at oneself: this is the way for two people to get along, and it is used to express 两, “two”.
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.