This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
厂
In brief: what shelters one's life is the Fa
Common reading
厂 (hǎn): a place at the mountainside where rock juts out to form a shelter where people can live. Phono-semantic: from 广 (yǎn), with 敞 as the sound. Being from 广 shows a relation to buildings; original sense: a shed. Qimin Yaoshu: “Build a shed (厂) against the north wall.” Shuowen, 厂 section: “厂 is an overhanging cliff of mountain rock where people can live.” Liushu Benyi: “厂 is a high bank by the water.”
Design reading
A vertical left-falling stroke crossing a horizontal at its left end is 厂.
The top horizontal stands for the Great Law, and a left-falling stroke is joined to its left end; the left stands for the outer: the Fa spreads outward to save all beings. The Fa saving people is the Fa sheltering them, so this character reminds people: what shelters the body is the cave at the mountainside; what shelters one’s life is the Fa.
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.