This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
壬
In brief: deviating from the Fa in the guise of a king: treachery
Common reading
Grand: Book of Songs, “Xiaoya, Bin zhi Chuyan”: “The hundred rites have come, grand (壬) and abundant.” Mao Heng’s (Han) commentary: “壬 means great; 林 means lord.” The ninth of the heavenly stems.
Design reading
The form is like 王, except that the top horizontal has become a left-falling stroke. 王 connects heaven, earth and humanity and governs the righteous way of heaven, earth and humanity; when the way of heaven deviates from the Fa and becomes a left-falling stroke, doing things that deviate from the Fa in the guise of a king is treachery.
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.