This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
車
In brief: the greatest vehicle, carrying us through the universe
Common reading
The simplified form of 車. Pictographic. The oracle-bone script has many forms, all depicting a cart. Original sense: a cart, a wheeled vehicle for carrying things on land. Shuowen: “车 is the general name for body and wheels. It was made by Xi Zhong in the time of the Xia. Pictographic.” Note: it resembles a cart seen from the side. The Kangxi Dictionary cites Gushi Kao: “The Yellow Emperor made the cart to draw heavy loads far. In the time of Shaohao oxen were added; in the time of Yu, Xi Zhong became Master of Carts and horses were added.”
Design reading
Two 十, above and below, enclose a 田 in the middle, showing that the material world in which we humans live, 田, lies in the middle of the vaster world of the ten directions. This world carries us as we travel through the vaster universe: this is the greatest 车, “vehicle”.
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.