This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
戈
In brief: weapons cannot finally solve problems
Common reading
Pictographic. The oracle-bone form depicts a long-handled weapon. Original sense: one of the main weapons of ancient China. Shuowen: “戈 is a flat-headed halberd; from 弋 and 一, an image of it held crosswise.” Kangxi Dictionary: “戈 is a short weapon; a person holds it raised, hence the name.” In transmitted texts 戈 extends from the weapon to war (“lay down arms and cease fighting”).
Design reading
The horizontal in 戈 slants slightly, showing that the Dao has tilted. A right-falling hook crosses the horizontal and then crosses a left-falling stroke below. Weapons are tools for cutting down opponents, to protect oneself and one’s interests or to seize the interests of others. The right-falling hook crossing the slanting horizontal shows protecting or seizing interests by distorted principles; crossing the left-falling stroke shows that this way of doing things seeks outward and in the end cannot reach its goal. Using this form as the name of the weapon 戈 reminds people that using weapons is based on distorted thinking and cannot finally solve problems.
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.