Sinograph Addenda · Signs

天heaven · tiān · sky; Heaven, the ordering power

heaven

Where it comes from

A line drawn over the big person’s head — what is above even the greatest. That is the traditional reading, going back to the Shuowen; the oracle-bone forms show the figure with a heavy, squared head, which modern paleographyreading the age and origin of a text from the changing shapes of its signs takes as the original picture (the head, then the sky over it — the accounts differ, and the character is older than both). Taught in the opening chapter as the last link of 人person · rén · a human being; other people → 大big · dà · big, great → 天heaven · tiān · sky; Heaven, the ordering power.

How to remember it

The big person reaches up; the one stroke they cannot reach past is heaven. Everything in the classical books happens under that line.

In the wild