玉 Yù, Jade, contains the radicals for yī ( 一 ) one, and tǔ(土) earth, with a dash or 'drop'. It is a homophone of 雨 yǔ, rain, and according to my teacher, Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallee, both indicate something precious that has descended from heaven to earth. Jade is perfect and beautiful, and is used as an adjective to imply something that is of the most supreme quality. Jade is considered to be a condensation of the liquid essence of heaven, a kind of 'sperm' of heaven, found congealed within the earth. It is the most precious of all materials.
Yù (jade) is part of several different expressions for corn or maize: yùjiao, yùshushu, and yùmi. The moon is sometimes called the Jade Hare, yùtu. The expression 'jade and stone burned together,' yù-shi ju fen, means 'destruction of good and bad together.' Yù Huang Da Di is the Jade Emperor, the supreme deity of daoism, according to "A Chinese-English Dictionary." (1981) (the big jade green dictionary). By the way, I must apologize for not having the correct pinyin fonts yet.
We will see in subsequent characters, how slight changes to this character, yù, create words that are related in connotation but not in denotation. The chinese are fond of homophones, characters that sound alike but mean something different, yet have some subtle resonance. In addition, we often see relations in meaning among characters that resemble one another visually, although in such cases the sound of the word will usually change. We will see that when we get to the next character, zhu - master.
This kind of inter-relationship among characters will help us to understand the value-system inherent in chinese culture. Yù is an example of a homophone, and we can see the relation in that both 'rain' (yǔ) and 'jade' (yù) are precious essences that fall from heaven. Next, we will see examples of similar characters with different sounds, but related meanings, in the upcoming two characters.
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