On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 13:39:23 -0500 (EST), Thomas Chan wrote: > > The entry for U+534D in the _Hanyu Da Zidian_, vol. 1, p. 51 (as indicated > in unihan.txt) includes a quote that it was originally not a Han > character, "wan ben fei zi ...", suggesting that it now is. There are > also serifs shown in that dictionary and the _Kangxi Zidian_ for both > characters. > > Couldn't the above two characters be considerd a "CJK" or "IDEOGRAPHIC" > version (like the spaces, zero, punctuation, brackets, etc. in the "CJK > Symbols and Punctuation" block)? >
If memory serves me, the swastika was formally designated a Chinese ideograph by the redoubtable Empress Wu of the Tang dynasty during the late 7th century. Empress Wu had a penchant for creating new ideographs, and decreed that the Buddhist swastika symbol should henceforth be considered a Chinese ideograph to be pronounced WAN4 (a deliberate homophone for U+842C "10,000"). This is why, unexpectedly to some, the swastika symbols are found in the CJK Ideograph block rather than elsewhere. Incidentally, U+534D and U+5350 are rarely used within running text in Chinese. In the decorative arts the swastika motif is generally described as WAN4ZI4 <842C, 5B57> "WAN ideograph", as in the word WAN4ZI4JIN1 <842C, 5B57, 5DFE>, a type of turban with a swastika decoration that was the height of fashion during the Ming dynasty. Andrew
