He (和)

The Chinese character "和," which is pronounced in pinyin as "he," originated in the inscriptions on oracle bones and on ancient bronze objects. In the Explanation of Script and Elucidation of Characters (Shuo Wen Jie Zi), the renowned Eastern Han Dynasty philologist Xu Shen (c. 58-c. 147) stated: "The character '和' means responding. Made up of two parts, it is pronounced as 'he' according the left part '禾,' with the right part '口 (mouth) as its radical." This interpretation shows that "和" is a pictophonetic character. Its radical is "口," indicating that its original meaning might be connected to mouth. The so-called "responding" refers to the echoing of sounds made by mouths. Since "和" originally meant the echoing of sounds, naturally there would be different states of echoing. For example, there are not only concordant sounds but also sounds of high pitch that meet with little response. The ancients named the optimum state of the echoing of sounds as "和," which is equivalent to "being harmonious."

Hence, we can conclude that "和" emphasizes the state of harmony. It is used by the ancients to describe the wonderful state of nature or social affairs, and it is also an ideal state that the ancients longed to achieve. 

和

“和”字起源很早，在甲骨文、金文中都已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)。按照許慎《說(shuō)文解字》的解釋?zhuān)埃ê停?，相?yīng)也，從口，禾聲”，這說(shuō)明“和”是一個(gè)形聲字?！昂汀弊值男尾渴恰翱凇保f(shuō)明“和”的含義最初應(yīng)當(dāng)是跟口相關(guān)的。所謂“相應(yīng)”，即口發(fā)出的聲音相互應(yīng)和。既然“和”最初指的是聲音之間的相應(yīng)，那么很自然地，聲音之間的相應(yīng)會(huì)有不同的狀態(tài)，比如完美應(yīng)和、曲高和寡等。古人將相應(yīng)得恰到好處的狀態(tài)、完滿(mǎn)的狀態(tài)稱(chēng)為“和”。

可以說(shuō)，“和”強(qiáng)調(diào)作為一種狀態(tài)、境界的含義，也即和諧。這是古人對(duì)于自然和人事美好境界的描述，也是古人渴望達(dá)到的理想境地。