天

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heavens

On-Yomi: テン — Kun-Yomi: あまつ、あめ、あま-

Elements:

heavens, heavens, one, ceiling, large

Heisig story:

This character is meant to be a pictograph of a great man, said to represent the Lord of the Heavens. (You may, of course, use the elements ceiling and St. Bernard instead.)

Heisig comment:

* The primitive can mean either the heaven of eternal bliss or the general term for sky, the heavens. Pay special attention to the fact that in its primitive form the first stroke is written right to left, rather like the first stroke of thousand (Frame 40), rather than left to right. From the next character, we shall give it the primitive meaning of a witch.

Koohii stories:

1) [fuaburisu] 14-1-2006(123): If you think of the sky as a ceiling above our heads, here you have the heavens as the largest ceiling you could ever imagine. As Heisig pointed out, nothing comes above the ceiling primitive thus the order of primitives is taken care of.

2) [smithsonian] 26-10-2006(48): The ceiling that all large dogs aspire to go to is known as heaven. After all, All Dogs Go to Heaven.

3) [igordesu] 29-11-2008(32): The BIG ONE lives upstairs, in the heavens…

4) [Katsuo] 7-5-2009(20): Tip: 天 and 夭 (heavens and sapling) are different, but RTK confuses them sometimes. The latter appears in numbers 634, 938, 2078, 2079, 2080, and all characters containing angel 喬 (429, 430, 1221, 2104, 2120, 2369).

5) [jmlst79] 2-9-2009(16): Not all dogs go to heaven - only one St. Bernard gets to go (because he's a "Saint" Bernard).

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