The Calligrapher — Yáng Xīn 羊欣

Liu Song calligrapher, student of Wang Xianzhi; famed in the saying 'buy Wang, get Yang'

南朝宋 calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《采古来能书人名》. Liu Song dynasty (Southern Dynasties)

Cultural Story

悉 once meant to lay everything out so the eye could take it in. The 說文 ties it to 采, the act of examining grain by the ear, and 心 — knowing through looking closely. The 史記 likes 悉 for a ruler who surveys all his realm, and 熟悉 still carries that sense of a thing so well handled it has no secrets left.

Common words & phrases

• 熟悉 familiar
• 获悉 learn · be informed
• 知悉 know
• 详悉 know in detail
• 悉数 all · entirely

Read the story behind the character

悉 is the administrative word for full knowledge: 获悉 we are informed, 知悉 please be advised, stamped on official letters. 详悉 is a report that leaves no blank. Then 悉数 is the whole lot, counted and accounted for. It is the tone of the memo and the police bulletin, precise where 知道 is merely casual.

Why this character belongs on skin

To know a thing completely is to have walked its every room, and the old word joins the heart to the act of knowing, as if understanding were something felt to the bottom. To xī is to be familiar, to know thoroughly, to hold the whole of a matter the way a farmer holds the temper of his own field. There is the knowledge that informs, and the knowledge that knows you, the friend who reads your silence without a word spoken. The Buddhists speak of seeing things as they truly are, the clear knowing free of illusion. A man inked with this has been known and has known in return, has stood in a place so long it became legible. Place it over the chest, the seat of the knowing heart, and let it say: I have seen it whole. I know the shape of what I love, and the knowing, not the having, is the part I carry.