We have many options to create artwork with Profound characters on a wall scroll or portrait.
If you want to create a cool Profound wall scroll, this is the place. Below you will find a few Asian symbols that express the idea of profound.
1. Clever / Superb / Wonderful
2. Compassionate Heart / Benevolent Heart
3. Words Have Enormous Weight: One Word Worth Nine Caldrons
4. I am Enough
5. Intense / Serious / Deep / Profound
7. Sangha
9. Tea Fate
10. Tranquility Yields Transcendence
11. Better to Travel 10,000 Miles than Read 10,000 Books
12. Mysterious
13. Silence
The meanings for 妙 include: clever; wonderful; strange; unusual; superb; excellent; beautiful; mystic; supernatural; profound; mysterious; good; surpassing; fine, lovely, charming; special; outstanding; incomparable.
As you can see, this single character can mean a lot of things (a bit ambiguous).
一言九鼎 is an ancient Chinese proverb used in modern times talk of profound or powerful words.
The literal meaning is, "one word [worth] nine [sacred] tripods". The tripod is a highly-prized three-legged (sometimes four-legged) metal pot or kettle of ancient China. They are often made of bronze, and the Emperor would have very large ones gilded in gold. See the image to the right for an example.
This Chinese word is the form of intense that describes a person who is deep, serious, and a true thinker.
If you find yourself contemplating the world and coming up with profound ideas, this might we the word for you. In some context (especially Korean), it can mean seriousness, gravity, or acuteness.
In Japanese, this can mean "serious problem", or can be a rare given name, Misa. You should not use this if your audience is Japanese.
These four characters together translate in English to a strong form of "profound" or "written with a forceful hand".
But there is much more to the story...
The deep meaning behind this proverb comes from a man named Wan Xizhi who lived in the third century.
He was a great writer and calligrapher whose writing style influenced generations of other writers and calligraphers.
He once wrote words on a piece of wood to be taken to an engraver.
When the engraver began to carve the characters into the wood, he found that Wang Xizhi's writing had penetrated the wood about 3/8 of an inch.
Thus people believed that his words were so powerful, and so profound this it caused the ink from his brush to penetrate the wood deeply.
The proverb literally means "penetrated wood three fen" (fen is an ancient Chinese measurement a little over to 1/8 of an inch or almost 4mm).
In Buddhism, this term refers to a community of monks and/or nuns (one of the "Three Jewels"). In general terms, it can simply mean "all followers of the Buddha".
Notes: Though there are not vast numbers of Chinese Hindus, in the Hindu faith, this term means "community together".
The original Sanskrit word is also Romanized as samgha.
The first character means "monk". The second character means Buddha or Shakyamuni.
僧伽 is really a transliteration of the original Sanskrit but it uses two very profound Chinese characters related to Buddhism.
Some may pronounce this as "seng qie" or "seng jia" in Mandarin (two possible pronunciations for second character). Note that "qie" would sound a bit like "chee-ah" using typical English pronunciation. Chinese Romanization is not actually designed to match English sounds.
Note that when writing this as Kanji, Japanese will tend to write the first character in the form shown to the right. If you select our Japanese master calligrapher, please expect this special Kanji form. However, it should also be noted that this is not a common term in Japanese (except by certain sects of Buddhism or perhaps devout Buddhists in Japan).
茶緣 is a special title for the tea lover. This kind of means "tea fate" but it's more spiritual and hard to define. Perhaps the tea brought you in to drink it. Perhaps the tea will bring you and another tea-lover together. Perhaps you were already there, and the tea came to you. Perhaps it's the ah-ha moment you will have when drinking the tea.
I've been told not to explain this further, as it will either dilute or confuse the purposefully-ambiguous idea embedded in this enigma.
I happen to be the owner of a piece of calligraphy written by either the son or nephew of the last emperor of China, and this is the title he wrote. It was given to me at a Beijing tea house in 2001. 茶緣 is where I learned to love tea after literally spending weeks tasting and studying everything I could about Chinese tea. I did not understand the significance of the authorship, or meaning of the title at all. Some 10 years later, I realized the gift was so profound and had such providence. Only now I realize the value of a gift that it is too late to give proper thanks for. It was also years later that I ended up in this business, and could have the artwork properly mounted as a wall scroll. It has been borrowed for many exhibitions and shows, and always amazes native Chinese and Taiwanese who read the signature. This piece of calligraphy which I once thought just a bit of ink on a thin and wrinkled piece of paper is now one of my most valued possessions. And by fate, it has taught me to be more thankful of seemingly simple gifts.
寧靜致遠 is an ancient Chinese idiom which means "tranquility yields transcendence".
This suggests pursuing a quiet life of profound study.
The first two characters mean tranquility. The last two characters mean "go far" which suggests achieving much in your life or expanding beyond normal limits. The direct translation would read something like, "[With] tranquility [in your life, you'll] go far".
Compare this to the English idiom: Still waters run deep.
This translates a few ways:
To travel ten-thousand miles beats reading ten-thousand books.
Better to travel ten thousand li than to read ten thousand books. (a "li" is an ancient Chinese mile)
Travelling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books.
No matter how you slice it, this Chinese proverb is claiming that experience is more profound and meaningful than what you can get from a book. Go do it! Don't just read about it.
幽玄 is the Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja word meaning, dim, deep, mysterious, subtle grace, hidden beauty, mysterious profundity, elegant simplicity, or subtle and profound.
This can also be the Japanese personal name Yuugen or Yugen.
默 / 黙 means silent or silence and is often used in Buddhist context.
Other meanings include dark, secret, or profound.
The original form is 默, but you will sometimes see it written in the 黙 Japanese variant form. If you want it in the Japanese form, please choose a Japanese calligrapher and use this to start your order instead of the button above: 黙
The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...
Title | Characters | Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Romanized Chinese | |
Clever Superb Wonderful | 妙 | myou / myo | miào / miao4 / miao | |
Compassionate Heart Benevolent Heart | 慈心 | jishin | cí xīn / ci2 xin1 / ci xin / cixin | tz`u hsin / tzuhsin / tzu hsin |
Words Have Enormous Weight: One Word Worth Nine Caldrons | 一言九鼎 | yī yán jiǔ dǐng yi1 yan2 jiu3 ding3 yi yan jiu ding yiyanjiuding | i yen chiu ting iyenchiuting |
|
I am Enough | 己足以 | jǐ zú yǐ ji3 zu2 yi3 ji zu yi jizuyi | chi tsu i chitsui |
|
Intense Serious Deep Profound | 深刻 | shinkoku / misa | shēn kè / shen1 ke4 / shen ke / shenke | shen k`o / shenko / shen ko |
Profound Powerful Words | 入木三分 | rù mù sān fēn ru4 mu4 san1 fen1 ru mu san fen rumusanfen | ju mu san fen jumusanfen |
|
Sangha | 僧伽 | sougya / sogya | sēng qié / seng1 qie2 / seng qie / sengqie | seng ch`ieh / sengchieh / seng chieh |
Intense Serious | 真剣 | shin ken / shinken | ||
Tea Fate | 茶緣 茶缘 | chá yuán / cha2 yuan2 / cha yuan / chayuan | ch`a yüan / chayüan / cha yüan | |
Tranquility Yields Transcendence | 寧靜致遠 宁静致远 | níng jìng zhì yuǎn ning2 jing4 zhi4 yuan3 ning jing zhi yuan ningjingzhiyuan | ning ching chih yüan ningchingchihyüan |
|
Better to Travel 10,000 Miles than Read 10,000 Books | 行萬里路勝讀萬捲書 行万里路胜读万卷书 | xíng wàn lǐ lù shèng dú wàn juǎn shū xing2 wan4 li3 lu4 sheng4 du2 wan4 juan3 shu1 xing wan li lu sheng du wan juan shu | hsing wan li lu sheng tu wan chüan shu | |
Mysterious | 幽玄 | yū gen / yūgen | yōu xuán / you1 xuan2 / you xuan / youxuan | yu hsüan / yuhsüan |
Silence | 默 / 黙 默 | moku | mò / mo4 / mo | |
In some entries above you will see that characters have different versions above and below a line. In these cases, the characters above the line are Traditional Chinese, while the ones below are Simplified Chinese. |
All of our calligraphy wall scrolls are handmade.
When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to my art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.
Allow a few weeks for delivery. Rush service speeds it up by a week or two for $10!
When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.
The wall scroll that Sandy is holding in this picture is a "large size"
single-character wall scroll.
We also offer custom wall scrolls in small, medium, and an even-larger jumbo size.
Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.
Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.
There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.
Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.
The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over 6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt such a feat.