The modern Chinese character 天 and early seal script both combine dà 大 "great; large" and yī 一 "one", but some of the original characters in Shāng oracle bone script and Zhōu bronzeware script anthropomorphically portray a large head on a great person.
Two variant Chinese characters for tiān 天 "heaven" are 兲 (written with 王 wáng "king" and 八 bā "8") and the Daoist coinage 靝 (with 青 qīng "blue" and 氣 "qì", i.e., "blue sky").