相

It is an ideogrammatic compound made by combining 木 (“tree, mok”) and 目 (“eye, mok”).

In oracle bone script, there are forms where the eye is next to the tree and forms where the eye is above the tree.

Its original meaning is “to look closely,” “to observe.”

It also carries the meaning of “each other,” “mutual (相互)” and is further used in the sense of government officials or ministers, as in 수상(首相) and 재상(宰相).

수상 (首相) is another word for prime minister and literally means “the head (首) of the ministers (相).”

In classical Chinese Buddhist texts written in vernacular style, it was sometimes even used as a first-, second-, or third-person pronoun.