迦

It appears primarily in the transliteration of Buddhist names, especially in Śākyamuni (釋迦牟尼, 석가모니). Though it once had the meaning “to block” or “to stop,” that sense is extremely rare in actual use.

The character belongs to the movement radical (辵, 쉬엄쉬엄 갈 착) and is a phono-semantic compound — combining a semantic element suggesting motion with a phonetic element.

Phono-semantic compound:

辵 (chuò, “to go, to walk slowly”) — semantic component, indicating motion or movement.

加 (jiā, “to add, to increase”) — phonetic component, providing the sound.

Originally formed as 辵 (movement) + 加 (phonetic “to add”), the character’s structure suggests the idea of “moving forward or proceeding.”

However, its modern and dominant use is phonetic and transliterative, not semantic — representing the syllable “ga” in Sanskrit and Pali loanwords into Chinese.

Found almost exclusively in Buddhist transliterations, such as:

釋迦 (석가) — Śākya, the clan name of the Buddha.

迦葉 (가섭) — Kāśyapa, one of the Buddha’s principal disciples.

迦毘羅 (가비라) — Kapila, founder of the Sāṃkhya school in Indian philosophy.

The ancient and rarely used meaning “to block” or “to impede” (막다) appears only in early dictionaries and is no longer in practical usage.

迦 is a classical and religious character used chiefly as a phonetic component in Buddhist names and transliterations, representing the sound “ga.”

Its original semantic sense of “to block” has faded, leaving it as a symbol of sacred names and spiritual lineage within East Asian Buddhism.

Treated in some sources as a variant form of 邂 (to meet by chance), though this usage is largely etymological.

Commonly appears in Sino-Buddhist texts, but not in secular Chinese vocabulary.

In Korean, 迦 is read 가, and is mainly used in Buddhist contexts such as 석가 (釋迦), 가섭 (迦葉), and 가사 (袈裟).