畜

Before the discovery of oracle-bone inscriptions, 畜 was traditionally interpreted as:

玄 (thread-like element, formerly equated with 糸)

田 (field) — “to store agricultural products”

However, oracle-bone inscriptions revealed that the lower component is not 田, but 𡇒, depicting internal organs threaded together with cords. This imagery represents captured animals whose viscera were bound, indicating kept or restrained living creatures, not crops.

Thus, the original meaning is keeping animals under human control.

From this developed:

- livestock

- domesticated animals

- accumulation (of living property)

Livestock / animals:

가축 (家畜) — domesticated animals

축산 (畜産) — animal husbandry

축우 (畜牛) — cattle

축생 (畜生) — animal; brute (Buddhist / pejorative)

Accumulation / storage (classical):

축적 (畜積) — accumulation

저축 (貯畜) — storage (archaic)

Related characters:

蓄 — to store up (semantic split from 畜)

嘼 — original “livestock” character

牧 — to herd

養 — to raise, nourish

牲 — sacrificial animal

Notes on semantic shift:

畜 replaced 嘼 as “livestock”

蓄 took over “to store up”

This semantic fission is a classic example of functional differentiation in Chinese characters

Distinction of readings:

축 (chù) — livestock (nouns)

휵 (xù) — accumulate (verbs, classical)

Classical citations:

Analects (論語)

「畜其德而後言」

“Store up one’s virtue, and only then speak.”

Analects, moral usage of 畜 (xù) meaning “to cultivate / accumulate.”

Confucian ethical prose

「君子畜義，小人畜利」

“The noble man stores righteousness; the petty man stores profit.”

Contrasts moral vs material accumulation.

Buddhist context

「墮於畜生道」

“To fall into the realm of beasts.”

畜 appears in 畜生道, one of the Six Realms of Rebirth.