Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
The character 革 originally depicted an animal hide stretched out, with the top representing horns or head, the middle the body, and the bottom the tail. In ancient oracle bone script, it clearly showed a flayed animal skin. The character evolved through bronze script to clerical script, gradually simplifying into its modern form. Its core meaning has always related to 'leather' or 'hide' - the skin of an animal processed by removing hair and tanning. From this concrete meaning, it extended to mean 'to change' or 'to reform' (as leather processing transforms raw hide), and eventually to 'remove' or 'cast off'. Arrived in Japan: The character 革 arrived in Japan during the Yayoi period (300 BCE - 300 CE) or early Kofun period (300-538 CE) through cultural exchange with China and the Korean peninsula, as part of the introduction of Chinese writing and characters. It was incorporated into the Japanese writing system and appears in early Japanese texts like the Man'yōshū (8th century).