Unknown Kanji on Mountain Rock


I've been studying Japanese for about 3 years, passed N1 last December (was
not expecting that) and wanted to brush off one of the biggest questions I've
ever had on Kanji (bugging me for about 2 of the 3 years). You see, there's
this Weird Kanji on this rock that I can't seem to find anywhere else:

[![rock
kanji](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LK74i.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LK74i.png)

The second two say 大山{だいせん}, which is already 表外読み, so this is obviously a
rather old inscription I'd assume.

I've tried looking this kanji up everywhere, such as on
<https://www.kanjipedia.jp/sakuin/soukakusu/4> (which tbh doesn't even have
that many kanji, only those needed for 漢検一級 and a little more) and
<https://kanji.jitenon.jp/> which claims to have 12,300 kanji entries. No luck
though.

I've even looked through Chinese Hanzi dictionaries to see if it's some old
form or whatever. The closest I've come is
<http://www.zdic.net/z/86/js/20A2C.htm> which is supposedly a variant of
巵{さかずき} which means "sake cup". Pretty sure this mountain has nothing to do
with Sake Cups.

Honestly it's probably lurking somewhere in the Daikanwajiten, but I don't
really have that huge thing at home (nor in my city I think)

I did find this though: <http://www.zdic.net/z/8b/wy/21BC3.htm> It seems like
a pretty lonely hanzi/kanji, with no definition of any sort... I went to the
"web discussion" on the hanzi, and some user talked about stone
inscriptions... Does any Kanji God know what this Kanji means/is?

Thanks everyone!

Edit: I realised that the user in the discussion was actually stating
dictionaries of characters (I assume those that contain the mystery
character). These included 興聖寺四十人等造碑像記, 增訂碑別字, 碑別字新編, and 異體字字典 廣碑別字, the
latter of which led me to an online 異体字 database.

<http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAxMTUxLTAwNQ>

oh. This was an archaic 異体字 of 左 all along. How whimsical. At least now I know
that this is on the left of the mountain, instead of having to mentally
associate the mountain with sake cups.

Geez. And there's like 8 variants of 左.




Some follow-up detail.

### The kanji, the full term, and the reading

Chocolate [commented on the initial
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/66256/unknown-kanji-on-
mountain-rock/66339#comment113901_66256) that she'd found a [blog
post](https://194116410.at.webry.info/200801/article_29.html) with more
information about the location of the stela:

> 丸山の道標・常夜燈  
>  所在地～伯耆町丸山(集落の東)
>
> 丸山の集落から約５００ｍ東へ行ったところに、三角形の大きな自然石に「左大山」の文字が彫られた道標がある。

The post includes a picture of this same stela, albeit at a different time of
year:

![](https://userdisk.webry.biglobe.ne.jp/013/460/93/N000/000/000/20080122_161911094.JPG)

So we can tell that the `㔫`大山 of the stela is interpreted by this other author
to be equivalent to `左`大山.

Since this is indeed in Tottori Prefecture, we know that the 大山 is indeed read
as だいせん, and not as おおやま.

### The specific location: what does 㔫・左 refer to in this context?

For any map geeks reading this, I tracked down the exact location. This link
should open in Street View, looking roughly east by southeast, showing the 㔫大山
carved stone on the left.

<https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3874357,133.4647645,3a,37.5y,119.3h,89.41t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swQqLxtZgS079a2aeIV02zg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656>

Sometimes Google is awesome. Being able to find this obscure location in
Street View was really cool.

  * However, as you can see by [viewing this location in Google's overhead view](https://www.google.com/maps/place/35%C2%B023'14.6%22N+133%C2%B027'53.6%22E/@35.3873971,133.4637797,422m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d35.3873958!4d133.4648744) and zooming out, this is not _"on the left of the mountain"_ , as the OP guessed: this is on the flats along the Sada River, roughly 4km from the base of 大山. So the 㔫・左 cannot mean that we're on the left of the mountain.

  * In order to get to 大山 via the old 大山参詣道, as described in that [blog post](https://194116410.at.webry.info/200801/article_29.html), one would continue east on this road and turn left at the next intersection to follow along what is now Route 36. Then again, the intersection is some 200m past the stela, so I don't think the 㔫・左 refers to turning left either.

  * Nor is 大山 on the left-hand side of the road. In fact, it's visible almost dead ahead straight along this road (although the road doesn't go all the way to the mountain). So the 㔫・左 also doesn't mean that 大山 is on the left.

### Conclusion

The 㔫 does seem to be just an alternative form of 左. But, ultimately, I'm
baffled what the 㔫・左 part of the stela is intended to mean. I'm curious if
anyone can shed some light on that.

