CJK Compatibility Ideograph FA4B

It denotes an inscribed stone monument, or stele.

碑 is the compatibility form of 碑, the Han character for a stone monument bearing an inscription. A traditional Japanese explanation says early standing stones helped measure shadows at palaces or lower coffins at graves; later, people carved names and deeds into them.

At Mount Yi, stelae from Qin, the dynasty that unified China, bore inscriptions praising unification in 219 BCE. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese traditions later used stelae for graves, Buddhist dedications, historical records, and praise. Japanese terms include 碑文 (stele inscription), 歌碑 (song monument), and 句碑 (poem monument).

Why does 碑 become 碑?

It preserves an encoding distinction, not a second meaning.

Some older national or industry character sets assigned 碑 its own code point. Unicode retains that position for round-trip conversion; it maps to the unified ideograph 碑 rather than a second word.

A font may draw 碑 and 碑 alike or with variant strokes, so the display may not reveal which character is stored. NFC and NFD retain 碑; NFKC and NFKD replace it with 碑.