业 yè began as a pictograph of a notched wooden board. The traditional form 業 shows a serrated rack or crossbeam, the toothed frame from which ancient bells and stone chimes were hung in a ceremonial hall. The notches gripped the cords; the board held the instruments. From that concrete object the word moved outward, first to the work mounted on the frame, then to any task, undertaking, or line of work a person takes up.

The simplified 业 keeps the toothed silhouette in five strokes, the upright teeth above a base line. It is classed under the 一 (one) radical, the horizontal stroke at the foot of the frame, a purely structural placement rather than a meaning component.

From the rack of hung work, several senses fan out:

1. Occupation, trade. The line of work one practices: 职业 zhíyè (profession), 行业 hángyè (trade, line of business), 失业 shīyè (to lose one's job).
2. Industry, business. A whole sector of production: 工业 gōngyè (industry), 农业 nóngyè (agriculture), 商业 shāngyè (commerce), 企业 qǐyè (enterprise).
3. An undertaking, a cause. The life's work one builds: 事业 shìyè (career, cause), 创业 chuàngyè (to found a venture).
4. Study, coursework. The work of learning: 作业 zuòyè (homework), 毕业 bìyè (to graduate), 专业 zhuānyè (major, specialty).
5. Karma (Buddhist). The accumulated weight of one's deeds: 业 as the cause that ripens into consequence, seen in 业障 yèzhàng (the hindrance of past karma).

The thread is work that is taken up and carried. Whether the work is a trade, a sector, a lifelong cause, a course of study, or the moral residue of deeds, 业 names the labor that hangs on the frame of a life.

The most everyday face of 业 is the work one does for a living and the larger field that work belongs to. At the personal scale it is the trade or profession: 职业 zhíyè (one's occupation), 行业 hángyè (the line of business). At the scale of the whole economy it names the great sectors: 工业 gōngyè (industry), 农业 nóngyè (agriculture), 商业 shāngyè (commerce). The same syllable that marks a single person's job also labels an entire branch of national production, the work seen up close and the work seen from above.

When the work is not a job but a thing one builds and sustains, 业 shades into the sense of an undertaking. 企业 qǐyè is the firm or enterprise as an organized body; 事业 shìyè is the cause or career one devotes a life to, weightier and more idealistic than a mere job; 创业 chuàngyè is the act of founding a venture from nothing. Here 业 carries ambition: not the labor one is assigned, but the labor one chooses to raise up and stand behind.

Long before it meant a career, 业 named the work of a student. In the classical academy the 业 was the lesson or course one received and recited, and that sense survives in modern schooling. 作业 zuòyè is the homework one is set; 专业 zhuānyè is the major one specializes in; 毕业 bìyè is the moment one has finished the whole course of study, literally "to complete the work." School is, in this old framing, simply another rack of work to be taken up, carried, and at last laid down.

See a toothed wooden rack standing in a hall, bells and chimes hung along its notches, waiting to be played. That frame of mounted work is the whole character. Everything 业 means is some kind of work hung upon a frame and carried.

Hang a single trade on it and it is occupation (职业, 行业). Hang a whole sector of the economy and it is industry (工业, 农业, 商业). Hang the cause of a lifetime and it is an undertaking, the venture one stands behind (企业, 事业, 创业). Hang the lessons of a student and it is study, the coursework taken up and at last completed (作业, 毕业, 专业). And in Buddhist thought, hang the residue of one's deeds and it is karma, the work that ripens into consequence. Whenever you meet 业, ask what work is hanging on the frame.