0039 持

持

This character means ‘to hold, to have, to possess,’ and is pronounced motsu in Japanese and chí in Chinese.

The element on the left is a form of

手,

meaning ‘hand.’

The element on the right

寺

is probably there for phonetic reasons. It means ‘a Buddhist temple.’ One explanation for its own meaning is that the upper part represents a modification of the character for ‘foot’

止

(which now means ‘to stop’), here meaning ‘motion,’ and that the lower part is another modification of the ‘hand’ character.  This shows up pretty well in the archaic character:

.

The idea is that the temple was the place for measuring the motion of the sun and moon in inches (represented by the hand).