A long time ago I learned that 本 can have the meaning of “origin”, hence 日本 as the “sun origin” or ‘land of the rising sun’. In this context it’s usually read as もと.
I also read that 元 can have the same meaning and is more commonly used as a standalone word in sentences to mean “origin”, sometimes written in hiragana.
But recently I stumbled upon Kikunae Ikeda and his discovery of the Umami flavour, which he originally called 味の素 (あじのもと) or “the origin of flavour”. This was yet another kanji for もと.
Is there a etymological reason for having 3 もと kanjis which seem to all serve the same purpose? Are there any rules to know when to use each one?
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The etymological reason, if this quite is etymology, is that all of those characters already existed in Chinese when Japan imported Chinese characters, and all of them had meanings somewhat close to that of the already-existing word もと. So it’s simply that any can be used to represent the word もと, depending on the slight shade of meaning you want. If I understand correctly, 素 is more like raw material, a scientific element, or the stuff that makes up a thing–think of how a lot of elements of the periodic table end with it, like 水素 and 酸素. Hydrogen is the stuff that makes of water, just like MSG is the stuff that makes up taste. 元 is for beginnings and firsts–for instance, the first year of an era is 元年, rather than 一年. So one could say it’s more like an origin in time rather than in stuff. 本 ideographically represents the root of a tree, and it tends to be used for the bottom or base of something, in space. For instance, the name 山本 refers to the base of a mountain, and 日本 refers to the point at which the sun rises from the ground.