萨

Top grass radical, the compressed form of 草. Indexing only — 萨 was coined to transliterate Sanskrit 'sat' in 菩薩 (Bodhisattva), and 艹 was chosen because Buddhist plant imagery (lotus, sacred trees) made it a natural marker for foreign religious terms. Today 萨 is mostly a transliteration syllable (拉萨 Lhasa, 比萨 Pisa).

Lower-left 阝 (mound, place) — adds a 'geographical, foreign land' nuance, since 萨 mostly appears in place-name transliterations. Same radical anchors 陕, 陇, 陈 (place names) and 阳, 阴 (sunny/shady side of a hill). Pairs with 产 to the right inside the bottom half.

Lower-right 产 supplies a rough sound (chǎn → sà, distant — the original was meant to approximate Sanskrit 'sat'). Replaces the traditional 產-based phonetic in the 1956 reform. The Chinese letters here are essentially a syllable-anchor for foreign sounds, not a real Chinese phonetic family.