Yin-Yang
Taijitu
- Earliest record
- 1517Zhao Huiqian's Liushu benyi, written in the 1370s (prefaces 1378 and 1380); earliest surviving editions 1517 and 1520 (Louis 2003)
The swirl-and-dots circle is not ancient. Its earliest known illustration is in Zhao Huiqian's Liushu benyi, written in the 1370s. Hu Wei in 1706 still read its dots as sun and moon.
François Louis, 'The Genesis of an Icon: The Taiji Diagram's Early History', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 63.1 (2003), pp. 145-196
A circle split by an S-curve into dark and light halves, each holding a dot of the other.
More context
The taijitu, or Supreme Ultimate diagram, is a circle split by an S-shaped curve into dark (yin) and light (yang) halves, each holding a dot of the other colour. Yin and yang are far older than the picture. The circle first appears in Zhao Huiqian's Liushu benyi of the 1370s, set inside the eight trigrams. Zhou Dunyi's eleventh-century taiji diagram was a different, static design. Yin is associated with the dark, cold, receptive and female; yang with the bright, warm, active and male. The dots are now commonly read as each force holding the seed of its opposite.
Light
Symbolises perfect balance, harmony, adaptability, the interplay of opposites, and the cyclical nature of existence.
Shadow
Can indicate inner conflict, extreme polarity or instability: one side pursued at the expense of the other.