Who invented the yin yang symbol

We seek to retell the story of our beginnings. Skip to main content. Updated 27 June, - Kerry Sullivan. Read Later Print. Legendary and Historical Beginnings of Yin and Yang According to legend, yin and yang were born from the same chaos that would eventually create the universe.

Login or Register in order to comment. Related Articles on Ancient-Origins. Chinese mythology and cosmology rest on the concept that the universe is shaped and maintained by two fundamental forces called yin and yang.

They are opposite yet complementary forces that interact The 18 graves, of the Top New Stories. Through the process of greater efficiency, the human brain size began to shrink about 3, years ago and this is a huge new revelation in human evolution.

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Ancient Image Galleries. Briefly put, the meaning of yin and yang is that the universe is governed by a cosmic duality, sets of two opposing and complementing principles or cosmic energies that can be observed in nature.

Generally speaking, yin is characterized as an inward energy that is feminine, still, dark, and negative. On the other hand, yang is characterized as outward energy, masculine, hot, bright, and positive. Yin and yang elements come in pairs—such as the moon and the sun, female and male, dark and bright, cold and hot, passive and active, and so on—but note that yin and yang are not static or mutually exclusive terms.

While the world is composed of many different, sometimes opposing, forces, these can coexist and even complement each other. Sometimes, forces opposite in nature even rely on one another to exist. The nature of yin-yang lies in the interchange and interplay of the two components.

The alternation of day and night is just such an example: there cannot be a shadow without light. The balance of yin and yang is important. If yin is stronger, yang will be weaker, and vice versa. Yin and yang can interchange under certain conditions so that they are usually not yin and yang alone.

In other words, yin elements can contain certain parts of yang, and yang can have some components of yin. This balance of yin and yang is perceived to exist in everything. The yin-yang symbol also known as the Tai Chi symbol consists of a circle divided into two halves by a curved line. One half of the circle is black, typically representing the yin side; the other is white, for the yang side.

A dot of each color is situated near the center of the other's half. The two halves are thus intertwining across a spiral-like curve that splits the whole into semicircles, and the small dots represent the idea that both sides carry the seed of the other.

The white dot in the black area and the black dot in the white area connote coexistence and unity of opposites to form a whole. The curvy line signifies that there are no absolute separations between the two opposites. The yin-yang symbol, then, embodies both sides: duality, paradox, unity in diversity, change, and harmony. The concept of yin-yang has a long history. The Jing portion of Zhouyi particularly talks about the flow of yin and yang in nature. It underlies Asian martial arts, medicine, science, literature, politics, daily behavior, beliefs, and intellectual pursuits.

The origin of the yin-yang symbol is found in the ancient Chinese time-keeping system of using a pole to measure the changing lengths of shadows over the solar year; it was invented in China at least as long ago as BCE. When qi moved, the clear and light rose to be heaven and the muddy and heavy fell to become earth.

When these two qi interacted and attained the stage of harmony he , human life began. This shows that everything is made from the same materials and difference relies on the interaction. Qi also takes on various forms and is convertible from one form to another with order and pattern. The concept of yinyang supplies a unitary vision of heaven, earth and human beings and makes the world intelligible in terms of a resonance between human beings and the universe.

The Guoyu Discourses of the States describes how earthquakes took place at the confluence of the Jing, Wei, and Lou rivers during the second year of Duke You of the western Zhou dynasty. A certain Boyang Fu claims that the Zhou empire is doomed to collapse, explaining that. If its order vanishes people will be disoriented. Yang was stuck and could not get out, yin was suppressed and could not evaporate, so an earthquake was inevitable.

Now the earthquakes around the three rivers are due to yang losing its place and yin being pressed down. Yang is forsaken under yin so the source of rivers has been blocked. If the foundation of rivers is blocked the country will definitely collapse. Discourse of the States Human beings, especially political leaders, must align their virtuous actions with the morally-oriented universe. If they follow and harmonize with shun the order and patterns of the universe, they will be rewarded with prosperity and flourishing, but if they go against and conflict with ni it, they will be punished with disasters and destruction.

Whether one engages in shun or ni depends upon whether yin and yang are in a state of balance. Thus, yinyang provides a heuristic outlook for human understanding as well as ethical guidance for achieving harmony in action.

As chapter 8 of the Huainanzi claims:. Yinyang embodies the harmony of heaven and earth, manifests the forms of myriad things, contains qi to transform the things and completes various kinds of things; yinyang extends and penetrates to the deepest level; begins in emptiness then becomes full and moves in boundless lands.

Yinyang also has been understood as some concrete substance xingzhi , according to which yixing and yangxing define everything in the universe. Yang was identified with the sun and yin with the moon:. Heaven and earth correlate with vast and profound; four seasons correlate with change and continuity [ biantong ]; the significance of yin and yang correlate with sun and moon; the highest excellence [ zhide ] correlates the goodness of easy and simple.

Sishu wujing This xingzhi interpretation materializes the concept of yinyang in some concrete contexts and shows that the universe is orderly, moral and gendered. The pattern of the world is written in a gendered language. Yinyang is something one can see, feel, and grasp through the senses. The harmony of yinyang receives the myriad things. According to Dong Zhongshu, B. Therefore, there is an intrinsic connection between tian and human beings through the movement of yin and yang.

When it is among human beings it is displayed itself as like, dislike, happy and mad, when it is in heaven it is seen as warm, chilly, cold and hot. Men, embodying yang , should remain in seclusion. Women, embodying yin , should appear in public. He even requests all married couples to copulate ouchu to secure more yinyang intercourse. It is also important during this time to make women happy. The north gate, the direction of yin , should be wide open.

Women should go into concealment and men should be visible. Officers in the city should send their wives to the countryside in order to make sure that yin will not conquer yang. Finally, yinyang also plays a pivotal role in traditional Chinese thought about health and the human body. Five zang organs — the kidneys, liver, heart, spleen and lungs — are classified as yin. They control the storage of vital substance and qi. Six fu organs — the gallbladder, stomach, small and large intestines, urinary bladder and triple burner referring to three parts of the body cavity: the upper burner, which houses the heart and lungs; the middle burner, which houses the spleen and stomach; and the lower burner, which houses the kidney, urinary bladder and small and large intestines — are yang and control the transport and digestion of food.

The storage is a yin function, and the transport and transformation of substance is a yang function. But the zang and fu organs can be further subdivided into yin and yang. The activity or function of each organ is its yang aspect, while its substance is its yin aspect. Yin should flow smoothly and yang should vivify steadily.

They regulate themselves so as to maintain equilibrium. Yin and yang do not exist in isolation but are in a dynamic state in which they interact and fashion the complicated and intricate system of the human body. There is no a clear and definite way to determine the exact date of origin or the person who created the popular yinyang symbol.

No one has ever claimed specific ownership of this popular image. However, there is a rich textual and visual history leading to its creation. Inspired by a primeval vision of cosmic harmony, Chinese thinkers have sought to codify this order in various intellectual constructions. Whether to formulate this underlying pattern through words and concepts or numbers and visual images has been debated since the Han dynasty.

The question first surfaced in the interpretation of the Yijing. The Yijing is constructed around sixty-four hexagrams gua , each of which is made of six parallel broken or unbroken line segments yao.

Each of the sixty-four hexagrams has a unique designation; its image xiang refers to a particular natural object and conveys the meaning of human events and activities.

The Yijing thus has generated a special way to decipher the universe. It mainly incorporates three elements: xiang images , shu numbers , and li meanings.

They act as the mediators between heavenly cosmic phenomena and earthly human everyday life. From the Han dynasty through the Ming and Qing dynasties CE , there was a consistent tension between two schools of thought: the school of xiangshu images and numbers and the school of yili meanings and reasoning.