Yin and yang
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese: | 陰陽 | ||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese: | 阴阳 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Kanji: | 陰陽 | ||||||||||||||||
| Hiragana: | いんよう | ||||||||||||||||
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| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||
| Hangul: | 음양 | ||||||||||||||||
| Hanja: | 陰陽 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Quốc ngữ: | âm dương | ||||||||||||||||
| Chữ nôm: | 陰陽 | ||||||||||||||||
| Hán tự: | 陰陽 | ||||||||||||||||
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This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. |
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This article contains Japanese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji or kana. |
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This article contains Korean text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hangul or hanja. |
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In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (simplified Chinese: 阴阳; traditional Chinese: 陰陽; pinyin: yīnyáng) are generalized descriptions of the antitheses or mutual correlations in human perceptions of phenomena in the natural world, combining to create a unity of opposites in the theory of the Taiji. The term liang yi (simplified Chinese: 两仪; traditional Chinese: 兩儀; pinyin: liǎngyí, lit. "two mutually correlated opposites"), also known as Yin and Yang.
The concept of yin and yang describes two opposing and, at the same time, complementary (completing) aspects of any one phenomenon (object or process) or comparison of any two phenomena. They are universal standards of quality at the basis of the systems of correspondence seen in most branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, traditional Chinese medicine being an example[1].
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Yin (陰 or 阴 "shady place, north slope, south bank (river); cloudy, overcast"; Japanese: in or on; Korean: 음, Vietnamese: âm) qualities are characterized as soft, slow, insubstantial[2], wet, cold, conserving, tranquil, gentle, and corresponding to the night.
Yang (陽 or 阳 "sunny place, south slope, north bank (river), sunshine"; Japanese: yō; Korean: 양, Vietnamese: dương) qualities are characterized as hard, fast, substantial, dry, hot, excited, aggressive, and corresponding to the day.
Importantly, the concepts of "good" and "evil" do not apply to the concepts of yin-yang. For example, "darkness" is neither good nor bad. This is because value judgments depend on applying such qualities to a particular situation (darkness is good if one is trying to sleep, but bad if one is trying to read).
Yin and yang are neither substances nor forces[1]. They are the terms used in a system of dualistic qualification which can be applied universally. Further dividing Yang and Yin into their respective Yin and Yang aspects, yields four combinations: the Yin of the Yang, the Yang of the Yang, the Yin of the Yin, and the Yang of the Yin. This allows an endless scale of universally defined qualities, which is foundational to classical Chinese thought, as seen in the Tao Te Ching, and science, as seen in the Yellow Emperor's Huangdi Neijing.
The Taijitu or Taiji Diagram (pictured at top of page; traditional Chinese: 太極圖; simplified Chinese: 太极图; pinyin: Taìjí tú; Wade-Giles: T'ai4 chi2 t'u2; literally "diagram of the supreme ultimate"), often referred to as yin-yang in English, is a well known symbol deriving from Chinese culture which represents the principle of yin and yang from Taoist and Neo-Confucian philosophy. The term Taijitu itself refers to any of several schematic diagrams representing these principles.
The taijitu represents an ancient Chinese understanding of how things work. The outer circle represents the entirety of perceivable phenomena, while the black and white shapes within the circle represent the interaction of two principles or aspects, called "yin" (black) and "yang" (white), which cause the phenomena to appear in their peculiar way. Each of them contains an element or seed of the other, and they cannot exist without each other. There are other ways that Chinese schools of thought graphically represented the principles of yin and yang, an older example being the solid and divided lines of the I Ching.
Wu Jianquan, a famous Chinese martial arts teacher, described the name of the martial art Taijiquan this way at the beginning of the 20th century:
In the image showing yin-yang as a circle the white part represents yang and the black part represents yin. Two parts pass through each other on a line because yin and yang are never separated. There is a small black round in white part and a white one in the black part.
In yin yang cosmology, the taiji is preceded by wuji. Wuji separates into taiji or yin and yang (also liang yi "two symbols"). Two symbols became four symbols. Subsequently, four symbols became bagua. And at last, bagua describes the myriad things of creation. This framework underlies both the I Ching and Tao Te Ching.
The Yin and Yang symbol was also used on the shields of late Roman military units as regional identifications, as evident from the Notitia Dignitatum. The Legio Palatinas "Armigeri propugnatores seniores", and the Pseudocomitatense "Mauri Osismiaci" used a variation of the Taijitu symbol on their shields. Note the symbol was not necessarily adopted because of any Chinese influence, and may have been a native European symbol as well.[citation needed]
The concept of "unity in duality" as underlying the nature of the Cosmos is fundamental in the philosophy of Heraclitus, one of the Presocratics[4][5][6][7]. Note that the Heracletian duality has nothing to do with an ontological dualism.
Indian philosophy has a distinct dualistic strand, known as Samkhya. In this theory, Yin corresponds to Prakrti and Yang to Purusha.
Gnosticism and Zoroastrianism posit a supernatural dualism to explain suffering in this world.
Indonesia has the motto: "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" that is "Unity in diversity" which originates from a quotation of an Old Javanese poem. This idea is similar to yin and yang philosophy. "Tunggal" means the only one, as in "anak tunggal" (only child).
Taijitu is defined in code point U+262F (☯). As an alternative, Unicode suggested it can be substituted by U+0FCA (Tibetan symbol nor bu nyis -khyil), the double body symbol (࿊)[8].
