Yin and yang
Also called taijitu, taiji
The pairing is ancient; the swirl is early modern
East Asian symbolsYin and yang meaning
Yin and yang are the two phases of one motion, not two opposing teams. The taijitu diagram — the circle, the S-curve, the two dots — is a later Chinese picture of that idea, not its oldest statement.
Two phases of one motion, each carrying the seed of the other.
The name. Yin, the shady slope of a hill; yang, the sunlit slope.
Where it comes from
The ideas are old — the Yijing and late Zhou thought already turn on yin and yang as alternating phases. The familiar diagram, two teardrops in a circle, settles much later, in early modern China. Zhou Dunyi’s eleventh-century Taijitu is a different figure. Do not hand the swirl to him.
East Asian
Not two teams
Yin is not evil and yang is not good. They are shade and light, rest and exertion, the north bank and the south. The S-curve is a path, not a wall. The small dots say the maximum of one is already the beginning of the other.
East Asian
A diagram of change
Taiji, the supreme polarity, is prior to the split and not a third substance sitting beside them. Read with the ensō, the empty circle is what this drawing divides. Read with the ouroboros, both refuse an outside — but only this one is explicit that the halves exchange.
Near this
Sources
- Yijing (Book of Changes) and later Neo-Confucian use of taiji
- The familiar diagram is medieval and early-modern, not a Shang dynasty logo
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
Your margin
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symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 2 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.