SYM·0001 · Taijitu
Yin-Yang
complementary duality
- Unicode
- U+262F yin yang
- Meaning
- Two forces that define each other; each carries the seed of its opposite (the dots).
- History
- Crystallised as a diagram of the “supreme ultimate” in Song-dynasty Neo-Confucian cosmology, far younger than the idea it depicts.
- Variants
- Swirl direction reversed; dots present or omitted; surrounded by the eight trigrams.
- Related
- ☰☷ Bagua trigrams; the five phases.
- Appears
- The flag of South Korea, martial-arts crests, a global shorthand for balance.
- Evolution
- Philosophical diagram → national emblem → detached wellness icon.
Sources · 3
- documented Zhou Dunyi, Taijitu shuo 太極圖說, c. 1070 — the diagram given its cosmological reading.
- documented The Unicode Standard, U+262F YIN YANG.
- traditional The dots read as “the seed of the opposite” — a settled reading within the tradition, not a claim traceable to the diagram’s first use.