Yin and yang
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Mongolian Cyrillic арга билэг / арга билиг | | ||||||
Mongolian script | ᠡᠠ᠊ᠷ᠊ᠭᠠ ᠪᠢ᠊ᠯ᠊ᠢ᠊᠊ᠢ᠊ᠡ᠋ / ᠠᠷᠭᠠ ᠪᠢᠯᠢᠭ | ||||||
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Kanji | 陰陽 | ||||||
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Yin and yang (English: /jɪn/, /jæŋ/), also yinyang[1][2] or yin-yang,[3][2] is a concept that originated in Chinese philosophy, describing opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts.[4] The technology of yin and yang is the foundation of critical and deductive reasoning for effective differential diagnosis of disease and illnesses within Confucian influenced traditional Chinese medicine.[5][6][7][8]
In
The notion of duality can be found in many areas, such as Communities of Practice. The term "dualistic-monism" or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity and duality. According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin and yang symbol (or taijitu) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.[citation needed]
In
Linguistic aspects
The
Characters
The Chinese characters 陰 and 陽 are both considered to be phono-semantic compounds, with semantic component 阝 'mound', 'hill', a graphical variant of 阜—with the phonetic components 今; jīn (and the added semantic component 云; yún; 'cloud') and 昜; yáng. In the latter, 昜; yáng; 'bright' features 日; 'the Sun' + 示 + 彡; 'sunbeam'.[citation needed]
Pronunciations and etymologies
The
Sinologists and historical linguists have reconstructed
Compare these Middle Chinese and Old Chinese[a] reconstructions of 陰; yīn and 陽; yáng:
- ˑiəm < *ˑiəm and iang < *diang (Bernhard Karlgren)[15]
- ʔjəm and *raŋ (Li Fang-Kuei)[16]
- ʔ(r)jum and *ljang (William H. Baxter)[17]
- ʔjəm < *ʔəm and jiaŋ < *laŋ (Axel Schuessler)[18]
- im < *qrum and yang < *laŋ (William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart)[19]
Schuessler gives probable Sino-Tibetan etymologies for both Chinese words.
yin < *ʔəm compares with
yang < *laŋ compares with Lepcha a-lóŋ 'reflecting light', Burmese laŋB 'be bright' and ə-laŋB 'light'; and is perhaps cognate with Chinese chāng < *k-hlaŋ 昌; 'prosperous'', 'bright' (compare areal words like Tai plaŋA1 'bright' & Proto-Viet-Muong hlaŋB). To this word-family, Unger (Hao-ku, 1986:34) also includes 炳; bǐng < *pl(j)aŋʔ 'bright'; however Schuessler reconstructs 炳; bǐng's Old Chinese pronunciation as *braŋʔ and includes it in an Austroasiatic word family, besides 亮; liàng < *raŋh 爽; shuǎng < *sraŋʔ 'twilight of dawn'; míng < *mraŋ 明 'bright', 'become light', 'enlighten'; owing to "the different OC initial consonant which seems to have no recognizable OC morphological function".[20]
Meanings
Yin and yang are semantically complex words.
Yin 陰 or 阴 —
Bound morpheme: ① the moon, ② shaded orientation, ③ covert; concealed; hidden, ④ vagina, ⑤ penis, ⑥ of the netherworld, ⑦ negative, ⑧ north side of a hill, ⑨ south bank of a river, ⑩ reverse side of a stele, ⑪ in intaglio; Stative verb: ① overcast, ② sinister; treacherous
Yang 陽 or 阳 —
Bound morpheme: ① [Chinese philosophy] male/active/positive principle in nature, ② the sun, ③ male genitals, ④ in relief, ⑤ open; overt, ⑥ belonging to this world, ⑦ [linguistics] masculine, ⑧ south side of a hill, ⑨ north bank of a river
The compound yinyang 陰陽 means "yin and yang; opposites; ancient Chinese astronomy; occult arts; astrologer; geomancer; etc."
The sinologist Rolf Stein etymologically translates Chinese yin 陰 "shady side (of a mountain)" and yang 陽 "sunny side (of a mountain)" with the uncommon English geographic terms ubac "shady side of a mountain" and adret "sunny side of a mountain" (which are of French origin).[22]
Toponymy
Many Chinese place names or
Yang refers to the "south side of a hill" in Hengyang 衡陽, which is south of Mount Heng 衡山 in Hunan province, and to the "north bank of a river" in Luoyang 洛陽, which is located north of the Luo River 洛河 in Henan.
Similarly, yin refers to "north side of a hill" in Huayin 華陰, which is north of Mount Hua 華山 in Shaanxi province.
In Japan, the characters are used in western Honshu to delineate the north-side San'in region 山陰 from the south-side San'yō region 山陽, separated by the Chūgoku Mountains 中国山地.
Loanwords
English
The Oxford English Dictionary defines:
yin (jɪn) Also Yin, Yn. [Chinese yīn shade, feminine; the moon.]
a. In Chinese philosophy, the feminine or negative principle (characterized by dark, wetness, cold, passivity, disintegration, etc.) of the two opposing cosmic forces into which creative energy divides and whose fusion in physical matter brings the phenomenal world into being. Also attrib. or as adj., and transf. Cf. yang.
b. Comb., as yin-yang, the combination or fusion of the two cosmic forces; freq. attrib., esp. as yin-yang symbol, a circle divided by an S-shaped line into a dark and a light segment, representing respectively yin and yang, each containing a 'seed' of the other.
yang (jæŋ) Also Yang. [Chinese yáng yang, sun, positive, male genitals.]
a. In Chinese philosophy, the masculine or positive principle (characterized by light, warmth, dryness, activity, etc.) of the two opposing cosmic forces into which creative energy divides and whose fusion in physical matter brings the phenomenal world into being. Also attrib. or as adj. Cf. yin.
b. Comb.: yang-yin = yin-yang s.v. yin b.
For the earliest recorded "yin and yang" usages, the OED cites 1671 for yin and yang,[23] 1850 for yin-yang,[24] and 1959 for yang-yin.[25]
In English, yang-yin (like ying-yang) occasionally occurs as a mistake or typographical error for the Chinese loanword yin-yang— yet they are not equivalents. Chinese does have some yangyin
Similarly, the usual pattern among Chinese binomial compounds is for positive A and negative B, where the A word is dominant or privileged over B. For example, tiandi 天地 "heaven and earth" and nannü 男女 "men and women". Yinyang meaning "dark and light; female and male; moon and sun", is an exception. Scholars have proposed various explanations for why yinyang violates this pattern, including "linguistic convenience" (it is easier to say yinyang than yangyin), the idea that "proto-Chinese society was matriarchal", or perhaps, since yinyang first became prominent during the late Warring States period, this term was "purposely directed at challenging persistent cultural assumptions".[27]
History
Joseph Needham discusses yin and yang together with Five Elements as part of the School of Naturalists. He says that it would be proper to begin with yin and yang before Five Elements because the former: "lay, as it were, at a deeper level in Nature, and were the most ultimate principles of which the ancient Chinese could conceive. But it so happens that we know a good deal more about the historical origin of the Five-Element theory than about that of the yin and the yang, and it will therefore be more convenient to deal with it first."[28]
He then discusses Zou Yan (鄒衍; 305–240 BC) who is most associated with these theories. Although yin and yang are not mentioned in any of the surviving documents of Zou Yan, his school was known as the Yin Yang Jia (Yin and Yang School). Needham concludes "There can be very little doubt that the philosophical use of the terms began about the beginning of the 4th century, and that the passages in older texts which mention this use are interpolations made later than that time."[28]
Nature
Yin and yang are a concept that originated in ancient Chinese philosophy that describes how opposite or contrary forces may create each other by their comparison and are to be seen as actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.[29][30]
In
Yin and yang thus are always opposite and equal qualities and create and control each other. Whenever one quality reaches its peak, it will naturally begin to transform into the opposite quality: for example, grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle.[citation needed]
It is impossible to talk about yin or yang without some reference to the opposite, traditionally it is said that Yin and Yang are known by the comparison of each other, since yin and yang are bound together as parts of a mutual whole (for example, there cannot be the bottom of the foot without the top). A way to illustrate this idea is[citation needed] to postulate the notion of a race with only women or only men; this race would disappear in a single generation. Yet, women and men together create new generations that allow the race they mutually create (and mutually come from) to survive. The interaction of the two gives birth to things, like manhood.[32]
Yin and yang transform each other: like an undertow in the ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. Thus, a seed will sprout from the earth and grow upwards towards the sky—an intrinsically yang movement. Then, when it reaches its full potential height, it will fall. The growth of the top seeks light, while roots grow in darkness.[citation needed]
The cycles of the seasons and of plants that progresses or entropies depending on the season. In summer it seeks to procure healthier leaves, whittling (entropy) of the plant is in autumn, the degrown plants (destruction) is in winter, growth (creating) of the plant or tree during spring. Where it's gaining or progressing, fully progressed occurs during summer, summer seeks stability as it seeks to keep (progress) the leaves and branches that are healthy, growth and progress reaching its end point of a cycle. Creation as part of yang, and destruction as part of yin, progress on one side (yang) and entropy on the other side (yin), is represented in the cycles.[citation needed]
Modern usage
Yin is the black side, and yang is the white side. Other color arrangements have included the white of yang being replaced by red.[33] The taijitu is sometimes accompanied by other shapes,[34] such as bagua.[33][34] The relationship between yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and a valley. Yin (literally the 'shady place' or 'north slope') is the dark area occluded by the mountain's bulk, while yang (literally the "sunny place' or "south slope") is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed.[citation needed]
In turn, the concepts are also applied to the human body. In traditional Chinese medicine, one's health is directly related to the balance between yin and yang qualities within them.[35] If yin and yang become unbalanced, one of the qualities is considered deficient or has vacuity.[citation needed]
I Ching
In the I Ching, originally a divination manual of the
Taijitu
The principle of yin and yang is represented by the Taijitu (literally "Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate"). The term is commonly used to mean the simple "divided circle" form, but may refer to any of several schematic diagrams representing these principles, such as the swastika, common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Similar symbols have also appeared in other cultures, such as in Celtic art and Roman shield markings.[37][38][39]
In this symbol the two teardrops swirl to represent the conversion of yin to yang and yang to yin. This is seen when a ball is thrown into the air with a yang velocity then converts to a yin velocity to fall back to earth. The two teardrops are opposite in direction to each other to show that as one increases the other decreases. The dot of the opposite field in the tear drop shows that there is always yin within yang and always yang within yin.[40]
Tai chi
Tai chi, a form of martial art, is often described as the principles of yin and yang applied to the human body and an animal body. Wu Jianquan, a famous Chinese martial arts teacher, described tai chi (Taijiquan) as follows:
Various people have offered different explanations for the name Taijiquan. Some have said: – 'In terms of self-cultivation, one must train from a state of movement towards a state of stillness. Taiji comes about through the balance of yin and yang. In terms of the art of attack and defense then, in the context of the changes of full and empty, one is constantly internally latent, to not outwardly expressive, as if the yin and yang of Taiji have not yet divided apart.' Others say: 'Every movement of Taijiquan is based on circles, just like the shape of a Taijitu. Therefore, it is called Taijiquan.
— Wu Jianquan, The International Magazine of Tʻai Chi Chʻüan[41]
See also
- Dualistic cosmology
- Dialectic
- Seny and Rauxa
- Ayin and Yesh
- Enantiodromia
- Flag of Mongolia
- Flag of South Korea
- Flag of Tibet
- Fu Xi
- Gankyil
- Huangdi Neijing
- Ometeotl
- Onmyōdō
- Tai chi
- Taegeuk
- Tomoe
- Zhuangzi
Notes
- ^ With an asterisk, to denote unattested forms.
References
Footnotes
- Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- ^ a b Wang, Robin R. "Yinyang (Yin-yang)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- ThoughtCo. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-918860-17-0 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 978-0-85701-267-8.
- ISBN 978-3-11-041766-1.
- ISBN 978-0-89281-435-0.
- ISBN 978-0-85701-018-6.
- ISBN 978-0-415-85881-6.
- ^ Feuchtwang, Sephan. "Chinese Religions." Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations, Third ed., Routledge, 2016, pp. 150–151.
- ISBN 0-262-16058-7.
- ISBN 978-0-8239-4079-0.
- hdl:10603/116167.
- hdl:10603/116167.
- ^ Bernhard Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1957, 173, 188.
- ^ Li, Fang-Kuei, "Studies on Archaic Chinese", translated by Gilbert L. Mattos, Monumenta Serica 31, 1974:219–287.
- ^ William H. Baxter, A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter ,1992.
- University of Hawaii Press, 2007, 558, 572.
- ^ Baxter & Sagart (2014), pp. 326–378.
- University of Hawaii Press, 2007. pp. 168, 180, 558.
- ^ John DeFrancis, ed., ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, University of Hawaii Press, 2003, 1147, 1108.
- ^ Rolf Stein (2010), Rolf Stein's Tibetica Antiqua: With Additional Materials, Brill, p. 63.
- ^ Arnoldus Montanus, Atlas Chinensis: Being a relation of remarkable passages in two embassies from the East-India Company of the United Provinces to the Vice-Roy Singlamong, General Taising Lipovi, and Konchi, Emperor, Thomas Johnson, tr. by J. Ogilby, 1671, 549: "The Chineses by these Strokes ‥ declare ‥ how much each Form or Sign receives from the two fore-mention'd Beginnings of Yn or Yang."
- ^ William Jones Boone, "Defense of an Essay on the proper renderings of the words Elohim and θεός into the Chinese Language," Chinese Repository XIX, 1850, 375: "... when in the Yih King (or Book of Diagrams) we read of the Great Extreme, it means that the Great Extreme is in the midst of the active-passive primordial substance (Yin-yáng); and that it is not exterior to, or separate from the Yin-yáng."
- ^ Carl Jung, "Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self", in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, tr. by R. F. C. Hull, Volume 9, Part 2, p. 58" "[The vision of "Ascension of Isaiah"] might easily be a description of a genuine yang-yin relationship, a picture that comes closer to the actual truth than the privatio boni. Moreover, it does not damage monotheism in any way, since it unites the opposites just and yang and yin are united in Tao (which the Jesuits quite logically translated as "God")."
- ^ For instance, the Huainanzi says" "Now, the lumber is not so important as the forest; the forest is not so important as the rain; the rain is not so important as yin and yang; yin and yang are not so important as harmony; and harmony is not so important as the Way. (12, 材不及林,林不及雨,雨不及陰陽,陰陽不及和,和不及道; tr. Major et al. 2010, 442).
- ^ a b Roger T. Ames, "Yin and Yang", in Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, ed. by Antonio S. Cua, Routledge, 2002, 847.
- ^ a b Needham, Joseph; Science and Civilization in China Vol.2: History of Scientific Thought; Cambridge University Press; 1956
- ^ "The hidden meanings of yin and yang – John Bellaimey". TED-Ed. Archived from the original on 28 October 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
- ISBN 978-0-09-180944-7.
- ^ Muller, Charles. "Daode Jing". Retrieved 9 March 2018.
- ^ Robin R. Wang "Yinyang (Yin-yang)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
- ^ OCLC 50204221.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-87779-044-0.
- ^ Li CL. A brief outline of Chinese medical history with particular reference to acupuncture. Perspect Biol Med. 1974 Autumn;18(1):132–143.
- ^ The text of the I Ching has its origins in a Western Zhou divination text called the Changes of Zhou (周易 Zhōu yì). Various modern scholars suggest dates ranging between the 10th and 4th centuries BC for the assembly of the text in approximately its current form. Nylan, Michael (2001), The Five Confucian Classics (2001), p. 228.
- ^ Giovanni Monastra: "The "Yin–Yang" among the Insignia of the Roman Empire? Archived 2011-09-25 at the Wayback Machine," "Sophia," Vol. 6, No. 2 (2000)
- ^ "Late Roman Shield Patterns – Magister Peditum". www.ne.jp.
- ^ Helmut Nickel: "The Dragon and the Pearl," Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 26 (1991), p. 146, fn. 5
- ISBN 979-8-6678-6786-9.[page needed]
- ISSN 0730-1049.
Works cited
- Baxter, William H.; Sagart, Laurent (2014). Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: ISBN 978-0-19-994537-5.
External links
- Robin R. Wang. "Yinyang (Yin-yang)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.