Taijitu Taijitu A taijitu () is a symbol or diagram ( "tú") in Chinese philosophy representing Taiji ( "tàijí" "great pole" or "supreme ultimate") representing both its monist ("wuji") and its dualist (yin and yang) aspects. Such a diagram was first introduced by Song Dynasty philosopher Zhou Dunyi (周敦頤 1017–1073) in his "Taijitu shuo" 太極圖說. The modern Taoist canon, compiled during the Ming era, has at least half a dozen variants of such "taijitu". The two most similar are the "Taiji Primal Heaven" (太極先天圖 "tàijí xiāntiān tú") and the "wuji" (無極圖 "wújí tú") diagrams, both of which have been extensively studied
Yin and yang 阳 "sunny side" are linguistically analyzable in terms of Chinese characters, pronunciations and etymology, meanings, topography, and loanwords. The Traditional Chinese characters and for the words "yīn" and "yáng" are both classified as radical- esphonetic characters, combining the semantically significant "mound; hill" radical or with the phonetic indicators "ying" and "yang" . The first phonetic "yīn" "cloudy" ideographically combines "jīn" "now; present" and "yún" "cloud", denoting the "今 presence of 云 clouds". The second phonetic "yáng" "bright" originally pictured the "sun" with "rays coming down". This phonetic is expanded with the "sun" radical into "yáng" 暘 "rising sun; sunshine". The