Yin and yang 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 Chugoku mountain range 中国山地. English "yin", "yang", and "yin-yang" are familiar loanwords of Chinese origin. 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
Taijitu the "yin and yang symbol", itself popularly called "taijitu", represents the second of these five parts of the diagram. The term "taijitu" in modern Chinese is commonly used to mean the simple "divided circle" form (), but it may refer to any of several schematic diagrams that contain at least one circle with an inner pattern of symmetry representing yin and yang. While the concept of yin and yang dates to Chinese antiquity, the interest in "diagrams" (圖 "tú") is an intellectual fashion of Neo-Confucianism during the Song period (11th century), and it declined again in the Ming period, by