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
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