Dualistic cosmology Confucianism, beliefs that divide the universe into the complementary oppositions of yin and yang. In traditions such as classical Hinduism, Zen Buddhism or Islamic Sufism, a key to enlightenment is "transcending" this sort of dualistic thinking, without merely substituting dualism with monism or pluralism. The opposition and combination of the universe's two basic principles of yin and yang is a large part of Chinese philosophy, and is an important feature of Taoism, both as a philosophy and as a religion, although the concept developed much earlier. Some argue that yin and yang were originally an earth and sky god, respectively.
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