First, there IS a "correct" Tai Chi Logo. Of course, there are many "WRONG" versions out there as well. To be the "REAL TAOISM" here, of course we provide you from step to step instructions of how to create the Tai Chi Logo from scratch. Here are a few things you should look for in a "CORRECT" Tai Chi Logo. First, it have to be an S reversed, and not a normal S line. Then it have to have the white on top and black on the bottom. Last, it have to have 2 dots as well. Okay. enough of the 101, let's take a look at our real deal Tai Chi Logo below!
This is the correct Tai Chi symbol. It is not about religions, it is not about belief, it is not about superstitious practice at all. This is purely about the ancient Chinese astronomy and the ancient science of the wise Chinese. Now you might not know why and how this symbol above is "correct" but after reading this article you will be more than professionals than those professionals! Many people turn this logo or symbol into a belief and so they "think" such and such is right because it feels right. It is not, and it cannot. There is a whole theory behind that explains why the symbol or logo is drawn like this one above! Let's start together!
History and Evolution of the Tai Chi Logo
What? Did I post the wrong photo here? No. this is not a mistake. I am going to start by talking about "RICE"! Everything starts by baby step and so of course to understand how nature works and cycle, the ancient Chinese invented a measuring system first! Wong-Dee, the Yellow Emperor (who was one of the king before China was even found) had assigned his wise man to accomplish this task of finding a way to invent a measuring system. What this guy "Ling Lun 伶倫" did was he found that a special kind of rice that they harvest every year is very cool, the size doesn't change much and all the grains are about the same size! So by then, he invented the "rice measuring system". This kind of rice is called the "Sue Mai" 黍米 which is a special kind of rice that we use to make those Chinese New Year rice cakes nowadays. This rice is similar to the Japanese rice, it's not a "long" grain.
First, Ling Lun started by counting one unit of a grain of rice by it's length is "1 fun" 一分 and he tried to put 9 rice in a line horizontally and somehow it matched the length of 10 grains placed vertically aligned to each others. So he started to count 9 grains of rice in a row horizontally is "one inch" 一寸 and so now the system is 9 fun = 1 inch and so 9 inch = 81 grains of rice! This rice is also then used to invent the system of measuring the weight and volume as well! So of course, the wooden ruler was formed with the use of rice as the way to count the measures. With the help of this ruler, now they can make something new to count our days and nights.
The Chinese do not know how to survive in the crazy world, sometimes it gets dark and sometimes water poured from the sky, and sometimes you see thunder and lightening.. it's crazy and some people just try to pray to the sky like how a caveman will do to beg for forgiveness… too bad, this doesn't work and so some wise man in ancient China started to investigate into this path of Chinese science. First they observe the sky and realized there are planets in the sky that rotates and cycle around as well. The Chinese found that the ground plane have four directions like a chess board, and the sky is like a dome shape that covers down. So they started the math and now they invented a tool to count their days and years. This tool is called the "Gwai Biu" 圭表.
The method of the "Gwai Biu" is to build a vertical pole that sticks up which measures in the ancient 9 inch or the multiple of 9 inch… and this tool compose of 2 parts. The Gwai 圭 is the horizontal part which is a guide with measurement. The Biu 表 is the part that sticks up and allow the sun to make a shadow and project the shadow down the "gwai" that lays horizontal. Of course, setting up the gwai-biu also require them to check the directions as well to be accurate.
The ancient Chinese observe the sky and notice that there are many stars and constellations. So these stars, planets and constellations became what they use to learn how the universe works and functions. They found a lot of patterns and so they first came up with the theory of the four seasons. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. This is easy right? Yes and they now use the "Gwai Biu" to set the 2 very special date. One is what they call "Winter Comes" and one is "Summer Comes" and that is the start of winter and the start of summer. The interesting thing is that the "Gwai Biu" shows the winter comes will show the longest shadow of the year, and the summer comes will show the shortest shadow of the year. This allowed the ancient Chinese to set the two most important days.
Now they also realized how the planet orbits around the sun as well and so they also came up with a diagram like the following!
As you can see, this is what today's science use as well. it is showing how the planet earth orbits around the sun. This is hard to explain in brief but you can see in summer comes (left) and winter comes (right), they both share "half half" of the dark and brightness as well.
So this nice video tells you all about the whole idea. During the winter comes and summer comes, the earth both share half half of the sun. Now it makes total sense for us to see THIS diagram below which illustrate the whole concept to you:
The Chinese word above saying 冬至 (bottom) means winter comes, and the upper 夏至 (top) means summer comes. This shows how both period share the sun half-half. Yes, it is now much better to see why we have this "yin yang" symbol here. This is the Yin Yang symbol, with left yang (white) and the right yin (dark). Okay, so as you can see this is the first stage of the diagram. What about spring and autumn? The Chinese now divide it in half again like a cake:
The top and bottom is the same, we just cut the pie in half again and now we have 春分 which is the "spring commences" and the 秋分 which is the "autumn commences". Now you can see four seasons were set. Which illustrates how the earth orbits around the sun! This is a very clear diagram that shows the four season cycle in a year!
Now the day is bright and we call it 陽 Yang. The night is dark and we call it 陰 Yin. So the Chinese know splitting things in half is not enough to describe this picture and so they invented the four terms 少陰 Siu Yin and 太陰 Tai Yin which is little darkness and very dark. Then opposite of that is 少陽 Siu Yang and 太陽 Tai Yang, which is very bright and little bright. It now very clearly shown in the same diagram with the four seasons:
From autumn commences to winter comes, the sun during daytime keeps getting shorter and shorter and more and more darkness… so this is the Tai Yin 太陰 section.
After winter comes is reached, the sunlight start to get longer and longer from then on to spring commences! So this is Siu Yang 少陽 section.
From spring commences to summer comes, it is getting very bright and daylight is getting longer, so we have Tai Yang 太陽 section there.
Then after summer comes started, from this period to autumn commences, the sunlight during the day keeps on getting shorter bit by bit, so it is 少陰 Siu Yin section.
This is a graph from the "Gwai Biu" 圭表 that recorded the data of the "length of the shadow" of that vertical pole through out the year. So this reverse S line is now put into the diagram with the four seasons as the "line of life" just to show the sun moves and creates the pattern…
After a long journey, you finally see what made the Tai Chi Logo. Here is the logo that tells you how it looks at the end. Why are there two small dots? Well because during the period of Tai Yang 太陽, there is one little bit of "Yin" that starts to grow. On the other side, during the winter comes, a little bit of yang start to grow slowly as well! So there are small dot of yin in the Tai yang and a small dot of yang in the Tai yin section, which illustrates how the cycle of a year works. The reverse S line shows the shadow pattern from the graph from the "Gwai Biu" and so this symbol now completes. The little "angle" from the S is the angle from ecliptic and the equator measurements as well, which was done by using the gwai-biu in the past. That is another very complex thing and so we will leave it aside for now.
This is how the Tai Chi logo was formed. It is a cycle of life, a cycle of a year and the pattern of how earth orbits around the sun. It's not a religious symbol here, it's the ancient astronomy diagram! Now you know when you see people drawing a Tai chi logo with an S line, it is already wrong. You need to have a reverse S line and the two " fishy" must go clockwise, plus the black must be in the bottom and the white at the top.
There are way more to this subject but here are the "basics" of how a Tai Chi Logo was formed. Don't forget to read our other materials to learn about the 12 constellations, 24 solar terms, the Tin Gon and Dei Jee and all that cool stuff that brings the taichi to a bagwa, and bagwa to i-ching and how i-ching relates to Taoism's foundation! This is just very "science"!
