Sometimes mispronounced “tai-ch’i,” Taiji quan 太極拳 (T’ai-chi ch’üan) literally means “Supreme Ultimate Boxing.” Here Taiji 太極 (lit., “great ridgepole”) refers to yin-yang interaction, so that the modern Taiji diagram is the Yin-yang symbol. This diagram is sometimes used as a symbol for Chinese martial arts by martial artists and sometimes as a symbol for Daoism by Daoists. These two are often conflated in the popular understanding of “Daoism.” Historically speaking, it is unclear when the modern Taiji diagram was created (cf. the Taiji tu 太極 圖 by Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 [1017-1073]) and when Chinese Daoists began using it. In earlier Daoist history, the “yin-yang symbol” referred to the image of a tiger and dragon. The modern version may have been adopted by Daoists to compete with the symbolic representations of other religious traditions: the cross of Christianity, swastika of Buddhism, crescent moon of Islam, Star of David of Judaism, and so forth.
Diagram of Taiji by Zhang Huang 章潢 (1527-1608)
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