Yang

   The Yang and the Yin are the names given by the Chinese to the opposing forces in a cosmological system of Dualism which is said to have been invented by Fu-Hsi in the third millennium BC and to have been elaborated in the Yih-King about 1122 BC. While these dates are uncertain it may be said that by the time of the foundation of Confucianism or Taoism these doctrines were so old that their origin had almost been forgotten. The symbol of the Yang, the male element, is an undivided line (——) and that of the Yin, the female principle, a broken or divided line (———). The combinations of these in pairs denote the heavenly bodies or the seasons, while the trigrams denote the elements or the forces of nature. With the degeneration of Taoism into poly-demonism the Yang has developed into the ‘Shen’, the gods of the earth and the air, while the Yin has become the ‘Kwei’, demons to be feared and propitiated. The Japanese equivalents are the In and the Yo.