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The bagua (pinyin) or pa-kua (Wade-Giles) (八卦) are a set of eight symbols that originated in China, used in Daoist / Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either "broken" or "unbroken", respectively representing yin or yang. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as Eight Trigrams in English. The trigrams are related to Yijing and Taiji philosophy, and the Wuxing, or "five elements". The trigrams have correspondences in astronomy, divination, meditation, astrology, geography, geomancy (fengshui), anatomy, decorative arts, the family, martial arts (particularly taijiquan and baguazhang), Chinese medicine and elsewhere. The bagua can appear singly or in combination, and are commonly encountered in two different arrangements: the Primordial (先天八卦), "Earlier Heaven", or "Fu Xi" bagua (伏羲八卦) and the Manifested (後天八卦), "Later Heaven", or "King Wen" bagua. In the ancient Chinese classic, I Ching (Pinyin: Yi Jing), two trigrams are stacked together to create a six-line figure known as a hexagram. There are 64 possible permutations. The 64 hexagram figures and their texts make up the book. The trigram symbolism can be used to interprete the hexagram figure and text. An example from Hexagram 19 commentary: "The earth [kun trigram] above the lake [dui trigram]: The image of Approach. Thus the superior man is inexhaustibe in his will to teach, and without limits in his tolerance and protection of the people." The trigrams have been used to organize Yijing charts as seen below. There are eight possible combinations to render the various trigrams ( bāguà): Book of Changes listed two sources for the eight trigrams. The chapter explains the first source thus: This explanation would later be modified to: The Limitless (Wuji) produces the delimited, and this is the Absolute (Taiji). The Taiji produces two forms, named Yin and Yang.

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Related concepts (16)

I Ching

The I Ching or Yi Jing (, AUDYiJing.oggyi4-jing1), usually translated Book of Changes or Classic of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000750), the I Ching was transformed over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500200) into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings".

Taijitu

In Chinese philosophy, a taijitu () is a symbol or diagram () representing Taiji () in both its monist (wuji) and its dualist (yin and yang) aspects. Such a diagram was first introduced by Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhou Dunyi (周敦頤; 1017–1073) of the Song Dynasty 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" () and the "wuji" () diagrams, both of which have been extensively studied during the Qing period for their possible connection with Zhou Dunyi's taijitu.

Chinese spiritual world concepts

Chinese spiritual world concepts are cultural practices or methods found in Chinese culture. Some fit in the realms of a particular religion, others do not. In general these concepts were uniquely evolved from the Chinese values of filial piety, tacit acknowledgment of the co-existence of the living and the deceased, and the belief in causality and reincarnation, with or without religious overtones. Ancestral worship (拜祖) – A practice to honor the deeds and memories of the deceased.