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The word "Tao" has a variety of meanings in both the ancient and modern Chinese language. Aside from its purely prosaic use meaning road, channel, path, principle, or similar, [2] the word has acquired a variety of differing and often confusing metaphorical, philosophical, and religious uses. In most belief systems, the word is used ...
The Quanzhen School of Daoism had a variety of definitions about what xian means during its history, including a metaphorical meaning where the term simply means a good, principled person. [ 3 ] Xian have been venerated from ancient times to the modern day in a variety of ways across different cultures and religious sects in China.
Chinese Taoist Priest's Robe, 19th century. Aside from Taoist symbols like the dragon, it also adopts the eight auspicious symbols from Buddhism. The taijitu, commonly known as the "yin and yang symbol" or simply the "yin-yang", and the bagua are important symbols in Taoism because they represent key elements of Taoist cosmology (see above).
Han dynasty Chinese talisman, part of the Wucheng Bamboo-slips []. Scholarly research into the history of Taoist symbolism has always been a particular challenge, because historically, Taoist priests have often used abstruse, obscure imagery writing to express their thoughts, meaning that a path to their successful decipherment and interpretation isn't always readily found in primary sources. [9]
Shang ding for food rituals celebrating ancestors. The surface is decorated with three taotie motifs – Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Although modern scholars use the word taotie, it is actually not known what word the Shang and Zhou dynasties used to call the design on their bronze vessels; as American paleographer Sarah Allan notes, there is no particular reason to assume that the ...
Taoism – philosophical, ethical, and religious tradition of Chinese origin that emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao (also romanized as Dao). The term Tao means "way", "path" or "principle", and can also be found in Chinese philosophies and religions other than Taoism.
In Chinese philosophy, a taijitu (Chinese: 太極圖; pinyin: tàijítú; Wade–Giles: tʻai⁴chi²tʻu²) is a symbol or diagram (圖; tú) representing taiji (太極; tàijí; 'utmost extreme') in both its monist and its dualist (yin and yang) forms in application is a deductive and inductive theoretical model.
In ancient China, the term fan (反; fǎn; 'return', 'reversion', 'inversion') became associated with a basic concept within Daoism: the Daodejing remarks "Reversal is the movement of the Way ...