Was the Taiji Diagram Not Drawn by Daoist Priests? Fuxi Might Have Just Been a "Stargazing Blogger" Back in the Day

When it comes to the origin of Tai Chi Yin and Yang, nine out of ten people will blurt out: "Fu Xi drew it!" The remaining one might add: "It was passed down together with Taoism."

First, we need to clear Fu Xi's name—back then, he probably wasn't squatting there pondering metaphysics; he was simply forced into being a "wild astronomer" by the hardships of life.

Over 7,000 years ago, in the upper reaches of the Wei River, Fu Xi led his tribe in making a living, relying entirely on "the whims of the weather for food and luck for sustenance." The phrase "cut bamboo, string bamboo, shoot clay pellets, chase game" recorded in *Annals of Wu and Yue* sounds heroic, but in reality, it just means hunting birds with a slingshot, with the hit rate entirely dependent on the weather gods' mood. When the rainy season brought floods or the dry season parched the land, the entire tribe would go hungry together.

As the tribe's "CEO," Fu Xi was so worried that he lost handfuls of hair. Whenever he had time, he would sit on the peak of Guatai Mountain, craning his neck to look at the sky—not daydreaming, but conducting research. *Yizhuan · Xici* (Commentaries on the Book of Changes: Appended Phrases) says he "looked up to observe the celestial phenomena, and looked down to examine the patterns of the earth." Put simply: he watched how the sun moved during the day, how the moon changed at night, observed how flowers and plants on the ground withered and flourished, and tracked how birds and beasts migrated.

After watching for a long time, he actually figured out the pattern: the sun climbs up from the east in the morning and slips down from the west in the evening—it doesn't disappear, but goes around behind the mountains to catch its breath; the moon waxes and wanes, wanes and waxes—it's not being eaten by a celestial dog, but secretly "recharging its battery." With the cycle of cold and heat, alternation of day and night, all things seem to go around in circles, and in the end, there are only two states—bright and dark, hot and cold, active and still.

Just as he was pondering this, there was a loud "boom" from Longma Mountain across the Wei River. A dragon horse flew out and "plopped" down on the Fendin Rock in the middle of the river, with patterns on its back so bright they dazzled the eyes. Fu Xi took a closer look, and the rock actually transformed into a spiral pattern, with black and white intertwined—each containing a bit of the other. He slapped his thigh on the spot: "This is exactly the truth I've been racking my brains over! All things in heaven and earth, in the end, boil down to two words—Yin and Yang!"

Of course, the story of the dragon horse bearing the diagram is a "special effect" added by later generations. If we really dig into the roots, the ancestor of the Tai Chi diagram is more tangible than the legend of Fu Xi. In 1999, a tortoise shell was excavated from the Jiahu Site, carved with exactly seven spiral rings. The small notch in the center is practically identical to the "fish eye" of later Tai Chi diagrams. Looking at the pottery plates from Hemudu and the painted pottery from Banpo, sun patterns and moon patterns revolve around the center—put together, they look just like an "ancient survival schedule."

Ancient people had no watches or calendars, and farming and hunting all depended on reading the sky. After thousands of years of observation, they gradually figured out the pattern: nothing is absolutely good or bad. Day is followed by night, and when night ends, day comes. The two oppose each other, but neither can exist without the other. Just as sowing in spring is a time of growth, and harvesting in autumn is a time of gathering—missing either one means going hungry.

Later, during the Warring States period, Zhuangzi first coined the term "Tai Chi," saying "the Way exists before Tai Chi and is not considered high," treating Tai Chi as the chaotic state before heaven and earth separated. Then *Yizhuan* picked up the thread, saying "in Change there is Tai Chi, which gives rise to the Two Modes," pairing Yin and Yang with Tai Chi. It wasn't until the Song and Ming dynasties that Taoist priests colored the pattern black and white and added two fish eyes, making it the "Yin-Yang fish" we are familiar with today.

To put it bluntly, how could Tai Chi Yin and Yang be something utterly mysterious? It's just the survival wisdom that ancient people gradually figured out while looking up at the sky and bending down to farm when they were hungry—don't push things to the extreme, don't drive people to despair. There is white in black, and black in white; as things keep turning, life goes on.