Tai Xuan Jing Symbols

The text ‘Canon of Supreme Mystery‘ was composed by the Confucian writer Yáng Xióng. The first draft of this work was completed in 2 BC (in the decade before the fall of the Western Han Dynasty). This text is also known in the West as ‘The Alternative I Ching‘ and ‘The Elemental Changes‘.

Unicode Standard presents the Tai Xuan Jing Symbols block as an extension of the Yì Jīng symbols. Their Chinese aliases most accurately reflect their interpretation. For example, the Chinese alias of code point 𝌀 is ‘rén‘, which translates into English as man and yet the English alias is ‘MONOGRAM FOR EARTH‘. Anyway, this block features monograms, digrams, and tetragrams, which have got their own meanings too.

These symbols represent transformations and general changes in the course of events. Plus, they represent the cycle of the changes, which corresponds with the core idea of Confucian's studies. It's not only one of the earliest Chinese philosophical texts, but also the most popular.