There are two possible sources of bagua:

• The first is from traditional Yin and Yang philosophy. The interrelationships of this philosophy were described by Fuxi in the following way:
  
  无极生有极, 有极是太极,
  太极生两仪, 即阴阳;
  两仪生四象: 即少阳、太阳、少阴、太阴,
  四象演八卦, 八八六十四卦
  The Limitless (Wuji) produces the delimited, and this is the Absolute (Taiji)
  The Taiji produces two forms, named yin and yang
  The two forms produce four phenomena, named lesser yang, great yang (Taiyang also means the Sun), lesser yin, great yin (Taiyin also means the Moon).
  The four phenomena act on the eight trigrams (ba gua), eight eights are sixty-four hexagrams.

This has some parallels to Genesis where God starts with a void and separates light from darkness, heaven from earth, land from sea, sun from moon, etc. Gi-ming Shien of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francicso taught that the logos of ancient greece was the same as the Tao of Lao Tzu. Pangu or Yu Huang or Nüwa could also be considered comparable to Plato's demiurge.

• Another philosophical description of the source is the following, attributed to King Wen of the Zhou Dynasty: "When the world began, there was heaven and earth. Heaven mated with the earth and gave birth to everything in the world. Heaven is Qian-gua, and the Earth is Kun-gua. The remaining six gua are their sons and daughters".

Others

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In in Taiwan's colloquial mandarin, bagua, symbol of all changes and transformations, means "gossip" ; ex : 你很八卦 = You're such a gossip ; 八卦新聞 = tabloïd ;

See also

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• Feng Shui
• I Ching
• Taiji / Taeguk
• Flag of Korea: the Taeguk Flag
• Baguazhang: a martial art based on principles derived from bagua
• Taijiquan another martial art partially based on bagua
• The DHARMA Initiative

External links

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• Traditional Feng Shui Resource
• About fengshui
• About the bagua
• Chart with trigrams & bagua
• Bagua diagram
• Bagua images from Google
• The two kinds of Bagua (Chinese)

Chinese thought | Divination | I Ching | Taoism | Symbolism | Chinese terms

Bagua | Acht Trigramme | Yi Jing#Les huit trigrammes | 팔괘 | Trigrammen van de I Ching | 八卦 | 八卦