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Taixuanjing

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Taixuanjing
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese太玄經
Simplified Chinese太玄经
Hanyu PinyinTàixuánjīng
Literal meaning"Classic of Supreme Mystery"
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinTàixuánjīng
Wade–GilesTʻai4 hsüan2 ching1
Yue: Cantonese
JyutpingTaai3 jyun4 ging1
Korean name
Hangul태현경
Transcriptions
Revised Romanizationtaehyeon-gyeong
Japanese name
Hiraganaたいげんきょう
Kyūjitai太玄經
Shinjitai太玄経

The Taixuanjing is a divination guide composed by the Confucian writer Yang Xiong (53 BCE – 18 CE) in the decade prior to the fall of the Western Han dynasty. The first draft of this work was completed in 2 BCE; during the Jin dynasty, an otherwise unknown person named Fan Wang (范望) salvaged the text and wrote a commentary on it, from which our text survives today.

Content

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The Taixuanjing is a divinatory text similar to, and inspired by, the I Ching. The I Ching is based on 64 binary hexagrams—characters composed of six horizontal lines, with each line either broken or unbroken. Meanwhile, the Taixuanjing is based on 81 ternary tetragrams—characters composed of four lines, with each line either unbroken, broken once, or broken twice. Like the I Ching, it may be consulted as an oracle by casting yarrow stalks or a six-faced die to generate numbers which define the lines of the tetragram, which is then looked up in the text.[further explanation needed] A tetragram drawn without moving lines refers to the tetragram description, while a tetragram drawn with moving lines refers to the specific lines.

The monograms are:

  • the unbroken line ( ⚊) for heaven (天; tiān),
  • once broken line ( ⚋) for earth (地; dì),
  • twice broken line ( 𝌀) for man (人; rén).

Numerically the symbols can be counted as ⚊ = 0, ⚋ = 1, 𝌀 = 2, and grouped into sets of four to count from 0 to 80. This is clearly intentional as this passage from chapter 8 of the Taixuanjing points out the principle of carrying and place value.

Chinese English
推玄筭：

家 一置一，二置二，三置三。
部 一勿增，二增三，三增六。
州 一勿增，二增九，三增十八。

方 一勿增，二增二十七，三增五十四

Push Profound Calculation:

First Part: one sets one, two sets two, three sets three.
Second Part: one doesn't add, two adds three, three adds six.
Third Part: one doesn't add, two adds nine, three adds eighteen.

Fourth Part: one doesn't add, two adds twenty-seven, three adds fifty-four.

Translation

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An English translation by Michael Nylan was published in 1993.

  • Nylan, Michael (1993). The Canon of Supreme Mystery: A Translation with Commentary of the T'AI HSÜAN CHING. SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-1395-0.

Unicode

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Tai Xuan Jing Symbols
RangeU+1D300..U+1D35F
(96 code points)
PlaneSMP
ScriptsCommon
Symbol setsTai Xuan Jing
Assigned87 code points
Unused9 reserved code points
Unicode version history
4.0 (2003)87 (+87)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1][2]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tai Xuan Jing Symbols.

In the Unicode Standard, the Tai Xuan Jing Symbols block is an extension of the I Ching symbols. Their Chinese aliases most accurately reflect their interpretation; for example, the Chinese alias of code point U+1D300 is "rén", which translates into English as man and yet the English alias is "MONOGRAM FOR EARTH".[1]

Block

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Tai Xuan Jing Symbols[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+1D30x 𝌀 𝌁 𝌂 𝌃 𝌄 𝌅 𝌆 𝌇 𝌈 𝌉 𝌊 𝌋 𝌌 𝌍 𝌎 𝌏
U+1D31x 𝌐 𝌑 𝌒 𝌓 𝌔 𝌕 𝌖 𝌗 𝌘 𝌙 𝌚 𝌛 𝌜 𝌝 𝌞 𝌟
U+1D32x 𝌠 𝌡 𝌢 𝌣 𝌤 𝌥 𝌦 𝌧 𝌨 𝌩 𝌪 𝌫 𝌬 𝌭 𝌮 𝌯
U+1D33x 𝌰 𝌱 𝌲 𝌳 𝌴 𝌵 𝌶 𝌷 𝌸 𝌹 𝌺 𝌻 𝌼 𝌽 𝌾 𝌿
U+1D34x 𝍀 𝍁 𝍂 𝍃 𝍄 𝍅 𝍆 𝍇 𝍈 𝍉 𝍊 𝍋 𝍌 𝍍 𝍎 𝍏
U+1D35x 𝍐 𝍑 𝍒 𝍓 𝍔 𝍕 𝍖
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

History

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The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Tai Xuan Jing Symbols block:

Version Final code points[a] Count L2 ID WG2 ID Document
4.0 U+1D300..1D356 87 L2/02-089 N2416 Cook, Richard; Everson, Michael; Nylan, Michael (2002-02-11), Proposal to add monogram, digram, and tetragram characters to the UCS
L2/02-166R2 Moore, Lisa (2002-08-09), "Consensus 91-C4", UTC #91 Minutes, UTC accepts the 87 tetragram and related characters for encoding at 1D300..1D356.
L2/05-267 N2998 Proposed annotations for Annex P -- reference N2988, 2005-09-15
L2/05-260 N2988 (pdf, doc) Kawabata, Taichi (2005-09-21), Proposal to correct the Character Names for Tai Xuan Jing (U+13D00 ~ U+13D05)
L2/05-281 N2998R Proposed annotations for Annex P -- reference N2988, 2005-09-28
N2953 (pdf, doc) Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2006-02-16), "M47.15 (Defect in names of Tai Xuan Jing symbols)", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 47, Sophia Antipolis, France; 2005-09-12/15
L2/06-088 "11.4", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 47, 2006-02-22
  1. ^ Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ^ "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
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