# Taixuanjing

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Confucian divination text (2 BCE)

Taixuanjing Chinese name Traditional Chinese 太玄經 Simplified Chinese 太玄经 Hanyu Pinyin Tàixuánjīng Literal meaning "Classic of Supreme Mystery" Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Tàixuánjīng Wade–Giles Tʻai4 hsüan2 ching1 Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Taai3 jyun4 ging1 Korean name Hangul 태현경 Transcriptions Revised Romanization Taehyeongyeong McCune–Reischauer T'aehyŏn'gyŏng Japanese name Hiragana たいげんきょう Kyūjitai 太玄經 Shinjitai 太玄経

The ***Taixuanjing*** is a [divination](/source/Divination) guide composed by the Confucian writer [Yang Xiong](/source/Yang_Xiong_(author)) (53 BCE – 18 CE) in the decade prior to the fall of the [Western Han](/source/Western_Han) dynasty. The first draft of this work was completed in 2 BCE; during the [Jin dynasty](/source/Jin_dynasty_(265%E2%80%93420)), 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

The *Taixuanjing* is a divinatory text similar to, and inspired by, the *[I Ching](/source/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.[1] Like the *I Ching*, it may be consulted as an oracle by casting [yarrow](/source/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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_clarify)*] 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

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](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-7914-1395-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-7914-1395-0).

## Unicode

Unicode character block

Tai Xuan Jing Symbols Range U+1D300..U+1D35F (96 code points) Plane SMP Scripts Common Symbol sets Tai Xuan Jing Assigned 87 code points Unused 9 reserved code points Unicode Version History 4.0 (2003) 87 (+87) Unicode documentation Code chart ∣ Web page Note: [2][3]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to [Tai Xuan Jing Symbols](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Unicode_1D300-1D35F_Tai_Xuan_Jing_Symbols).

In the Unicode Standard, the **Tai Xuan Jing Symbols** [block](/source/Unicode_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".[2]

### Block

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 17.0 2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

### History

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 ^ Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names

## See also

- [Bigram](/source/Bigram)

- [Bagua](/source/Bagua) – ([I Ching](/source/I_Ching#Trigrams))

- [Ternary numeral system](/source/Ternary_numeral_system)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Cook, Richard; [Everson, Michael](/source/Michael_Everson); Nylan, Michael (2002-02-11). ["L2/02-089: Proposal to add monogram, digram, and tetragram characters to the UCS"](https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02089-tet.pdf) (PDF).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-UData_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-UData_2-1) ["Unicode character database"](https://www.unicode.org/ucd/). *The Unicode Standard*. Retrieved 2023-07-26.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard"](https://www.unicode.org/versions/enumeratedversions.html). *The Unicode Standard*. Retrieved 2023-07-26.

## External links

English [Wikisource](/source/Wikisource) has original text related to this article:

**[Tai Xuan Jing](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/en:zh:%E5%A4%AA%E7%8E%84%E7%B6%93)**

- The dictionary definition of [*Taixuanjing*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Taixuanjing) at Wiktionary

- [《太玄經》](http://ctext.org/taixuanjing) - Full text in Chinese

- [Canon of Supreme Mystery 《太玄經》](http://chinesenotes.com/taixuanjing/taixuanjing001.html) Chinese text with matching English vocabulary

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Taixuanjing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taixuanjing) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taixuanjing?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.