Monogram for Yin

⚋ marks yin as a broken line in the Yijing (I Ching), a Chinese divination classic. Lines combine into larger forms: a two-line digram, a three-line trigram, or a six-line hexagram.

Yin and yang are older than this character. The terms appear in Chinese oracle-bone inscriptions—writing on bones or turtle shells used for divination—at least as early as the 14th century BCE. The Yijing tradition is linked to a text originating around 1000 BCE that made this contrast part of a system for reading change.

The line belongs to a notation system

Broken and unbroken lines work inside divination and cosmological diagrams, where each has a different structural role. Read ⚋ as part of that notation, not as a standalone mood mark.

Later readings extended yin and yang to patterns in nature, seasons, activity and rest, medicine, ritual, and social relationships. That wider idea does not make ⚋ mean “balance” on its own; the other lines shape the specific reading.

The yin-yang circle came later

The familiar taijitu, or circular yin-yang diagram, is related but not the same sign. A Daoist diagram tradition appears in the Song dynasty (960–1279), while ⚋ remains one component of line-based Yijing notation.

Use ⚋ for this line, a trigram or hexagram structure, or a specific reference to yin-line notation. Use ☯ for the recognizable circular emblem.