Last week The Western Confucian posted a picture of the South Korean flag.  He linked to an article he wrote which explicated the Taoist implications of that flag, and which called upon Koreans to "turn back to Tao."  Now, I am all for turning to Tao, but I want to take some exception to his interpretation of the flag.

     He had a picture of an older Korean flag, though with all of the elements of the contemporary South Korean flag.  Here is the modern standard:

     It has a white background with a rendition of the Chinese symbol of the taiji ("supreme ultimate") in red and blue, surrounded by four trigrams.  In terms of ancient Chinese philosophy, there is a lot going on there.    

     First, let’s talk about that central blue and red symbol.  The Western Confucian suggests that this is Taoist and can be traced back to "an idea first formulated by the Taoist sage Chuang Tzu (莊子)."   While it is true that the symbol was integrated into religious Taoism as it took shape in the Han dynasty, the original idea almost certainly predates Chuang Tzu (fourth century BCE).  Indeed, to the extent that taiji is associated with the notions of yin and yang, it likely goes back to the yin-yang "school," or line of thought, which was identified as distinct from Taoism by Han dynasty scholars.  I have always associated the symbol more with the I Ching, which predates Chuang Tzu and which is very engaged in the working out of the dynamic interaction of complementary cosmic forces, as suggested by the symbol.

     I would not, then, ascribe this symbol only to Taoism.  Its early history is independent of religious Taoism, and it suggests a sensibility that runs through other variants of ancient Chinese thought, Confucianism included.

     It should also be noted that the symbol on the South Korean flag merely suggests the taiji, it is not a direct representation of the taiji.

     The use of the four trigrams in the flag links it directly to the I Ching.  On the top left is the trigram that symbolizes "Heaven" or summer; on the top right is "Water" or autumn; the bottom right is "Earth" or winter; and in the lower left is "Fire" or spring.  Heaven opposes and complements Earth, and Water opposes and complements Fire.  And the seasons go round and round in continually repeated cyclical time, just as the I Ching tells us.

    It is interesting that a modern state would take as its national flag a set of symbols that run back to ancient ideas and philosophies from another place.  Modern nationalism is usually more narrow-minded than that, searching for indigenous symbols and origins.

UPDATE: Frog in a Well is thinking about this, too.