Why is there only four hexagrams in South Korea's national flag? What does it mean?

From 1883 (the late Korean dynasty), South Korea began to use Taiji flag. After the establishment of the Republic of Korea, it continued to be used. 1949, the Korean Ministry of Education officially confirmed the current style of the Korean national flag: the center of the national flag is Tai Chi pattern with eight diagrams around it. According to the official explanation of South Korea, the red in the Taiji diagram represents Yang, the blue represents Yin, and the unity of Yin and Yang represents the balance and harmony of the universe. Fire and water, day and night, darkness and light, construction and destruction, male and female, active and passive, hot and cold, positive and negative, as two major forces in the universe, achieve harmony and balance through mutual opposition.

With the ether as the center, the four hexagrams symbolize the harmony of Yin and Yang, the dry hexagrams represent the sky, the Kun hexagrams represent the earth, the Kan hexagrams represent the moon and water, and the departure hexagrams represent the sun and fire. Each six-pointed star also symbolizes justice, richness, vitality and wisdom. According to South Korea's explanation, the background color of the national flag is white, which symbolizes the purity and love for peace of the Korean people. The whole national flag represents the ideal of the Korean people to develop harmoniously with the universe forever.

The thought of Tai Chi and Eight Diagrams of the Korean flag comes from China's Zhouyi. The principles of harmony, symmetry, balance, circulation and stability represent the profound thinking of the Chinese nation on the universe and life. The Korean Peninsula has been influenced by China culture for a long time, and the Korean flag is a reflection of this influence.

There are two national flags in the world with traces of China culture, one is the Korean Taiji flag, and the other is the Bhutanese Dragon flag.

South Korea is deeply influenced by China's traditional culture, which can be seen only from the national flag. South Korea's national flag is Taiji Flag, which was formulated at the end of the Korean dynasty. It is named after Taiji Circle and is divided into two parts, which are very symmetrical. The red part above represents yang, and the blue part below represents yin. Yin and Yang are the symbols of the ancient universe, and they are opposite, achieving perfection, harmony and balance. They are also symbols of two cosmic forces: fire and water, day and night, darkness and light, male and female, heat and cold, positive and negative. The hexagrams on the flag angle also have the meaning of balance of opposites: the upper left corner is the dry hexagrams, representing the sky, and the lower right corner is the Kun hexagrams, representing the earth, symbolizing the universe from the upper and lower spaces; In the lower left corner, Li Gua represents fire, south and summer solstice, and in the upper right corner, Kangua represents water, north and winter solstice. These two hexagrams represent South and North in space. Because Korea is a north-south country, the distance between north and south is 1 100 km, and the distance between east and west is 2 16 km, so the north and south are regarded as the symbol of the whole territory. The summer solstice and the winter solstice are the longest days and nights, respectively.

The middle taiji diagram is the core of Taoist natural thought, but it changes the basic black and white tone of Yin and Yang fish in China Taiji diagram into red and blue tone, which is a series of symbols of fire, water, sun and moon, movement, land and sea. But its basic concept is yin and yang, which is the way of "one yin and one yang". In this way, a person can "have one, two, two and three." The four hexagrams around them are the reflection of Yi-ology, the means of Confucian "recruiting people by providence" and the central idea of the artificial universe.

On the whole, the South Korean national flag is rigid in the outer circle and combined with yin and yang, which embodies the tolerant spirit and simple dialectical thought of ancient China culture. External Confucianism and internal Taoism, external Confucianism and its persistent pursuit of career, orderly management order; It embodies the dialectical principle of using internal Tao to cultivate individual body and mind and benefit others and themselves. Its background color is white, which symbolizes the ideal of the Korean people's harmonious development with the universe forever.