Page 410 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 403
Yin

The female principle yin is associated with the earth, with the North and with cold.
Originally and properly, the word yin means the ‘shady side’ – that side of a mountain
which is not facing the sun. In the ancient Shi-jing (‘Book of Odes’ – 8th–6th century
BC) yin means ‘what is inner’, ‘inside’ (nei), and also the cloud-covered heavens. The
word was also used to denote the dark, cool room in which ice was stored in summer.
The ‘Yin-mountain’ is a mountain in the fifth or sixth hell, peopled by those who
have died more sinned against than sinning. In the ‘Yin-office’ (yin-si) sits the Earth-god:
he conducts a preliminary hearing, as it were, of dead persons, before handing them over
for a more thorough investigation to the ‘Judge of Hell’ (yin-cao).
In any reference to the names of both natural principles, yin and yang, yin always
takes precedence, in contrast to the normal order of things in China where woman takes
second place to man. Many caves are known where yin-stones and yang-stones are found;
the latter are always dry, the former always wet. In time of drought female stones were
beaten with whips; when the rain was too heavy or went on for too long, male stones
received the same encouragement. The term ‘Yin-rain’ refers to rain which, while heavy,
is not too violent.
In the eight trigrams of the Yi-jing, the broken lines are known as ‘yin-lines’.