Shaolin Sect
| Shaolin Sect | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 少林派 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 少林派 | ||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Shàolín Paì |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | Siu3-lam4 Paai3 |
The Shaolin Sect is a fictional martial arts sect mentioned in several works of wuxia fiction. It is one of the largest and best known orthodox sects in the wulin (martial artists' community). Its home base is in Shaolin Monastery, Henan, China. It is also sometimes referred to as "Shaolin Monastery" or "Shaolin Temple" instead of "Shaolin Sect".
Apart from playing the role of a leading righteous sect in the wulin in wuxia novels, Shaolin is also featured in popular culture and martial arts films such as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978), Shaolin Temple (1982), and Shaolin (2011). It is also synonymous with Chinese martial arts as it is mentioned in wuxia stories as the origin of all Chinese martial arts. It is best known worldwide for the Shaolin Kung Fu associated with the monastery.
The sect's members are predominantly Buddhist monks with a minority of non-monks known as "secular students" (俗家弟子). Apart from training in martial arts, the monks also follow Buddhist customs, and practices.
The Shaolin Sect was founded in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma founded the sect for Buddhist followers to practise martial arts, with the aims of improving health, training in self-defence, upholding justice and helping the weak. As such, Shaolin students were expected to behave ethically in addition to having a good mastery of martial arts.
The sect is led by the abbot, or fangzhang (方丈), of the monastery. Ranked below him are the elders of the sect.
Shaolin students are ranked by generation. Each member of a certain generation has a prefix before his Buddhist name to indicate his position in the Shaolin hierarchy. In Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, the most senior generation is the Xuan (玄) generation. The abbot is Xuanci (玄慈) and several elders such as Xuanji (玄寂), Xuannan (玄難), Xuandu (玄渡) and Xuanku (玄苦) also have a "Xuan" prefix in their names. One of the novel's three protagonists, Xuzhu (虛竹), is from the Xu (虛) generation, which is two generations below the Xuan generation.
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