Talk:Shaolin Monastery

Wooden dummies

I'm surprised there's nothing on famous Wooden Dummy labyrinth of Shaolin in this article. It's pretty famous and worth noticing, either as historical fact or just popular modern times myth. I don't know which one is true :) p.s. not sure how is it called in English --78.62.150.245 (talk) 19:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The dummies you are thinking about did comprise a labrynth, but they were just like the dummies used all over China in Wing Chun and other arts. Except that in Shao-lin there were 108 of them in rows facing each other.

Lots of cool legendary stuff about Shao-lin is unsourced. Even in China much of it is seen as legend. For example, the more obvious omission from here is Ta Lin, the "Great Forest" which is the burial place of all previous masters--that is a real place and is even seen in certain films.

The Pool of Nine Dragons is also confirmed as a place of practice and purification. Without original Shao-lin historical sources, those cannot really be cited either. There are so many more stories that are legends.75.21.155.253 (talk) 15:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

i'll gradually add the Talin and the dragons pool to the article. SHemmati10 (talk) 16:35, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Shaolin temple have not had such dummies. those kinds of dummies and tools are used mostly in the southern provinces of China and have no relevance to Shaolin temple. however, the name Shaolin is used somehow randomly as a brand name for many temples in southern and northern China. many of these temples use dummies. SHemmati10 (talk) 5:35 pm, Today (UTC+1)

Shao-lin Ssu

Could we at least open a discussion here as to why "Shao-lin Ssu" cannot be included in the transliteration? You are making a mere point of view if you think people only say it as "si". In the dialect they speak up there, where it counts, it is pronounced "Ssu". The "si" you mention is Cantonese speech--and by the way, if you choose to transliterate with "si" you must also put "Siu-lum", which is the way those dialects pronounce it. Otherwise you are simply putting a wrong transliteration.

Also, could the editor interefering with grammatical improvements make a better argument than "it was OK as it was"?76.195.82.230 (talk) 19:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You are confusing pronunciation with orthography, and your edit was reverted because you incorrectly claimed "ssu" to be pinyin and altered the valid pinyin romanization. Also, take care not to mix Cantonese and Mandarin together as you did with the Cantonese addition,. Ergative rlt (talk) 22:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid Ergative is correct. Please see this dictionary entry. Notice the provided Cantonese equivalents in the right hand corner. Ssu is the older Wade-Giles representation of sì, which is Pinyin. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Shao-lin Ssu

Could we at least open a discussion here as to why "Shao-lin Ssu" cannot be included in the transliteration? You are making a mere point of view if you think people only say it as "si". In the dialect they speak up there, where it counts, it is pronounced "Ssu". The "si" you mention is Cantonese speech--and by the way, if you choose to transliterate with "si" you must also put "Siu-lum", which is the way those dialects pronounce it. Otherwise you are simply putting a wrong transliteration.

Also, could the editor interefering with grammatical improvements make a better argument than "it was OK as it was"?76.195.82.230 (talk) 19:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You are confusing pronunciation with orthography, and your edit was reverted because you incorrectly claimed "ssu" to be pinyin and altered the valid pinyin romanization. Also, take care not to mix Cantonese and Mandarin together as you did with the Cantonese addition,. Ergative rlt (talk) 22:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid Ergative is correct. Please see this dictionary entry. Notice the provided Cantonese equivalents in the right hand corner. Ssu is the older Wade-Giles representation of sì, which is Pinyin. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Meat Eating

"During the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Taizong granted the Shaolin Temple extra land and special "imperial dispensation" to eat meat and drink, making Shaolin the only Buddhist temple in China that's not dry, although this practice is ceased today.[12]" Professor Shahar does not corroborate the above paragraph, in page 46 of The Shaolin Monastery History, Religion and The Martial Arts one can read: "...it is hard to know weather this novel approach to carnivorousness preceded the movie or originated with it". Also in the Shaolin Monatery Stele on Mount Song by Tonami Mamoru, there is not mentioned of Li Shimin granting permission to eat meat; the rewards as translated by Mamoru are: "forty qing of lands and one watermill" pages 17-18, 35. Not every book out there is a reliable source, I sugest to remove or modify the paragraph. (talk) 21:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.72.39.126 (talk)

Shi Yongxin Fojia

Abbot Shi Yongxin has no clearly cited or sourced list of ancestry, therefore I have removed the name of the Shao-lin abbot who preceded him. In fact there is no clear statement about who served as abbot before Shi Yongxin Fojia. I myself have seen at least three "Shao-lin abbots" AT THE SAME TIME, all immediately preceding Shi Yongxin Fojia.

Because of the Communist iron grip in China, I do not trust any lineages or Shi Yongxin for that matter, but I will keep that to myself. You need to clarify this Communist repression and scheming in the section on Shao-lin's recent history. You do not mention the fleeing of Shao-lin priests to Taiwan, India, Hong Kong and America, for example - all AMPLY documented.

By the way, I do not require lectures about confusing Mandarin and Cantonese. It is this article that needs to be careful to be more consistent with the romanization systems. Sometimes Wade-Giles is used in place of Pinyin, and sometimes that is preferable!75.21.105.12 (talk) 11:59, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

So fix it yourself. Nothing is holding you back from making edits. Just make sure you leave any personal biases off to the side, and present reliable sources. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Sage advice to the original post; but I can't see that IP had any "personal biases".--Djathinkimacowboy ^{what now?!} 17:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I was referring to his emotionally charged statements concerning Communism (e.g., its "iron grip in China") and its supposed negative effects on later Shaolin history. I just wanted to make sure that he provided verifiable references on the subject, as opposed to his opinion. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 20:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Matthew Polly and Gene Ching have a lot to say in support of this CCP "iron grip", I think. Agreed, it must not be emotional or POV, but as I say, lots of citable material does support the general view.--Djathinkimacowboy ^{what now?!} 13:21, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Found some intresting refs

Hi I go around fixing orphans articles, durning my ref searching for Hungarian_Shaolin_Temple I found these links and they seem to be about this article str monks and [1] the last one I'm not sure if it is the Chinese or the hungarian. Please take a look and let me know. Blackash have a chat 04:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Founding myths of Kung Fu

There's an interesting discussion of these in Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge: Asian Traditions in a Transnational World, State University of New York, [2]. Dougweller (talk) 15:27, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Problems concerning current grandmaster Shi Yongxin & the temple

Besides the stories about embezzlement and having children with 2 prostitutes, there's the whole story of his more or less making a business of the temple, leading to him being referred to as the CEO monk. Eg "In February he announced plans for Shaolin to build a $297m (£190m) complex in Australia that would include a temple, a hotel, a kung fu academy and a golf course."[]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-famous-shaolin-kung-fu-temple-rocked-by-sex-and-embezzlement-scandal-10436369.html] "It could be a sticky end for the monk who has angered some in China by his ruthless commercialization of Shaolin, the birthplace of Chinese martial arts and Zen Buddhism, by renting it out for reality TV shows and computer games among other things.[3].

[4][5] and [6], which has led him to be dubbed the "CEO monk", recent scandals.[7] [8] [9] Doug Weller (talk) 15:29, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

New academic source

The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts By Meir Shahar[10]. Looks extremely useful. Doug Weller (talk) 18:49, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

relative age

Dating back 1,500 years when founded by Fang Lu-Hao ...

Is this a mistranslation? Some institutions have been called "ancient" by their founders ... —Tamfang (talk) 06:32, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

finger-punching tree ...no

no ...it makes no sense ...it wouldn't look like that ...just rubbish — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.65.215.149 (talk) 00:50, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

propaganda alert

the shaolin temple was the last remaining stronghold of the ming dynasty. it was repeatedly attacked by the qing, who failed until they finally burnt it down from the inside with help from spies around 1666. during these ming-qing wars, shaolin was at its biggest & strongest. it was burnt to a crisp and never restored since, just as china has never been chinese-governed since. the qing banned martial arts and have always despised everything about shaolin and its culture. they made a mockery of it by turning it into a gymnastic tourist attraction with no real martial technique only showy stuff.

this has all been ignored and the impression is given to the contrary - this article makes it look like nothing of significance happened in the 1600s ming era, and makes it look like the 1700s qing only loved the shaolin. utter propaganda. people in china would speak about it today, but they'd be killed for it, hence why it takes a well informed westerner like me to say it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:E209:E701:E1BD:E09C:91F9:5AF8 (talk) 18:02, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

oriental monk stereotype

Hello everyone, I just wanted to introduce myself, I am a student that will be editing this page for a class project. I will be using scholarly books, encyclopedias, and perhaps an article or two. For my project, I will be creating a new section, and writing about the oriental warrior monk trope. I plan on finding out how the Shaolin obtained this image, and also the real Shaolin and the knowledge they have to contribute to the world. SChapter (talk) 15:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi SChapter, welcome to Wikipedia, as well as this particular page. Your contributions will no doubt add a much-needed perspective on the topic. As you begin to contribute to the article, please make sure to familiarize yourself with WP:No original research in order to avoid some common pitfalls we all fall prey to. Happy editing! Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 16:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I think you have a very interesting subject to talk about and you are using a lot of different sources for that which will definitely make this page more valuable. Your oriental warrior monk trope part will add a lot of important information along with the other parts. I would suggest that you divide them into different parts so that it's easier for the reader to follow and understand. Other than that I think your have a solid plan for you page. SoloMunn (talk) 04:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Asian Religions in America

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SChapter (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Skidepedia23, The Purple Hamster.

— Assignment last updated by Ziegenbalg66 (talk) 00:35, 16 November 2022 (UTC)