The Holy land of the Shaolin

Buddhist monk’s staff or staff of authority (chin.: xizhang 錫杖) is also known as walking stick with sound (chin.: yousheng zheng 有声杖), wisdom cane (chin.: zhizhang 智杖) and virtue cane (chin.: de zhang 徳杖). In sanskrit it is known as “khakkhara”.

The monk’s staff usually consists of a wooden pole (chin.: mugan 木桿) topped with a metal finial with two sections, each with three rings (chin.: taohuang 套環). In India, the xizhang’s metal rings were originally used by travelling priests to alert small creatures to keep them from accidentally being harmed by a priest when walking in the woods. It was also used to frighten away dangerous snakes or beasts that the priest might have encountered. The xizhang could also serve as a cane to help the priest walk. When begging, he rattled this staff to announce his arrival at the door or gate of a household without breaking the vow of silence (speaking only the Buddhist Dharma, or scriptures).

The Monk Staff or monk’s mendicant staff known to Buddhists as Staff of authority is an almost unknown sacred hieratic object, which is still used in formal Buddhist ceremonies. Every Temple all around China has its own xizhang which handed down from one Abbot (chin.: fangzhang 方丈) to another. For Shaolin Temple this sacred object called Chan Zhang (禪杖) and is also used as a weapon although it is rarely practiced any more.

The piercing tiny clanging of the magical rings of the Xi Zhang only strengthened my feelings of timelessness.

Master Shi Yong Po (師父 释永坡)

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