Emei School

This article is about the fictional martial arts school in wuxia fiction. For the real-life martial arts traditions, see Emeiquan.

The Emei School is a fictional martial arts school mentioned in several works of wuxia fiction. It is commonly featured as one of the leading orthodox schools in the wulin (martial artists' community). It is named after the place where it is based, Mount Emei.

Emei School
Traditional Chinese	峨嵋派
Simplified Chinese	峨嵋派
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Éméi Pài Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Ngo4mei4 Paai3 Jyutping Ngo4-mei4 Paai3

History

In Jin Yong's The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, the Emei School is founded in the early Yuan dynasty by Guo Xiang around the same time as the Wudang School.^[1] Guo Xiang is the sole descendant of the Guo family from The Return of the Condor Heroes after the Battle of Xiangyang. She escapes from Xiangyang with the Heaven Reliant Sword (倚天劍; yǐ tiān jiàn), becomes a powerful martial artist and roams the jianghu as a youxia. At the age of 40, she becomes a nun and founds the Emei School. Abbess Fengling becomes her successor, who in turn, is succeeded by Abbess Miejue.^[1]

In Jin Yong's works, the school's members are predominantly women and its leaders are Buddhist/Taoist nuns. In wuxia works by other writers, the Emei School has members of both sexes, who play equally important roles in the school.^{[citation needed]}

In Sword Stained with Royal Blood, set in the late Ming dynasty, Emei is briefly mentioned as one of the "Four Great Sword Schools" and has male members as well.^[2] In Gu Long's The Kingdom of the Golden Bird of the Lu Xiaofeng Series, Emei is led by Dugu Yihe, who is slain by Ximen Chuixue.^[3]

Skills and martial arts

In Jin Yong's novels, Emei's martial arts are the best among those suited for women. The origins of Emei's martial arts come from its founder, Guo Xiang.^[1] Guo's martial arts were mostly inherited from her family, including some of Huang Yaoshi (her maternal grandfather)'s skills.^[4] She also learnt part of the Nine Yang Manual from Jueyuan in her younger days.^[1] However, it does have some elements of unorthodox skills, as exhibited by Zhou Zhiruo when she uses the "Nine Yin White Bone Claw" (九陰白骨爪; jiǔ yīn bái gǔ zhuǎ) after finding the Nine Yin Manual (九陰真經; jiǔ yīn zhēn jīng).^[1]

Emei's martial arts range from powerful inner energy cultivation techniques to the use of weapons and unarmed combat. They encompass the Twelve Movements (動功十二桩; dòng gōng shí èr zhuāng) and the Six Specially Mastered Skills (靜功六大專修功; jìng gōng liù dà zhuān xiū gōng). Emei's members primarily use the sword. They also use needles and hairpins, called the "Prick of Emei" (峨嵋刺; Éméi cì) or "Jade Maiden Hairpin" (玉女簪; yù nǚ zhān), as projectile weapons to be thrown at enemies. The most powerful of Emei's skills are the 'Emei Swordplay' and the 36 styles of dianxue (三十六式天罡指穴法; sān shí liù shì tiān gāng zhǐ xué fǎ).

Like Wudang, Emei's skills have two sides to them, encompassing elements of "softness" and "roughness" and "long range" and "short range" attacks, all in the same style of fighting. They rotate between deceptive and direct attacks and can be used effectively by women to overcome opponents who are physically stronger than them. Some movements in Emei's swordplays are feminine in nature and are named after beauties in Chinese history and Chinese idioms used to describe feminine beauty.

See also

• Mount Emei
• Emeiquan

Notes

1. Cha, Louis. The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber. Ming Pao, 1961.
2. Cha, Louis. Sword Stained with Royal Blood. Ming Pao, 1956.
3. Gu Long. The Legend of Lu Xiaofeng.
4. Cha, Louis. The Return of the Condor Heroes. Ming Pao, 1959.