Sources & Method

Wulin aims to be a rigorously sourced, fair-use knowledge base for Chinese martial arts — not received opinion or forum lore. Three kinds of material carry the weight: public-domain primary texts (the old training manuals 拳譜 and classics, in the original language), reputable scholarship, and our own summaries and translations. This page states what we draw on and how we cite it, so any claim here can be traced to a source you can check yourself.

The method in brief

• Primary sources first — and public-domain where possible, so we can reproduce them in full.

• Scholarship to interpret and corroborate — cited, never pasted.

• Living-tradition and in-copyright material — we link at the source; we do not re-host.

• Honesty about legend versus history — origin myths are labeled as legend.

What we reproduce versus link

We reproduce a text in full only when it is public domain in the United States (first published before 1931, under the 95-year term); Republican-era manuals cross that line on a rolling basis. Many old Chinese manuals are public domain in their source country (China and Taiwan use life + 50 years) but not yet in the US — for those we link to a freely accessible scan and cite it rather than hosting it. Every item notes its status.

Where the originals live

The richest open reservoirs for the original-language manuals:

• National Library of China scans on Wikimedia Commons (NLC416-\* filenames) — Republican-era 拳譜, downloadable by catalog ID.

• 臺灣華文電子書庫 (Taiwan eBook) — taiwanebook.ncl.edu.tw — free 1911–1949 scans.

• Harvard-Yenching rare books (IIIF) for the Daoist and medical roots; ctext.org and guoxuedashi.com for transcribed text.

• For Praying Mantis specifically, the key trove is the CUHK 黃漢勛 (Wong Hon Fan) special collection — browser-only.

Scholarship we rely on

All are in copyright: we summarize and cite, quoting at most one short phrase (under 15 words) with attribution.

How we cite

• Public-domain first — PD originals may be quoted and reproduced in the original language.

• In-copyright works are summarized and cited, never pasted — one short attributed quotation at most.

• Legend is labeled as legend — Wang Lang and the mantis, Bodhidharma and the 易筋經, the wandering-Daoist founder tales: tradition, not documented history.