Monk's Spade

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A monk's spade (Chinese: 月牙鏟; pinyin: yuèyáchǎn; literally "Moon-Tooth Spade") is a Chinese pole weapon consisting of a long pole with a flat spade-like blade on one end and a smaller crescent shaped blade on the other. In old China, Buddhist monks often carried spades (shovels) with them when travelling. This served two purposes: if they came upon a corpse on the road, they could properly bury it with Buddhist rites, and the large implement could serve as a weapon for self-defence against bandits. Over time, they were stylised into the monk's spade weapon.

It is most famous for being the weapon of Sha Wujing, the "Sand Monk" from the 16th-Century classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, but the weapon is also historically associated with the Shaolin monks and features in the martial arts wushu, gongfu, and shaolin kung fu. It has been widely used in kung fu cinema (notably by Lau Kar-Fai in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin), and is used by the Shaolin priest in the online game Dragon Fist 2 and by Monk Zeng in Jade Empire.