Glossary / Divine Weapons
Divine Weapons in Chinese: 78 Terms and Their English Renderings
Famous weapons with names of their own, which arrive with a story attached.
78 terms
| Chinese | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 金箍棒 | Golden Cudgel | The pillar from the dragon king's palace that shrinks to a needle behind the ear and weighs eight tons. Games give it a spin attack because the source material already does. |
| 如意金箍棒 | Ruyi Golden Cudgel | The full name, meaning the staff that obeys its owner's wish. The 'as you like it' part is a size control, not a personality trait. |
| 定海神针 | Sea-Calming Pillar | What the cudgel was before anyone picked it up: a measuring rod holding the sea floor steady. Removing it is why the sea floods in some tellings. |
| 紫金葫芦 | Purple-Gold Gourd | A gourd that answers to a name and then swallows whoever responds. The trick is that it must hear the answer, so the counter is to stay silent. |
| 羊脂玉净瓶 | Jade Bottle of Guanyin | The vase that holds enough water to put out a mountain of fire. It is the standard healing item for the highest tier of characters. |
| 芭蕉扇 | Banana-Leaf Fan | One wave puts out fire, another raises wind, a third brings rain. A weapon that works through weather rather than impact. |
| 乾坤圈 | Universe Ring | A golden ring thrown to strike, then returned to the hand. Nezha's version is the one everyone copies. |
| 混天绫 | Cosmos Silk Ribbon | A length of red silk that binds and drags. Looks like cloth, behaves like a rope with a will. |
| 火尖枪 | Fire-Tipped Spear | The spear Nezha carries, tipped with flame. Spear techniques of fire alignment borrow its name for their final move. |
| 风火轮 | Wind-Fire Wheels | The wheels under Nezha's feet that carry him faster than running. The genre's earliest flight item, and still the most recognisable. |
| 番天印 | Sky-Flipping Seal | A seal that drops with the weight of a mountain. It does not slash or burn; it simply arrives. |
| 乾坤弓 | Universe Bow | A bow that shoots without an arrow, producing a light shaft. Precise, and useless once the target closes in. |
| 穿心锁 | Heart-Piercing Lock | A chain that encircles the chest and tightens on command. Capture tool rather than a killing one. |
| 诛仙剑 | Immortal-Slaying Sword | One of four swords set in a formation that kills anything that enters. The sword matters less than the array it belongs to. |
| 诛仙剑阵 | Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation | The four-sword array that requires four masters to break. It is the benchmark for 'impossible to defeat' in the genre. |
| 打神鞭 | God-Beating Whip | A whip that only works on gods and mortals who have been ranked. It is the bureaucratic kind of power: it hits titles, not bodies. |
| 落宝金钱 | Treasure-Falling Coin | A coin that knocks any flying treasure out of the air. Against weapons it does nothing, which is the balance. |
| 落魂钟 | Soul-Dropping Bell | A bell whose ring pulls the soul loose. Countered by plugging the ears, so scenes using it are about reaction time. |
| 阴阳镜 | Yin-Yang Mirror | A mirror that kills on one face and revives on the other. It turns every fight into a question of which side is showing. |
| 金蛟剪 | Golden Flood Dragon Shears | A pair of scissors that turn into two dragons and cut anything. Absolute, and famously hard to aim. |
| 定风珠 | Wind-Calming Pearl | Cancels wind attacks outright. Boring until the scene is entirely wind, at which point it is the whole plot. |
| 九龙神火罩 | Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Cover | A cover that drops over a target and burns it with nine dragon fires. Escape requires breaking the cover, which is the point. |
| 乾坤袋 | Universe Bag | A bag that swallows troops and holds them. Different from a storage ring: this one captures people. |
| 幌金绳 | Golden Rope | A rope that binds anyone who is not already stronger than its owner. The loophole is written into it. |
| 七星剑 | Seven-Star Sword | A sword keyed to the seven stars of the dipper. Its strikes follow a sequence, so the defence is recognising the pattern. |
| 三尖两刃刀 | Three-Point Double-Edged Blade | The polearm carried by Erlang Shen. Two cutting edges and a point, heavy, used with a sweeping style. |
| 哮天犬 | Howling Celestial Dog | The dog that fights alongside Erlang Shen and bites gods. Comic relief that is genuinely dangerous in every adaptation. |
| 九齿钉耙 | Nine-Toothed Rake | The rake Zhu Bajie carries. Nine teeth, absurdly heavy, and used with farming motions that the text plays for laughs. |
| 降妖宝杖 | Demon-Subduing Staff | Sha Wujing's weapon, a staff with a crescent at each end. The least famous of the pilgrimage weapons, and the most practical. |
| 月牙铲 | Crescent Spade | The monk's spade, half shovel half crescent blade. Used by guards and by anyone who has to bury what they kill. |
| 杨柳枝 | Willow Branch | The branch Guanyin dips in her vase to sprinkle healing water. The gesture does the work; the branch is just a handle. |
| 照妖镜 | Demon-Revealing Mirror | A mirror that shows a monster's true form. Useless in a fight, decisive before one. |
| 山河社稷图 | Map of Mountains and Rivers | A scroll containing a world. Trapping someone inside it is the polite version of killing them. |
| 太极图 | Taiji Diagram | A diagram that separates yin from yang and thereby unmakes whatever is inside. Its use is closer to physics than to combat. |
| 盘古幡 | Pangu Banner | A banner that splits things the way the world was split. The highest tier of area attack in the early pantheon. |
| 诛仙四剑 | The Four Immortal-Slaying Swords | Four swords that only work together. Separated, each is merely very good. |
| 五火七禽扇 | Five-Fire Seven-Bird Fan | A fan built from five fires and seven birds. Each wave produces a different fire, which makes it a puzzle item. |
| 捆仙绳 | Immortal-Binding Rope | A rope that tightens by itself once thrown. No known counter except being stronger at the moment it lands. |
| 金砖 | Golden Brick | Literally a brick, thrown at the head. The genre's favourite reminder that dignity does not protect anyone. |
| 杏黄旗 | Apricot-Yellow Banner | A banner that stops any attack from landing. Defence so absolute that using it is effectively a stalemate. |
| 三宝玉如意 | Three-Treasure Ruyi Sceptre | A sceptre that ends arguments. In adaptations it is the item a senior figure raises before the scene cuts away. |
| 九龙沉香辇 | Nine-Dragon Sandalwood Carriage | A cart pulled by dragons, used by only one figure. Its arrival means the doctrine has decided. |
| 诛仙阵图 | Diagram of the Immortal-Slaying Array | The plan rather than the swords. Owning the diagram is worth more than owning any single blade. |
| 截教四剑 | The Four Swords of Jieism | The sibling set to the orthodox swords. Novels use the split to explain why two schools of technique look similar and hate each other. |
| 混元金斗 | Chaos Golden Dipper | A container that drops over a target and holds it. Capture, not killing, which makes it worse in a long arc. |
| 山河扇 | Fan of Mountains and Rivers | A fan whose opening changes the terrain. Games implement it as a map editor with a cooldown. |
| 落魂幡 | Soul-Dropping Banner | A banner that pulls the will out of everyone facing it. Countered by closing your eyes, which nobody does in time. |
| 捆仙索 | Immortal-Binding Cord | A cord that finds its target. The harder the target struggles, the more it tightens. |
| 降魔杵 | Demon-Subduing Pestle | A weighted club carried by guardian figures. Plain, heavy, and effective against anything that needs hitting. |
| 金刚杵 | Vajra Pestle | The ritual counterpart to the above. In fiction it breaks illusions rather than bones. |
| 日月金轮 | Sun and Moon Wheels | A pair of rings thrown like blades. Two of them means two arcs, and the fight is about which returns first. |
| 紫金铃 | Purple-Gold Bell | A bell whose ring incapacitates. Used by demons more than by gods, which is why the gods keep a copy. |
| 阴阳二气瓶 | Bottle of Yin and Yang Qi | A bottle that dissolves whatever is put inside. The counter is to be invulnerable, which is the joke. |
| 七星镯 | Seven-Star Bracelet | A bracelet that binds the wrists. Small object, disproportionate effect. |
| 慈航净瓶 | Guanyin's Pure Bottle | The vase with the healing water. In games it is the party's only revive item. |
| 杨柳玉净瓶 | Willow and Jade Vase | The full name, used in formal scenes. Same object, slower description. |
| 定颜珠 | Beauty-Preserving Pearl | Stops ageing without extending life. The object behind every hundred-year-old character who looks twenty. |
| 辟火珠 | Fire-Warding Pearl | Lets the holder walk through flame. Necessary equipment for exactly one arc. |
| 辟水珠 | Water-Warding Pearl | The underwater version. Why some characters can fight in a lake and others cannot. |
| 避尘珠 | Dust-Repelling Pearl | Small, practical, and always in a rich character's possession. |
| 定风丹 | Wind-Calming Elixir | Cancels wind attacks. The counter item for the fan, which is why both appear in the same arc. |
| 敛息珠 | Presence-Hiding Pearl | Suppresses a cultivator's aura. The genre's standard stealth tool. |
| 照妖宝镜 | Demon-Seeing Mirror | Shows a creature's true shape. Wasted on anyone honest, which is the comedy. |
| 昊天镜 | Mirror of Heaven | A mirror that reflects attacks back. Its limit is that it must be facing the attack. |
| 乾坤鼎 | Universe Cauldron | A refining vessel the size of a room. Used for artifacts too large for a furnace. |
| 九幽血旗 | Blood Banner of the Nine Darknesses | A demonic standard. Raising it is how an army announces it has stopped pretending. |
| 人皇旗 | Banner of the Human Sovereign | A standard that commands human qi. In novels it is the counter to anything that draws on the heavens. |
| 祖巫战旗 | War Banner of the Ancestral Shamans | A relic of the pre-Daoist order. Older than every sect that claims it. |
| 开天斧 | World-Splitting Axe | The axe that separated heaven and earth. In games it is a one-use item, which is accurate. |
| 量天尺 | Heaven-Measuring Rule | A rod used to measure the sky, and to hit things accurately at range. Precision as a weapon. |
| 打神石 | God-Striking Stone | A projectile that only works on divinely ranked targets. The genre's way of humbling bureaucrats. |
| 沉香斧 | Chenxiang's Axe | The axe of the boy who split a mountain to free his mother. Every story using it is about a mother. |
| 劈山斧 | Mountain-Splitting Axe | The generic version. Used when a plot needs a shortcut through geography. |
| 凤凰翎 | Phoenix Plume | A feather that carries rebirth fire. Consumed on use, which makes it a decision. |
| 龙鳞甲 | Dragon Scale Armour | Armour from a real dragon, and therefore a diplomatic problem as much as a defence. |
| 蛟珠 | River-Dragon Pearl | A pearl from a lesser dragon. Cheaper than a dragon pearl and almost as useful. |
| 蜃珠 | Mirage Pearl | Produces illusions of cities and water. Used to lead armies astray. |
| 百鸟朝凤 | Hundred Birds Paying Homage | A pattern, a fan, and a formation. All three appear in different novels, which confuses translators. |
The names are older than the genre and appear in games, comics and film, so the standard renderings are worth memorising. Terms follow the free cultivation novels at cultivationnovel.com.
Source: cultivationnovel.com · Cultivation Glossary