The Southern Shaolin Monastery or Nan-Shaolin (南少林) is the name of a Buddhist monastery whose existence and location are both disputed although associated ruins have been identified. By tradition, it is considered a source of Nanquan.
In some accounts of the burning of the Shaolin Temple, it was the Southern temple that was burnt and destroyed by the Qing authorities, not the Northern temple. In these accounts with the Southern temple destroyed there remained just the Five Elders to continue the traditions of the Southern temple, and as the elders fled and dispersed throughout Southern China they established the lineages that gave rise to the Hung, Lau, Choi, Lee, Mok and Wing Chun styles and those styles that derive from them such as Cai Li Fo. It is said that after the government destroyed the first temple Chee Seen, one of the Five Elders went on to build a second southern Shaolin Temple at Jiulian Shan (Nine Lotus Mountain) which was also later destroyed by the Qing government with the help of Pak Mei and Fung Dou Dak, two of Five Elders who defected from the Shaolin.
