樂活養生 太極武術

Martial Arts Legend from a Historical Point of View – Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple is very famous in Wuxia novels, so everyone is curious about it. A brief introduction of the temple is provided below. The Shaolin Temple was established in 494 AD by Emperor Xiaowen for an Indian monk, Buddhabhadra, and not for Bodhidharma. From historical records, it appears that Bodhidharma never set foot in Shaolin Temple. Rather, it was the disciple of Duddhabhadra, Sengchou (the second abbot), that introduced martial arts into the Shaolin Temple. However, Zen Buddhism was not promoted and Sengchou did not practice Zen, therefore the concept of “Martial arts and Zen are unified”did not exist. Furthermore, the Northern Wei Dynasty was not stable, and numerous assets held in temples were sought after by bandits. Thus, it was common for temples to possess some capabilities in self-defense. The Shaolin Temple was significantly important in Buddhism and held a certain position, but we will skip this part for now.  

The Shaolin Temple established its importance in the place of martial arts in 621 AD, when 13 monks caught general Ren-zhe Wang and changed allegiance to Shi Min Li, the Duke of Qin who later became the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty; this was the origin of the legendary tale of “13 Shaolin Pole Fighting Monks Saving the Imperial Heir.” The number of monks in the Shaolin Temple peaked at 2000 later in the Yuan Dynasty. Many students from the Shaolin Temple have been appointed as officials in various locations. However, most monks took refuge by the end of the Yuan Dynasty as many rebellions led by the “Red Turbans” occurred in different regions, as it was time of chaos. Only 40 to 50 monks remained.

The martial arts ability of the Shaolin Temple was well-known all over. However, Dayou Yu, a general in the Ming Dynasty that fought against Japanese pirates, travelled to the Shaolin Temple to observe the monks' fighting techniques. He was disappointed with the monk's fighting techniques and claimed that, “The temple was best known for their swordsmanship, but from what I have seen, this is a false claim, the skills have been lost.”He then taught martial arts to some of the monks he picked, and asked them to return to the temple and to teach others. We know that “All martial arts originated from the Shaolin Temple,” but we can also say that “Every martial art enters the Shaolin Temple.”The Shaolin Temple is known for pole fighting technique. Chong Dou Cheng wrote the Shaolin Staff Ancient Manual, a three volume work, in 1616. The glory of the Shaolin Temple remained in decline due to fighting and wars. There were about 200 monks in the temple by the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republican Era. Many invaluable documents were destroyed when the warlord You San Shih set fire to the temple. However, the disaster did not end for the Shaolin Temple. The temple has only about 30 acres of land after the Communist regime implement “Land Reform.” This was only enough for the 14 monks that resided in the temple to support themselves. The Shaolin Temple experienced another tragedy during the“Cultural Revolution;” the lives of the monks were difficult, and no time or effort was devoted to learn the words, chant sutras, or to practice martial arts. 

“Shaolin Temple,” a kung fu film in 1982 changed everything by starting a frenzy of learning Shaolin martial arts. The Shaolin Temple and Shaolin martial arts were carefully packaged and marketed, along with promotion by movies and novels; by the 1990s, numerous martial arts schools were set up around the temple with the number of students totaling 32,000. The Shaolin Temple has become a window to Chinese martial arts through evolution, and has started to promote Chinese martial arts to the world.