LEGEND

Oral tradition tells us that abut A.D. 520 and Indian Buddhist monk arrived in China. He eventually settled at the shaolin temple at Sung Shan in Honan province. This monk was Ta Mo (Bohdidharma), as he is more popularly known. It is said that the original shaolin temple (Shaolin-Ssu) was located just below the peak and on the northern side of Sung Shan, one of the great mountains in Honan. This temple was allegedly built by Emperor Hsiao Wen of the northern Wei Dynasty (A.D. 386-534).

Ta Mo introduced some very conservative Buddhist doctrines at the Honan shaolin temple, as he was opposed to the highly ritualistic and extravagantly ceremonial religious practices that he found there. He held that the practice of sitting in solitude for the purpose of meditating was the core of a superior kind of religious Buddhism, and in support of his belief he allegedly sat in meditation for nine years while facing a wall in the courtyard of that temple. Ta Mo’s kind of Buddhism is said to be the basis of what is today known as Ch’an, and he is considered its first patriarch.

At the shaolin temple in Honan, Ta Mo became disturbed over the fact that monks there frequently became sleepy and fell asleep during their meditation periods. He thereupon designed special exercises by which the monks could increase their stamina and so stay awake. In “The I- Ching”, (Book of Changes or Muscle-Change Classic), a work that is attributed to Ta Mo, we find described and illustrated eighteen such basic exercises for the purpose of improving one’s general health. These exercises are believed by some people to be the basis of Tiek-Soo-Chang, a category of Hand-to-Hand arts.

Thereafter, the Honan shaolin temple attracted men from all walks of life, and became a source and training ground for persons who engaged in the practice of fighting arts. Although in time many systems of fighting forms evolved out of and from the monks of the shaolin temple. Many of the exponents of fighting arts who trained at the Honan shoaling temple became involved in the political intrigues of the various Chinese dynasties that were constantly seeking to become the absolute ruler of all China. For example, during the T’ang defeat of the rebel Wang Shih-Ch’ing.

A second shaolin temple, supposedly constructed over a thousand years ago at Chuan Chow in Fukien providence in South China, is also recorded in Chinese legends. A Buddhist priest named Ta Tsun-Shen is believed to have founded it. This temple, too, eventually became a center for combative activity, and consequently is said to have played an important role in the political histories of various dynasties.

Both temples; the one at Sung Shan in the north and that at Chuan Chow in the south, were, during years of warring, frequently razed on the grounds of alleged sedition against the government. Only a few of the occupants of these temples managed to escape the wrath of the imperial troops sent to destroy them. The more fortunate of these fugitives avoided detection by going their separate ways to other areas of China and elsewhere, where they continued their study and practice of the fighting arts.

The fame of the Fukien shaolin temple became particularly widespread as exponents of combative arts converged there to further their skills. The Ch’ing (Manchu) government (1644-1911) was grateful to this temple when during the reign of Emperor K’ang Hsi (1672), 108 shaolin temple monks volunteered for military service against the marauding bands 0f barbarians who were massing on China’s western borders. These monks’ displayed skill and heroism in expelling the invaders. But a short time later, when it was discovered that the Fukien shaolin temple monks were actually rebels who dreamed of restoring the Ming government and who were searching for an opportunity to launch their own uprising, the Ch’ing ordered the destruction of the Fukien shaolin temple and massacre of its occupants. Five monks, later honored as the fie early founding fathers, escaped by hiding under a bridge, and were taken into hiding by five brave men who were subsequently referred to as the five middle founding fathers, and together with the priest Wan Yun-Loong (Ten-Thousand-Cloud Dragon) and Ch’en Chin-Nan (Great Ancestor), did battle against the Manchu forces in the northern province of Hopei. The spirit of their uprising spread rapidly southward and inspired others to join in the fight against the Manchu government. Each of the five original monk fugitives from the Fukien shoaling temple is believed to have established his own particular kind of shaolin, and collectively these five kinds of shaolin are traditionally held to be the prototypes of the shaolin arts as we know it today. Thus, Tiek-Soo-Chang began its most rapid growth as we know it today.

THE HISTORY

Most of what is traditionally said about the shaolin temples is unconfirmed and unverifiable; it is the basis of endless variations on colorful but highly improbable happenings such as from the bulk of plots of Chinese folklore and the dramatized versions of heroics that take place on the modern Chinese popular stage. Although, the text of the preceding two pages are as it was taught to me by my instructor, the late Grandmaster Alan Lee, as it was taught to him., But, because there may be some factual basis for even the most exaggerated of these stories, modern exponents and scholars of Chinese hand-to-had arts continue their efforts to discover the truth about the shaolin temples and their effect on Chinese society.