Shaolin Kung fu origins article:

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

thanks shen

[Sheng]

I truly wonder where you sourced this from… To put it in a nutshell, this article is brimming with falsities, unjustifiable myths and pure nonsense (not to mention all the confusingly wrong spellings of names and places).

Just take the claim that “Monks of the Shaolin Temple specialized in kung fu have continued teaching Bodhidharma's techniques since 539 CE”. This simply is utter nonsense. Fact is that Shaolin martial activities can be traced back to the 7th Century. But there is no evidence whatsoever that for instance the fighting monks that supported the Prince of Qin, Li Shimin (the later Tang emperor Taizong) against his adversity Wang Shichong in 621 AD used anything else than the common Tang weaponry of the times or had already developed their own unique fighting method (not to mention Kung Fu). But it was precisely this military victory that established a) the reputation of Shaolin’s monks as able and loyal (to the court that is) soldiers or rather “monastic troops” (sengbing in Chinese) and gave it considerable leverage at the Tang court, made the monastery an affluent landowner and guaranteed its existence throughout the waves of Buddhist persecution and suppression during the Tang era. Shaolin’s renown pole fighting and hand combat techniques most likely evolved much later and over centuries and were definitely fully present by the mid-Ming dynasty (in the 15th Century), as a plethora of publications, martial arts manuals and novels testifies.

But of course ol’, lovable legends never die and, hey, doesn’t Jet and all these other Wushu acrobats look incredible in the immortal Fu classic SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1982) that portrays the Shaolin fighting monks supporting Li Shimin as shapes-busting Kung Fu warriors? In any event, this was the film that put the monastery back on the (Mainland) map and turned it into a million dollar commercial enterprise (the film is even blessed with its own stele inside the monastery).

I visited Shaolin twice last week and frankly, the amount of tourists there nowadays rivals the throngs you encounter at Xian’s terracotta army or Beijing’s Forbidden City. And of course the myths attributed to the temple in the still beautiful Songshan mountains are still mushrooming, they’re part of the attraction and therefore they’re incessantly recounted by a veritable army of tourist guides (over 300 on a busy day!). And, yes, they also do peddle the myth that Da Mo (Bodidharma’s Chinese name) taught the monks Kung Fu. Which is just as believable as the inscriptions on the stone tablet outside the cave on the Wuro peak above the monastery where Da Mo supposedly meditated for nine years that claim that the imprint of his shadow can still be seen inside on the cave’s walls and that birds built their nests on the motionless Indian sage’s head and shoulders – but never defecated on the man!

Anybody who’s truly interested in a sound & serious study of the temple’s history that tries to dispel the web of legends around it (like, for instance, that the monastery was destroyed by the “evil” Manchu government. Well, it wasn’t….) should delve into Meir Shahar’s lucidly writtenTHE SHAOLIN MONASTRY – HISTORY, RELIGION AND THE CHINESE MARTIAL ARTS. (University of Hawai press, 2008).

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

Thanks Shen i would luv to read the book you suggested.

GD Y-Y

[sifu iron perm]

will order that book for further reading..

thanks again fellow posters!