Staff Legends 109
religious sanction to monastic violence; on the other, fighting monks changed
the image of their tutelary divinities to fit their own martial training. In this in-
stance, the ancient vajra holder, Vajrapâÿi, was transformed into a staff expert,
progenitor of the renowned Shaolin fighting technique.
His transformation into a staff expert would not be the last in Vajrapâÿi’s
Shaolin career. Twentieth-century images of the tutelary divinity reveal a
clenched fist, attesting to his mastery of empty-handed fighting. As we will see
in the next chapter, by the eighteenth century hand combat (quan) gradually
eclipsed the staff as the dominant form of Shaolin fighting.