114 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation
travelogues and poems of late Ming visitors to Shaolin such as Wang Shixing
(who explored it in 1581), Gong Nai (jinshi 1601), Wen Xiangfeng (jinshi
1610), and Yuan Hongdao (who visited the monastery in 1609). However, it is
hard to gauge the importance of unarmed fighting in Shaolin’s regimen
from their poetic compositions, which were meant to convey the monastery’s
ambiance, not to analyze its military techniques.^3
Curiously, the clearest indication that late Ming Shaolin monks were
turning their attention to hand combat is provided by the most vocal expo-
nent of their staff method, Cheng Zongyou. In his Shaolin Staff Method (ca.
1610), the staff expert has a hypothetical interlocutor ask: Why do Shaolin
monks practice bare-handed fighting? Cheng’s answer acknowledges that
some monks were seriously engaged in hand combat, even as it leaves no
doubt that, for them, it was a newly acquired fighting style. Furthermore,
Cheng explains that throughout China, empty-handed techniques are not
yet widely practiced, which is precisely why Shaolin monks explore them—
they wish to develop hand combat to the same level of perfection as their an-
cient staff method. Cheng’s reply associates the Shaolin investigation of the
novel martial art with Buddhist self-cultivation:
Someone may ask: “As to the staff, the Shaolin [method] is admired.
Today there are many Shaolin monks who practice hand combat (quan),
and do not practice staff. Why is that?
I answer: The Shaolin staff is called the Yakºa (Yecha) [method]. It
is a sacred transmission from the Kiœnara King ( Jinnaluo wang)
(Shaolin’s tutelary deity, Vajrapâÿi). To this day it is known as “unsur-
passed wisdom (Bodhi)” (wushang puti). By contrast, hand combat is not
yet popular in the land (quan you wei shengxing hainei). Those [Shaolin
monks] who specialize in it, do so in order to transform it, like the staff,
[into a vehicle] for reaching the other shore [of enlightenment].”^4The Hand Combat Classic and Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points
Which shape did seventeenth-century Shaolin hand combat take? A possible
answer is provided by two Qing period (1644–1911) manuals, which purport to
record it. The two treatises, which share similarities so striking that they have
been treated by scholars as two versions of one work, circulated in Qing manu-
script editions before being published in Shanghai during the Republican era
(1912–1949). They are: Hand Combat Classic, Collection of Hand Combat Methods
(Quan jing, Quan fa beiyao), with a preface of 1784 by Cao Huandou (style: Zai-
dong), and Xuanji’s Secret Transmission of Acupuncture Points’ Hand Combat Formu-
las (Xuanji mishou xuedao quan jue), which carries an undated preface by one
Zhang Ming’e.
The Hand Combat Classic and Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points trace their military