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of the “Purple Coagulation Man of the Way.” Chang Naizhou compared his
own external method to the Sinews Transformation Classic’s internal technique,
and Wu Jingzi attributed the strength of his knight errant protagonist Feng
Mingqi to his reliance on it.^86 It is perhaps noteworthy that the latter has been
modeled after the historical martial artist Gan Fengchi (fl. 1730) with whom
the novelist might have been personally familiar (both were Nanjing natives).
It has been pointed out that Wu tended to leave clues—in this instance the
character “feng”—to his protagonists’ identity.^87
The Sinews Transformation Classic is the earliest extant manual that assigns
daoyin gymnastics a martial role. Its likely author, the “Purple Coagulation Man
of the Way,” was the first to explicitly associate military, therapeutic, and religious
goals in one training routine. As such, the manual holds an important position
in the history of Chinese hand combat. From the perspective of Shaolin fighting,
however, the Sinews Transformation Classic bears another significance. Even
though it had been authored outside the monastery, the manual formulated a
legend that was eventually adopted by the Shaolin monks themselves, namely
that their martial arts were created by the Buddhist saint Bodhidharma.
The Bodhidharma Legend
It has been pointed out that forgery played a significant role in the siniciza-
tion of Buddhism. Beginning in the early medieval period, Chinese authors
did not shy from attributing their Buddhist writings to historical or fictional
Indian monks, who supposedly penned them in Sanskrit. Presented as if
they had been translated from the Buddha’s native tongue, apocryphal scrip-
tures contributed to the emergence of an indigenous Chinese Buddhism.^88
That the creator of the Sinews Transformation Classic ascribed his manual to
an Indian author (and translator) is therefore not unprecedented. What is
novel perhaps is the boldness of his fabrication. No less than a thousand
years separate the “Purple Coagulation Man of the Way” from the person to
whom he attributed his writings: Bodhidharma (fl. 500).
The claim that the Indian saint had authored the Sinews Transformation
Classic is made in an elaborately forged preface, which is signed by the re-
nowned general Li Jing (571–649), who had led the Tang army to numerous
victories in China and central Asia. The general explains that the manual has
been handed down to him from Bodhidharma through a chain of Buddhist
saints and martial heroes, and that his own military achievements have been
due to his reliance on it. The preface serves therefore to enhance the manual’s
prestige. The Sinews Transformation Classic was the source of a famous general’s
strategic genius:
During the Northern Wei Emperor Xiaomingdi’s Taihe reign period
(477– 4 9 9),^89 the Great Master Bodhidharma traveled from the Kingdom