Serving the Emperor 49
gets the impression that the magistrate had the former in mind as well. After all,
He Wei addressed his admonition to the Shaolin monks, not to their affiliates.
It appears, therefore, that his opening allusion to “subsidiary shrine monks” was
meant to save face for the Shaolin monks. Indeed, as the letter unfolds, the dis-
tinction between “monastery monks” and “subsidiary shrine monks” blurs. The
magistrate forewarns all Shaolin monks—residents and affiliates alike—that
they would be severely punished for their religious transgressions:
After the monks... read our order and are informed of its contents,
they should all purify their hearts and cleanse their minds. Each one
should burn incense, cultivate the way, and chant the sutras, as well as
plough and weed the land. As to the various types of lay people, the
monks are forbidden to collude with them in secret. Nor are the monks
allowed to interfere in outside matters, harboring criminals, and
instigating trouble. If they dare purposely disobey, and [their crimes]
happen to be exposed, we are sure to consider them more serious and
punish them accordingly.
As to the lay people, they should not be permitted into the monas-
tery.... Tenant farmers should reside elsewhere. They should not be
allowed to live near the monks.^86The magistrate’s warning suggests that he was primarily concerned with
public order, not monastic law. His edict is replete with references to hidden
criminals, which he claimed were sheltered at the Shaolin Monastery. In this
respect, He Wei resembled other officials who were concerned with viola-
tions of Buddhist law only so far as they proved that their perpetrators were
fake monks and as such prone to sedition and crime. We will see below that
throughout the Qing period the government was apprehensive—with some
reason—that graduates of Shaolin’s military program would join sectarian
rebels. In 1739, for example, the high-ranking Mongolian official Yaertu (?–
1767) memorialized the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1795) that “the sturdy
youths of Henan are accustomed to violence, many studying the martial arts.
For example, under the pretext of teaching the martial arts, the monks of
the Shaolin Temple have been gathering worthless dregs. Violent criminal
types willfully study evil customs which become a fashion. Heterodox sectar-
ians t arget such cr iminals, tempt ing t hem to join t heir sect s, t hereby increa s -
ing their numbers.”^87
The political concerns of government bureaucrats such as He Wei and
Yaertu could cast doubt on the objectivity of their religious allegations. It
could be argued that officials accused Shaolin monks of violating Buddhist
law only because they wished to convince the throne that Shaolin was not a
genuine monastery and hence that it posed a political threat. It is significant,
therefore, that information on Shaolin religious transgressions is provided
not only by outsiders (government officials) but also by insiders (monastic