52 Origins of a Military Tradition
wealth. This common feature offers a clue for understanding the Shaolin mar-
tial tradition. As affluent landowners, Shaolin monks fought to protect their
capital. Buddhist military strength was in Shaolin’s case an extension of eco-
nomic power.
Had the Shaolin Monastery been situated in a remote corner of the em-
pire, its military activities would have remained unnoticed. It was the proxim-
ity of the temple to the imperial capital of Luoyang that transformed its local
battle into a campaign of national significance. Shaolin’s strategic location on
a mountain road leading to the eastern capital embroiled its monks in a politi-
cal struggle of far-reaching consequences. Geography played an important
role in the fortunes of the Shaolin military tradition.
The monks’ military services to the Tang secured their monastery’s wealth
under its regime. Their astute choice of Li Shimin over Wang Shichong earned
them the gratitude of an emperor and his mighty dynasty. Most Tang emperors
were not enthusiastic about the Buddhist faith. Their generous patronage of
the monastery resulted from Shaolin’s support of the dynasty’s founder rather
than from religious piety. The monks’ disregard for the Buddhist prohibition
of violence was therefore the very source of their monastery’s prosperity.
Certain traits that were to characterize the entire history of Shaolin fight-
ing are perceptible already in Tang sources. First is the association of the fight-
ing monk’s ethos with the consumption of meat. During the medieval period,
some Shaolin-affiliated monks probably violated Buddhist dietary law by eat-
ing animal flesh, even though their transgressions likely took place outside the
temple proper. Second, the connection between monastic martial practice and
the veneration of Buddhist military deities can be traced back to medieval
times. It is likely that as early as the Tang period Shaolin monks beseeched the
divine warrior Vajrapâÿi to supply them with physical strength. More perti-
nently, the Buddhist guardian provided the monks with religious sanction for
violence. If the Buddha himself required the protection of fighting deities, his
monastic community certainly needed the protection of fighting monks.
These similarities notwithstanding, Tang Shaolin monks did not invent
the fighting techniques for which their monastery was to become famous cen-
turies later. We will see in the following chapter that by the mid-Ming period
(1368–1644), the Shaolin martial arts were lauded throughout China. How-
ever, medieval sources do not allude to specific Shaolin fighting methods. In-
deed they neither mention how Shaolin monks fought, nor which weapons
they employed in battle. Attributing their descendants’ martial arts to Tang
Shaolin monks would be anachronistic.