56 Systemizing Martial Practice
Shaolin monks had developed quintessential fighting techniques that warrant
the term “Shaolin martial arts.”
What had happened between the Tang and the Ming? Did Shaolin monks
practice fighting during the lengthy period that separated their military assis-
tance to Li Shimin from the sixteenth-century flowering of their martial arts?
The available sources do not permit us to answer this question with certainty.
Nevertheless, they do indicate the possibility of a continuous military tradi-
tion. It appears likely that Shaolin monks did engage in martial training—at
least intermittently—during the Northern Song (960–1126), the Jin (1115–
1234), and the Yuan (1271–1368). We have mentioned in the previous chapter
a twelfth-century stele dedicated to Vajrapâÿi evincing that the monks had
been worshipping the tutelary divinity in the context of military training, and
we will see below that in the fourteenth century they resorted to arms, defend-
ing their temple against the Red Turbans (Hong jin) that pillaged Henan. In
addition, there is the circumstantial evidence of fiction; we will see in chapter
4 that fictional fighting monks had been celebrated in popular lore as early as
the twelfth century. Assuming that they had been fashioned after real warriors,
the martial arts figured—either at the Shaolin Temple or in other Buddhist
monasteries—centuries before the burst of the Ming interest in them.
It is impossible to ascertain whether, prior to the Ming period, the martial
arts had been as fully integrated into the monastery’s regimen. However, it is
probable that they figured there, at least sporadically. This is suggested not only
by the available twelfth- through fourteenth-century sources but also by the very
complexity and richness of the Ming evidence itself. The sixteenth-century Shao-
lin military system was so elaborate that it was likely the product of a lengthy evolu-
tion. Contemporary military experts, at any rate, were convinced that the Shaolin
monks had been polishing their art for centuries. Ming literature abounds with
such statements as “the Shaolin fighting techniques have enjoyed fame from an-
cient times to the present.” Some authors even argued that Shaolin’s renown was
no longer justified, since its fighting monks were no match for their illustrious an-
cestors. The renowned general Yu Dayou (1503–1579), for example, believed that
Shaolin clerics “have lost the ancient secrets of their [martial] art.”^3
Late Ming Shaolin monks practiced various fighting methods. They
trained in the diverse techniques of spear fighting and unarmed hand com-
bat (quan), and they carried to battle a variety of weapons including steel tri-
dents (gangcha) and hooked spears (gouqiang). However, Ming sources leave
no doubt that the weapon in which they specialized—indeed the one that
made their monastery famous—was the staff.
Cheng Zongyou’s Exposition of the Original Shaolin Staff Method
The earliest extant manual of the Shaolin martial arts was dedicated to staff
fighting. Titled Exposition of the Original Shaolin Staff Method (Shaolin gunfa chan