system that has been passed down along the Saitô family line to the pres-
ent (Phelps 1996).
Similar narratives of origin ascend the social strata. Although the pre-
vious narrative is preserved solely by means of oral tradition, historian Roy
Ron notes similar mythic motifs in Japanese sword schools during the
Tokugawa period. He observes that the historical documentation of a
school’s lineage, along with such information as “the founder’s biography
and some historical information relating to the style; often they included
legends and myths of sacred secret transmission of knowledge from leg-
endary warriors, supernatural beings, or from the divinities themselves to
the founder’s ancestors. Such divine connection provided the school with
authority and ‘proof’ of superior skills in an increasingly competitive world
of swordsmanship.”
In contrast, legends occur in a more contemporary setting and are of-
ten more widely disseminated, as is the story of the Maiden of Yue, a leg-
end that reveals the principles of Chinese martial arts, including yin-yang
theory (complementary opposition). It is also part of a larger story of how
Gou Jian, king of the state of Yue, sought to strengthen his state by em-
ploying the best assets available (including women in this case). As a result
he overcame his old opponent, the king of Wu, and became the dominant
hegemon at the close of the Spring and Autumn period (496–473B.C.).Legends Associated with Locales
Legends of the Shaolin Monastery represent this narrative category well,
since the site literally swims in an ocean of greater and lesser myths and leg-
ends formed from a core of facts. The monastery is the home of Chinese
Chan (Zen) Buddhism, which is said to have been introduced by the Indian
monk Bodhidharma around A.D. 525. History further records that thirteen
Shaolin monks helped Tang emperor Taizong (given name Li Shimin) over-
come a key opponent in founding the Tang dynasty. In the mid-sixteenth
century, a form of staff fighting was named for the monastery. Numerous
references from this period also cite martial arts practices among the
Shaolin monks, and the heroic exploits of some of the monks in campaigns
against Japanese pirates during this period brought them lasting fame as
the Shaolin Monk Soldiers. These basic shreds of fact provide the raw ma-
terials for constructing folk historical narrative.
In discussing the more prominent traditional narratives associated
with Shaolin Monastery, it is instructive to address them in the chronolog-
ical order of their appearance on the stage of history. The earliest of these
is the story (recorded ca. 960) of the monk Seng Zhou (ca. 560) who, in his
youth, is said to have prayed to a temple guardian figure to help him be-
come strong enough to ward off his bullying fellow acolytes. The guardian126 Folklore in the Martial Arts