visited. If we recall the Tang period stories of bandit-monks, it is easy to see
how bandit-monks are virtually the same as warrior-monks. These men
drank wine, ate meat, and had sex with women–practices alien to true
Buddhist monks. A number of Buddhist authorities were deeply troubled
by the presence of monks who directly violated Buddhist precepts. We do
not know whether there was a sharp break between ordained and trained
monks who carefully followed monastic rules in their search for enlight-
enment and men who simply claimed to be monks, wore monastic robes,
shaved their heads, but otherwise did not follow monastic rules. There may
well have been a spectrum of behaviors from bandit imposture to enlight-
ened abbot.^13
The Water Marginoffers us an intriguing illustration of all of these
issues in thefigure of Lu Da, who becomes a Buddhist monk at Mount
Wutai. A rough and violent army officer, Lu is forced toflee from his
position after killing a man with his bare hands. A powerful local lord of a
manor rescues him by providing an ordination certificate for him to become
a monk at Mount Wutai. The abbot gives him the name“Sagacious,”
having already in a trance foreseen that he will transcend hisfierce and
rough nature and achieve sainthood. Sagacious Lu continued to eat meat,
get drunk,fight, and kill people, joining the Liangshan outlaws at the
center of the novel, andfinally transcending to an enlightened death at
the end. Similarly, Wu Song, another of the great heroes ofThe Water
Margin, who lost an arm in one of thefinal battles, chooses to enter a
monastery at the end of the book.
Thisfictional story shows us an environment in which powerful and
highly militarized northern manorial lords patronize Buddhist temples,
military men become monks for a variety of reasons, and skilled martial
artists bring their practice into temples. Rather than see temples as sources
or stores of martial arts knowledge, we should see them as collection
points. Keeping in mind that martial arts skills were widespread in
Chinese society, many monks taking orders would have been trained
before they entered a monastery. Similarly, major Buddhist institutions
would frequently have been run by men from the upper classes who had
become monks. Many of these men, particularly in north China, would
have been well-trained martial artists.
Shaolin itself was overrun and destroyed in 1356 , just before the found-
ing of the Ming Dynasty. Whatever martial arts were practiced there
beforehand were not considered noteworthy by any author. There was,
however, an acknowledged tradition of martial arts practiced at Mount
Wutai, a connection partly reflected in Sagacious Lu’s association with
174 The Ming Dynasty