government officials were not impressed with what they saw at Shaolin, and
they were not inclined to assist its recovery. This underlying hostility abated
somewhat in the eighteenth century, with some imperial attention and a
visit by the Qianlong emperor. But the emperors were careful to support
Shaolin as a religious institution and discourage its return as a center of
martial arts practice. One of the most important acts in this regard was the
destruction of the subsidiary shrines during Qianlong’s reign.
The destruction of the subsidiary shrines around Shaolin was probably
the most significant anti–martial arts act of the Qing Dynasty. Many temples
had tense relationships with their subsidiary shrines. As the power and
prestige of a temple brought increased lands and popularity, branches or
smaller temples were set up nearby. These subsidiary shrines sometimes
deviated significantly from their parent temple’s rules and discipline, and
even developed their own authority in opposition to the parent when their
prestige and popularity grew. In the case of Shaolin, it seems that much of the
martial arts activity and disreputable behavior took place in the subsidiary
shrines. Many travelers and wandering martial artists, particularly those less
interested in Buddhism, might lodge at a subsidiary. As Meir Shahar put it,
“Shaolin’s was afluid community of which resident clerics occupied no more
than a fraction.”^8
Before the Qing Dynasty, it is impossible to determine the extent to which
martial arts activity was centered at the subsidiary shrines. The temple is
referred to as a whole, without distinguishing how close the relationship
was between the martial monks and the main authorities of Shaolin.^9
Indeed, some amount of ambiguity may have benefited the main temple,
allowing it to maintain a security force that intimidated locals but for which
the temple could deny full responsibility. The attention of the Qing author-
ities to this issue clarifies the matter somewhat and suggests an explanation
for some of the religious problems of martial monks.
Rather than see martial arts at Buddhist temples and monasteries as
unified activities wherein the martial arts grew out of Buddhist practice, it
is more accurate to characterize these activities as linked. Before the Ming
Dynasty, the martial arts activities of Buddhist monks excited very little
attention. This was partly because no one wrote about such practices
and partly because there was no perceived conflict in a temple maintaining
some trained self-defense forces. Thus the Tang stele commemorating
Shaolin’s aid to Li Shimin was erected for political defense of the temple,
not to make a point of the temple’s martial arts practice. It was only during
the Ming Dynasty that Shaolin and other temples sent out their martial
monks to support the government’s authority by combating rebellions and
Shaolin 203