90 Systemizing Martial Practice
khakkhara). Others serve as walking sticks or carrying poles. However, in the
hands of many arhats, the staff assumes the aspect of a weapon. Consider, for
example, the one wielded by an awe-inspiring arhat whose protruding nose,
large eyes, and bushy eyebrows exemplify the tendency of Chinese artists to ex-
aggerate the foreign features of the Mahâyâna saints (figure 14).^29 The staff’s
motion, no less than its proprietor’s muscular arms, suggest that it is used for
combat, and the fearsome tiger contributes to the martial atmosphere. Evi-
dently, Shaolin monks projected their martial art into the realm of the Mahâyâna
divinities.
Why did Shaolin monks ascribe their fighting techniques to Buddhist dei-
ties? On one level their attribution to the gods enhanced the prestige of the
Shaolin combat methods. Declaring that a technique originated in heaven is
equivalent to praising it. Presumably for this reason, military experts such as
Yu Dayou and Wu Shu noted that the Shaolin staff has divine origins, thus re-
Fig. 14. Staff-wielding arhat in a seventeenth-century Shaolin fresco.