Staff Legends 101
The Origins of Monastic Staff Fighting
Ming period popular lore extends the connection between fighting monks
and the staff beyond Shaolin’s walls. Even though Sun Wukong, Huiming, Lu
Zhishen, and Yang Wulang are not affiliated with the monastery, all four wield
the weapon. Two of these fictional staff-wielding monks are associated with the
Wutai monasteries, and two others are not connected to a historical center of
monastic fighting. Taken together, they indicate that novelists and playwrights
conceived of the staff as the quintessential Buddhist weapon, regardless of mo-
nastic affiliation.
The narratives of the four fictional monks can be traced back to the
Southern Song, strengthening the impression gained from military litera-
ture that monastic staff fighting originated earlier than the Ming. Sixteenth-
century generals such as Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang insisted that Shaolin
monks had been practicing the staff for centuries. Sun Wukong, Huiming,
Lu Zhishen, and Yang Wulang employ the weapon in their story cycles’ earli-
est extant versions, which date from the thirteenth century. Assuming that
these characters have been fashioned after real monks, staff fighting had
been practiced either at Shaolin, or in other Buddhist monasteries, as early
as the Southern Song.
Why did Shaolin monks, or other Buddhist monks, choose the staff as
their weapon? Some scholars sought an answer in what they construed as the
weapon’s defensive quality, which supposedly accords with the Buddhist pro-
hibition of violence. The staff cannot injure or kill, they claim, and it is used
for self-defense only. Cheng Dali illustrates the argument: “the staff is a blunt
instrument, which, moreover, is made of wood. Its power to kill and injure is
far inferior to those of the broadsword, the sword, and other metal sharp
weapons. Evidently, using the wooden staff is relatively appropriate to the
position of Buddhist disciples, who are permitted to employ the martial arts
for limited purposes only.”^52
Cheng’s argument cannot be dismissed as irrelevant for the monastic
choice of the weapon. When it is made of wood the staff is indeed less dan-
gerous than other weapons, and for this reason perhaps some monks pre-
ferred to use it. The problem is, as Cheng acknowledges, that the Shaolin
weapon was often forged of iron, just like the heavy rods wielded by the fic-
tional monks Sun Wukong, Huiming, Lu Zhishen, and Yang Wulang. It was
therefore a lethal instrument, with a capacity to kill that is attested by mili-
tary literature no less than by fiction and drama. Moreover, we need not as-
sume that fighting monks were concerned with the Buddhist prohibition of
violence, which they disavowed by going to battle. Recall for example the six-
teenth-century Shaolin monk who employed a metal staff to annihilate an
unarmed pirate’s wife.
The staff’s presumed defensive quality provides therefore no more than
a partial explanation for its use by Buddhist monks. It might be more useful