Gymnastics 171
are attributed to characters whose martial prowess—or in Bodhidharma’s case
sainthood—had been celebrated in contemporary fiction. In later periods, the
martial arts remained similarly related to popular culture. We have seen above
that the Qing technique of the “Confounding Fist” was associated with the Water
Margin’s Yan Qing, and other protagonists of the same novel were likewise cred-
ited with fighting methods. Li Kui was celebrated as the creator of a battleaxe
technique, and, as suggested by its name, the tied-wrists method of “Wu Song
Breaks Manacles” (Wu Song tuo kao) was inspired by an episode in which the
handcuffed hero overcame armed bodyguards who had been hired to assassi-
nate him. In the modern technique, the martial artist’s wrists are manacled,
forcing him to rely on his legs, hips, shoulders and elbows.^104
Even as he manipulates martial heroes such as Li Jing and Yue Fei to en-
hance his manual’s prestige, the author criticizes their spiritual shortcomings,
and his disappointment is voiced by the protagonists themselves. It’s a pity, Li
Jing exclaims, that he has remained mired in worldly affairs, making a name
for himself by his military achievements only. Niu Gao similarly laments that
Yue Fei has failed to follow his Buddhist master in search of religious salvation.
Had he adhered to the monk’s advice and abandoned his military career, his
life might have been saved. The Sinews Transformation Classic is marked there-
fore by a tension between its dual goals of military perfection and spiritual lib-
eration. Other manuals of fighting likewise belittled those who failed to realize
their religious end. The sentiment is suggested, for example, by Cao Huandou’s
contempt for those who “strain their muscles and expose their bones, waste
their energy and use force.”^105 Evidently, some artists considered the martial as-
pect of their technique secondary to the spiritual one.
The author faults the Shaolin monks themselves for failing to realize the
spiritual potential of the manual he had ascribed to them. “If the Shaolin
monks excel in martial competitions only,” Li Jing’s preface reads, “it is be-
cause of their limited understanding of the Sinews Transformation Classic.” Why
then did the “Purple Coagulation Man of the Way” attribute his teachings to
their monastery in the first place? The answer probably lies in the temple’s mil-
itary fame, such that new fighting techniques were often created in reference
to it. We have seen in the previous chapter that martial arts inventors were
often said to have received a Shaolin education prior to developing their own
superior fighting techniques. The Sinews Transformation Classic followed a dif-
ferent strategy. Instead of claiming to have created a style better than Shaolin’s,
the author censured the monks for failing to fathom—as he did—the depths
of their methods. From this perspective the manual’s forgery is a measure of
the monastery’s seventeenth-century fame.
Why did the “Purple Coagulation Man of the Way” attribute the Shaolin
Monastery techniques to Bodhidharma? It is possible that his myth of origins
resulted from ignorance of Shaolin conditions. As an outsider to the monas-
tery, the author of the Sinews Transformation Classic did not know that the monks
considered Vajrapâÿi the progenitor of their martial arts. He had assumed