Defending the Nation 75
Ming authors considered Shaolin monastic troops the best; Funiu fight-
ing monks ranked second, and the Wutai ones third. To these centers of
Buddhist fighting could be added the monastic complex on Mt. Emei, Si-
chuan (map 3). However, fighting on a smaller scale was practiced in numer-
ous other temples as well. Individual monks practiced the martial arts in
various shrines, which were not necessarily militarily renowned. Huang
Zongxi recalled accompanying the Internal School martial artist Wang
Zhengnan (1617–1669) to the Tiantong Monastery, in Ningbo, Zhejiang.
One monk there was famed for his martial skills, and Wang Zhengnan pro-
ceeded to test his strength and defeat him.^69
Itinerancy created a link between various centers of monastic fighting. The
martial arts did not emerge independently in each monastery. Rather, traveling
monks spread their fighting techniques from one temple to another. Zheng
Ruoceng noted that the Funiu monks excelled in fighting because they had
been trained at the Shaolin Monastery. He Liangchen further specified that
they had been instructed there in staff fighting. However, influence between the
two monasteries did not go one way only: Shaolin’s abbot Huanxiu Changrun
(?–1585) had studied under the Funiu master Tanran Pinggong (?–1579).^70
The Shaolin staff expert Biandun (?–1563) exemplifies itinerant monks’
role in spreading monastic fighting. The martial monk studied staff fighting
and hand combat at Shaolin under a Tibetan master, who was noted in the
monastery’s records not only for his fighting techniques but also for his effec-
tive fund-raising skills.^71 After graduating from the monastery’s military pro-
gram, Biandun traveled between his alma mater and the Sichuan center of
Buddhist fighting on Mt. Emei, where likely he taught Shaolin fighting tech-
niques. (He passed away in Sichuan and was brought back for interment at
Shaolin by his disciples.)^72
Biandun arrived in Yunnan as well. Cheng Zongyou notes that the martial
monk saved a Miao person there, whereupon the Miao people venerated him
as a god.^73 The Yunnan Jizu Mountain History (Jizu shan zhi) includes a biogra-
phy of Biandun, which narrates how he employed Vajrapâÿi’s “divine spell” to
subdue local bandits (and ghosts). We have seen above that Vajrapâÿi had been
worshipped at Shaolin in the context of martial training. The fearsome deity
was believed to endow his martial devotees with extraordinary physical
strength. It is likely therefore that, along with Vajrapâÿi’s spell, Biandun had
transmitted Shaolin fighting techniques to the Jizu Mountain monks.^74
When they would hit the road, lay martial artists also sojourned in tem-
ples. Throughout Chinese history, temples functioned as inns. Buddhist and
Daoist monasteries as well as temples of the popular religion offered shelter to
the floating members of the “rivers and lakes”—lay and clerical alike. In 1663,
when he arrived to Kunshan, Jiangsu, the itinerant martial artist Shi Dian, who
was not a monk, stayed for two years at the local Returning Kindness Temple
(Baoben si), where he taught his enthusiastic gentry students Wu Shu and Lu
Shiyi spear fighting.^75