Shaolin Temple Myths

[SimonM]

Is there yet any CONCLUSIVE evidence that there WAS a southern Shaolin temple?

[TenTigers]

they found what they believed to be the ruins of the Southern Siu-Lam Temple, but built the new Temple on a different site-better for tourism,parking, accessability, etc. Figures, right? That, and the Ming loyalists hid and trained in many temples. Siu-Lam Ji, Guan Yum Ji, Bak Hok Ji,Ching Wan Ji, etc.

[taai gihk yahn]

TCMA "traditionally" was the purview of soldiers, security guards and brigands; basically the lowest of the lows; not the sort of folks who would be geared towards accurate historical documentation; or literacy for that matter;

what does a "retired" soldier do when he can't get any other work? he teaches MA; who does he teach it too? people who can pay; who can pay and wants to play warrior? literati / inteligensia class; what do they also like to do? write things down "classically"; what do they do when they ask their teacher for info and the teacher tells them some story that doesn't spin well? they embellish; how do you do that? you fabricate legitimacy; one way is to ascribe origins to a "noble" source (a not uncommon practice in many cultures), one that preferably cannot be disproved at least; Shaolin is a good place (or Wu Tang, take your pick); this lends prestige to the style, the teacher, and the student; 3 generations later, you now have a "classical" document that everyone holds as the truth;

this is, of course, a generalization, but it just demonstrates how something can appear legitimate and not be, and that it can be difficult if not impossible to prove it otherwise;

[hskwarrior]

and the best you can do is snide little remarks. what can you expect from a spoiled rich kid.

you suck. really bad too.

[TenTigers]

they embellish; how do you do that? you fabricate legitimacy; one way is to ascribe origins to a "noble" source (a not uncommon practice in many cultures), one that preferably cannot be disproved at least; this lends prestige to the style, the teacher, and the student; 3 generations later, you now have a "classical" document that everyone holds as the truth;

this is, of course, a generalization, but it just demonstrates how something can appear legitimate and not be, and that it can be difficult if not impossible to prove it otherwise;

yeeaaahh....did I happen to mention that I trained with Bruce Lee? I taught him some Hung-Ga, too. Of course, nobody knows this, because...because..
because I was a secret student. Yeah, that's the ticket. A very secret student. Only he and I knew.
Oh,, and Brandon.

[taai gihk yahn]

yeeaaahh....did I happen to mention that I trained with Bruce Lee? I taught him some Hung-Ga, too. Of course, nobody knows this, because...because..
because I was a secret student. Yeah, that's the ticket. A very secret student. Only he and I knew.
Oh,, and Brandon.

and here I thought that you were Bruce, that you orchestrated the whole "death" thing so that you could drop out of public view and live a life of secret anonymity but then you cam back as "Brandon" to avenge your "father's" reputation, but that meant you were exposed publicly again so you had to fake the whole "accident" bit again, but then Jet Li shows up and does a movie with Jackie Chan, even though Samo's series was canceled because it got too hard to keep writing scripts that consisted of nothing but the other actors feeding him lines where all he had to answer was "yes' or "no" because no one could understand his English and so you had to re-emerge as the Avatar of Vishnu and...

never mind...

[Laukarbo]

I actually stopped looking back further than Wong Fei Hung..
To me its really,really not important if my style comes from shaolin its also not a big secret that hung gar became what it is after the" burning of siulam"..it evolved in southern china and has a connection to ming loyalists.Thats all I need to know.
For my personal research I just look into my si daigungs gung fu life ,Lau Jaam that is...i dont wanna rely on books ,or webpages so i dont care...
better focus on training..

[TenTigers]

y'know what['s funny? Every once in awhile, I run into someone who says they know a guy, who studied from a Monk. "And that monk had the brands on his forearms!"
I have yet to see any evidence of that myth either.

[Yum Cha]

To the best of my knowledge, the 5 elders came from the "10,000 Years of Evergreen" popular serial novels popular amongst the Chinese commoners at the time. Not sure when they were written, turn of the century sounds good.

My read of the web resources are hardly conclusive that they "found" the southern shaolin temple. They found some ruins and built a new facility in the vacinity. Of course, dig down 10 metres in just about any populated part of China and you'll find some ruins....

They "found" out they can make a lot of money on kung fu tourism, and the south is closer to HK....

And as Ross noted, the Chinese have never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Much more to the point, ALL DEAD NOW! What are you doing today to make yourself stronger and pass what your master passed on to you to your students. Lineage is all to often an excuse when the hand is weak. Lineage starts with you.

[PM]

article

Meier Shahar, "Ming-Period Evidence of Shaolin Martial Practice" (from JSTOR, .pdf, 1,59 MB)

http://www.lghk.org/web/shahar.zip

[Infrazael]

I think foreigners don't understand how arrogant and xenophobic the Chinese can be. They will lie and deceive, make crap up, just to make themselves look good and save face. You would think the older the are the more "truthful" they may become, this is bullcrap as well.

Everyone loves to play the part of Historian.

Chinese people will tell you anything you wanna hear to make themselves look good.

It's the sad truth but it is the truth.

Too bad not many here realize that.

[uki]

the biggest myth of the shaolin temples is that there are still monks there...

[David Jamieson]

I think foreigners don't understand how arrogant and xenophobic the Chinese can be. They will lie and deceive, make crap up, just to make themselves look good and save face. You would think the older the are the more "truthful" they may become, this is bullcrap as well.

Everyone loves to play the part of Historian.

Chinese people will tell you anything you wanna hear to make themselves look good.

It's the sad truth but it is the truth.

Too bad not many here realize that.

You speak of 1.3 billion people as if they are all one person who is a liar.
What an interesting view. I don't know where to start except to point out that I find that flawed.

Simon, you raise an excellent point. In my experience, very few martial artists practice any form of zen at all. Most that I meet have no idea of what it is, what it is for, why it is, how to do it from seated to moving and so on. it's baffling that it is not inclusive to any tradition that calls itself shaolin or attaches itself to same.

uki - what is a monk?

[Lama Pai Sifu]

You speak of 1.3 billion people as if they are all one person who is a liar.
What an interesting view. I don't know where to start except to point out that I find that flawed.

Simon, you raise an excellent point. In my experience, very few martial artists practice any form of zen at all. Most that I meet have no idea of what it is, what it is for, why it is, how to do it from seated to moving and so on. it's baffling that it is not inclusive to any tradition that calls itself shaolin or attaches itself to same.

uki - what is a monk?

David, I don't disagree with him. What he is saying is that it is well known that the Chinese have changed history to make things more PC. Chinese people, in general, especially the older generations, feel that 'face' is more important than anything else. They have altered written history several times to make things seem better than they were at the time. I have seen it happen personally several times.

And all this talk of finding other proof on other websites doesn't mean anything, other than people have copied and pasted or re-written the same stories.

Case in point: In the 80s and 90s we wrote stuff about the Lama style only to later find out that we made minor errors in our history. More researched proved this. However, so many people copied our articles and mainly David Ross's writings online, that our old research is 'sticking'. People have argued with us about the history, not even knowing that we were the one's who wrote it in the past. They yelled at us and cited articles written by us (they didn't know that part) and swore up and down that it was the truth because 'they read it' somewhere.

I for one, do not believe the 5 ancestors story at all. The fact that there is no written evidence of it prior to 1910 is very compelling. The fact that many chinese historians debunked it back then is even more so.

That being said, Yum Cha's post is most relevant:

Much more to the point, ALL DEAD NOW! What are you doing today to make yourself stronger and pass what your master passed on to you to your students. Lineage is all to often an excuse when the hand is weak. Lineage starts with you.

[PM]

The fact that there is no written evidence of it prior to 1910 is very compelling.

hello, not true, did you read the posts above?

all the best