What do/don't you consider as being "Shaolin" ?

[mantis108]

Frankly, I always have reservation about Fuju's manuscripts.

1) The name of Fuju needs to be verified. I have seen 2 characters of Ju in Chinese. One character means "resides" which seems to be the more popularly used. The other is "gathering" which is not as common. Do we know for sure that Fu represents the generation? If it does, which generation (time) was he? We need that info to verify with others.

2) We know for sure that 18 styles listed Song Taitzu as the first and foremost style. This indicates that the work has to be much later than 976 and must be sometime after Song Taitzu's death because the title was given posthumously as custom required.

3) there are at least 2 names, Yinching and Lin Chong, who appeared in a Ming dynasty novel "water margin" which set the story timeline arround 1100 CE. Some people claim that Water Margin was based on an uprising that happen in Shandong but the time was late Song arround 1200s. Assuming that these 2 did exist and the time mark would be arround 1200s. This we can cross check with Fuju's generation.

4) How and when did this text gets into Mantis system and other systems? It is said that this survived a 1927 CE a raid of the Shaolin temple. So is this being reprinted and became popular arround the 30s and 40s amongst the CMA community?

There are quite a few things that remain unanswered about this text. The best we can do is to approach it with care.

Mantis108