The Discovery

In the year 2006, an anonymous collector of ancient Chinese artifacts called the administration of the China Henan Wushu festival, which is held every two years, saying that they had a very interesting piece in their collection; a stone tablet which could shed light on several unanswered questions concerning Chinese history.

A group of scholars went to examine the stone tablet, which turned out to be genuine and had been erected to commemorate the eminent monk Huiguang. To everyone's great surprise, the tablet revealed the actual construction date of the Shaolin monastery, which scholars had previously thought to be 494 or 495 C.E. to be the year 479 C.E., earlier than thought of until the discovery. The tablet also gave valuable information verifying certain lineages, confirming Xuanzang's connection to Huiguang.

The inscription tells us that the first disciple of Batuo, the Indian monk who was the founder and first abbot of the Shaolin monastery, was Huiguang, later known as the first master of the Buddhist precepts in China, and that the monk Sengchou, also known to be the first warrior monk of the Shaolin monastery, was Batuo's last disciple.

Batuo was the master of Huiguang, who was the master of Daoping. In turn, Daoping was the master of Lingyu, and Lingyu was Huixiu's master. Xuanzang became Huixiu's disciple and studied with him for a period of eight months in the Yumen monastery. Due to earlier discoveries it was known that Huiguang had become a disciple of Batuo when he was twelve years old and that he had passed away when he was seventy but the exact year had been uncertain. The tablet showed that Huiguang had passed away in the year 538 C.E.

The eminent monk Xuanzang who travelled to India in search of scriptures, covering a distance of approximately 25 thousand kilometres, making him one of the most remarkable overland travellers of all time, was Huixiu's disciple which puts him into one lineage with Huiguang and Batuo. He is remembered as one of the three most outstanding monks of the Tang dynasty and one of the 4 greatest translators of Buddhist scriptures ever. He is also known as Tripitaka in the great Chinese novel, “Journey to the West” or “Monkey.” The book he wrote about his journey is, now, as then, of great historical and geographical value and serves historians and archaeologists till this day.

This book attempts to present notable episodes from the lives of these eminent worthies, as well as historical sketches about the Shaolin monastery in the form of stories. It is important to remember and honour the founding fathers of a name and a culture renowned worldwide.

Damo, an Indian monk like Batuo and the first Patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China, known as Bodhidharma in the West, is not in this particular lineage, though due to him, Shaolin became the centre of Chan Buddhism. To this day, Damo, who meditated in a cave nearby the monastery for nine years, remains the most famous figure of Shaolin and the subject of a great many stories.

The story of Jigong, who is very well known in China for his compassionate but crazy character, is much less known in the West. Jigong, though not affiliated to Shaolin, is revered within the monastery, not least because of his meat-eating and alcohol-drinking ways.

These tales, the topic of much conversation behind the monastery walls, are told in the manner of the oral tradition which has been handed down from master to pupil since the earliest times, and have the added benefit of being checked against some of the definitive scholarly works on the subject in Chinese. This has the advantage of ensuring historical accuracy insofar as possible, as well as presenting material previously unavailable in English in a readable form.

This book, except for a few facts and figures, is not about Shaolin Gongfu as such, rather it is to give a glimpse of the devout lives led by these dignitaries, because Shaolin Gongfu is Buddhist Gongfu, and if one does not strain to attain this kind of knowledge, one will not understand the essence of Shaolin Gongfu, let alone Shaolin culture.

A Shaolin master once told me that, “Shaolin Gongfu is a different kind of tree and therefore it needs a different kind of water to be nourished with.”

Emphasising the chains of transmission and personal connections between the principal characters of the Shaolin monastery and their contribution to its development, these stories cast a fresh glance on the virtuous lives of its founders and luminaries.