When the era of "video salons" began, my first film there was "Shaolin: Pretenders to Death". To say that it left an indelible mark on me is to say nothing.
It was only later that I learned that in the entire ancient history of China, there were about ten monasteries with the name of Shaolin. But only one survived - the progenitor. This is the northern monastery of Sunshan.
Shaolin Monastery was founded in 495 AD. Indian monk - Bodhidharma, or in another way he was called Damo. The name of the monastery comes from its geographical location. Literally translated - "Monastery in the forest, on Mount Shao."
So were the famous and legendary war monks there?
The monastery was founded in 495, but only in 530 found its way. The fact is that it was in this year that the first patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism, Bodhidharma (Damo), arrived in Shaolin. He taught local monks a new cultivation method and radically changed the established Buddhist tradition. Now the monks practiced meditation by developing martial skills.
Damo was originally from India and came to teach the local monks his teachings. And he came not to the wasteland, but to a monastery built at the beginning of the 3rd century by Taoist monks. This monastery was a fortress on Mount Sunshan. The teaching began to be called "Chan" - which is based on the contemplation of the world and meditation.
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Damo taught: "every person is a potential Buddha, you just need to awaken him in yourself." Damo did his best to spread his Chan teachings and for everyone to come to Buddha.
Before Bodhidharma passed on his teachings to the monks, he sat for 9 years in a cave, reflecting and philosophizing on the problems of the universe and existence. Then the bright sunlight burned out his appearance on the cave wall during the 9 years of meditation. For this, the monks were imbued with respect and reverence for the strength of his spirit. And then they accepted his teaching as truth.
This cave where Damo meditated is one of the main shrines of Shaolin. All Buddhists in the world consider this place to be ideal for meditation.
The reason for the monks to practice the art of hand-to-hand combat was the need for physical survival in the harsh mountainous environment, the threat of attack by wild animals, and, in addition, princely strife. The Shaolin Monastery is located in the depths of the Songshan Mountain Range, which led to the harsh living conditions of the monks. All this required of them good health, unpretentiousness in everyday monastic life and the ability to protect themselves. Therefore, physical training through martial arts training became a necessity for them. Possession of combat techniques allowed one to protect oneself from predators.
During the one and a half thousand years of the monastery's existence, unique forms of wushu, different from other schools and directions, were created, selected and passed on to new generations. The fundamental foundations of the Shaolin style were already formed by the end of the Sui dynasty (581-618) - the beginning of the Tang dynasty (618-907).
Shaolin Monks The era of Sui is the time of the expansion of the Shaolin domain. Since the buildings of the monastery and its lands were spread out in the foothills of the Songshan Ridge, where armed gangs who were engaged in robbery found refuge, the monastery was forced to create its own small militarized detachment for self-defense. The nature of the actions of the defenders of the monastery was predetermined by the conditions of its existence: the emphasis was not on large-scale operations of armed detachments, but on the skill and courage of individual monks-fighters.
Over time, the practice of monastic wushu acquired an ever deeper character, and at the turn of the Sui and Tang eras, Shaolin monks became famous for their martial art throughout the country.
After the Sui dynasty came to power, Emperor Wen-di (reigned 581-605), who greatly revered Buddhism, granted the monastery 100 cinei (about 667 hectares) of land. Since then, the Shaolin Monastery has become a large estate, and the monks have become landowners. At the end of the reign of the Sui dynasty, riots occurred in the guards, wars broke out one after another, there was a drought and crop failure. In such conditions, the Shaolin monastery, which had vast land holdings, became the target of an attack by the rebel army, which consisted of hungry peasants. The insurgent detachments approached the monastery and burned it down. Only one pagoda has survived from the buildings. After these events, the wushu monks organized an armed detachment to defend against robbers. Subsequently, the monks fighters not only successfully defended their territory, but also provided assistance to the imperial court. The story of how thirteen Shaolin monks helped the Tang emperor suppress the rebellion was widely known.
For this help, the monarch granted the monastery the highest permission to support an army of monks: this is how Shaolin became the first martial arts center in the whole country.
In the 13th century, the Shaolin Monastery was headed by the abbot Fuyui. He was a reformer monk who did a lot for the whole of Chinese Buddhism. Fuyu believed that too many monks were leaving the monastery. At the same time, returning to the world, they talked about themselves as some Shaolin superheroes, not hesitating to embellish their exploits and invent various fables.
Then the abbot gathered all the monks of the highest initiation for a council in the monastery, where it was decided to create and introduce a special exam into the practice of teaching monks. This exam was a special complex representing all Shaolin technique.
36 steps of Shaolin
This complex was divided into 36 stages and was called 36 halls. After each stage, the Shaolin Temple monks had to take an exam.
In the first halls, combat stances and movements were studied.
In the second halls - punches.
Thirdly, with your feet.
At the next stages, the monk improved as a fighter with all types of edged weapons.
It became almost impossible to leave the monastery. To do this, it was necessary to go through 13 outposts - special obstacles on the way, for those who wish to leave the monastery. Each outpost was guarded by experienced monks - professional Shaolin fighters.
The monks who wished to leave the monastery had to measure their strength with the guards and reach the central gate. They were called mountain gates. The rules stated that those who did not manage to reach them the first time would remain in the monastery forever. Therefore, those wishing to leave the monastery decreased many times. And whoever managed to do this, there were real Shaolin monks, for whom one would not be ashamed.
When Mongol rule began, Abbot Fuyu opened 5 branches of the main Shaolin monastery. Special monks were sent to these branches not only to preach the teachings of Damo, but also to teach Shaolin Wushu. Monks were not allowed to carry edged weapons, but a staff was not considered a edged weapon and was always at hand.
The staff is the main weapon of the Shaolin monk. Fuyu introduced a special set of staff training. The abbot himself could knock down more than 3 warriors, strong and armed with swords, with one wave of his staff.
Historical chronicles tell that Shaolin monks have repeatedly helped the rulers of China in the fight against robbers and pirates. In the 14th century, at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, Japanese pirates and various robbers regularly performed robberies and raids on the coastal border of China.
In 1553, one of the most talented generals of that time, Qin Qigua, was ordered to lead an army in the fight against raids. Then he begins to collect the most famous fighters from all over China.
The commander, knowing well the attitude of the people towards the Shaolin monks, decides to seek help from the monastery. The instructors of the monastic army showed their agreement. A detachment of monks was assembled, led by a young soldier named Yen Gun, whose name meant "the light of the month in the heavenly void."
But historians are at a loss in the number of this army. Some say that there were more than thirty monks, others more than a hundred. It is logical to assume that each of the thirty monks led and trained their own squad of fighters.
This confusion consisted in the fact that everyone declared himself a monk of the Shaolin Temple, if more or less, possessed martial art and some kind of weapon.
The monastic army, armed only with staves, more than 2 meters long and weighing 15 kg. was formed and ready. The possession of such weapons spoke of the not hefty strength of the monks. The myth that the Buddhist monk was a weak person who was mainly engaged in spiritual searches was completely dispelled after these attacks against pirates.
Everyone saw that the monks in battle surpassed even the professional trained best warriors gathered from all over China. Shaolin monks, keeping complete calm and not even changing their faces, entered into battle with several opponents at once and won, trying to keep the majority alive, as evidenced by their fame of justice and virtue.
The enemy and ally were shocked when the monks used unknown and incomprehensible fighting techniques, which no one knew or understood. And the worst thing for everyone is that the monks were not afraid of pain, nor were they afraid of death.
According to historical data, the monks participated in more than 100 battles with the Japanese. One of the legends, based on facts from the chronicle, tells how in one battle 4 monks fought with a whole squad of Japanese. The detachment consisted of more than a hundred Japanese.
The heyday of Shaolin comes during the Ming Dynasty. And this time is 14-16 centuries. At the same time, the number of monks fighters grew, but it was not so easy to get into the Shaolin monastery.
Shaolin legends say that they accepted only those who could withstand the most difficult tests not only of the body, but also of the spirit.
But by 1925 there were practically no real masters left in the monastery. And in 1928, the outrageous military leader Shi Yuan completely set fire to Shaolin, destroying the unique sources of knowledge. The death of the great Zhang Sanfeng's treatise, which was considered the only source of Taijiquan knowledge, was a huge loss.
The restoration of the original culture of Shaolin was taken up much later by Wu Shanglin, the son of the last master Ji Jin. For three years he taught the Shaolin monks - all modern masters of the legendary monastery trace the history of their skills precisely from them.
The restoration of Shaolin was dear to China. After World War II, only seven monks lived on the ruins of the monastery, and only three of them had previously studied Shaolin martial arts. The country's authorities forcibly recruited wushu masters from all over the area. It was they who became the progenitors of the modern Shaolin school.
The martial art of monks is called Shaolin-Si Quan-Fa, or Shaolin-Quan for short. This includes not only hand-to-hand combat, but also unique ways of wielding weapons.
Gradually, the monastery took a significant place in popular culture. Shaolin has grown, making the entire region a true tourism Mecca. Today, there are countless commercial martial arts schools around him, which are, in fact, just kung fu and wushu schools.