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The Shaolin Family Tree and other nonsense, again...
Hey doc,
Thanks for the response. I see what you mean. Still, the level of detail you have provided already is FAR superior than most other people, so I hope it was a fair question to put forward.
The reason for the question in the first place is this thread going on right now on the rec.martial-arts newsgroup entitled "Shaolin". The original poster basically asked what the deal was with the Shaolin Temple monks. Where they 'real', or was everything fake (i.e., Wushu). It's kind of a tricky question to answer, in that what we are exposed to here in the West is most often fake, (wushu troupes that simply come over and slap the word 'Shaolin' on the top of their program), but also that even the best trained Shaolin Monk is still somehow not 'real', simply because there was very little infrastructure for such a long period of time. The perception here being, with the Temple in ruins, you couldn't possibly have a program in place to promote Shaolin. NOT that I'm taking anything away from those that started their training in the 70s or 80s when the Temple was being rebuilt. Most of them are just awe-inspiring, and I can only ever hope to be half as good. But it does beg the question: how much of Shaolin survived after 1928 to be passed on? By knowing who survived the Cultural Revolution, and who helped develop the current Shaolin training program might help us better understand what it is that is being presented to us nowadays. Hence, the notion of a Shoalin Family Tree and the tap on your shoulder to see what the likelihood of such a project would entail.
Anyway, I just want to thank you for all your hard work and for putting such a great site together. I look forward to seeing where you take it in the future!
The question is not where I'm going to take the site in the future. The question is, where is the site going to take me (and us)? It's been one hell of a journey so far. I'm just holding on for the ride. Like some frisky old man on top of some young insatiable bitch, just wondering what she's gonna pull out or on, next.
Wait, gonna have to think about that analogy for a bit...
Well, anyhoo, I'm certainly not going to attempt a family tree. I've done some digging around with respect to this, and I've answered it, in a few places, somewhere in the site. But, a few basics; I'll save the details for the book. One day....
There is definitely a continuity between the monks of the late 1800's and the present day masters, well, more specifically, those of the "De" and Xing generations in particular. Or, more specifically, those monks who inhabited the temple during the 70's and 80's. The present day monks that are in the Wushu Guan and the temple, no doubt have learned some traditional stuff from their coaches, but, as I've discussed already in another thread (see the Shaolin Journals, one of my later journals, in the Archive), they are getting a more wushu oriented education. I've seen this in some of the Xing generation monks. If you want to see traditional stuff, as it has been taught way in the past, in my opinion, the De generation monks, the ones who learned directly from the Su generation monks, are the ones who really know the stuff. After the De generation, there was an ever growing preponderance of wushu being taught, because of various external governmental and tournamental pressures.
For example, Shi De Cheng, who arrived at the temple proper in the mid seventies (I can't remember exactly right now), had as his master, Shi Su Yuan and Shi Su Xi. Shi Su Yuan, who died in 1998 in his late eighties, learned when he was a child, directly from one of Shaolin's previous abbots, Shi Cheng Xu. Shi Cheng Xu was a Shaolin monk prior to the 1928 burning, and was abbot sometime in the early 1900's. He died I think sometime in the 1950's (I actually had all of this written down, but I can't seem to find it anymore). Traditional forms have been passed down precisely, from master to disciple, along that lineage.
Also, even though the burnings of the temple in 1928 caused massive destruction (almost all of it, with the exception of the Thousand Buddha Pavilion in the back), not all records were lost. There was a monk in the early 1900's whose name I can not remember, who's master was responsible for the sacred texts. He spent a lot of his time copying those texts, including the ones which described Shaolin gong fu over the ages, and kept them for himself. When the temple was burned in 1928, he left with those copies. In fact, his copies were not all inclusive; there were other monks who copied other parts of the texts, and kept them for themselves. But when the temple was destroyed, these monks left, and brought their copies with them. Some made the journey as far as XinJiang province, in their efforts to escape the warlord's devastation.
A monk, whose name I think was Deding, came across these documents, by virtue of the fact that one of the original monks who copied these ancient texts was his master. Upon that master's becoming ill, Deding (who didn't have a common "Shi" monk name) took those copies, and buried them. He thus hid them during the madness of the Cultural Revolution.
Shi De Qian, one of Shaolin's prolific writers, was given those copies by Deding. He still has them. He has used some of them to write his famous book, which, unfortunately is in Chinese. But, I've gone through it, and by looking at the primitive drawings, I can easily identify some traditional forms, which are almost exactly drawn as Shi De Cheng has taught them to me.
I don't need further proof. Oh, and don't believe everything that you read on the internet. Especially since when many of these forums are inhabited by people who couldn't find Shaolin on a map.
Making a family tree is another matter. I got Deyang's, and XingHong's and DeCheng's, and XingXi's lineage, but, you've got to remember something about these guys. They know who their masters were, but they don't necessarily know their master's masters. I had the opportunity to talk to Shi Wan Heng, one of the original fourteen (along with Shi Su Xi, and eventually, Shi De Qian) who returned to Shaolin after the Cultural Revolution, and he had given me the names of all fourteen who started the whole shibang, all over again. (Lost that piece of paper too). But he didn't know the masters of those masters, I don't think. And, after the political upheaval of the temple in the late 1990's, he disappeared, I heard, somewhere in Europe. In fact, many of the De generation monks left after that upheaval. So, putting together a lineage at this time, in my opinion, would be fairly difficult. I'm not sure there are any records, and if there were, I'm not sure that they're complete. There were a lot of changes and movements and migrations during the twentieth century with respect to the monks. And I'm not sure complete records are being kept now. If you can read some of the worn out stones of the Pagoda Forest, you might be able to find the names of some of the important monks from the past; but, many of those stones are fairly worn out. I guess it can be done, but I'm not sure how you would approach it. I certainly wouldn't want to attempt that project.
It's hard enough keeping up with the emails and the questions...
Hey doc,
Thanks for the response. I see what you mean. Still, the level of detail you have provided already is FAR superior than most other people, so I hope it was a fair question to put forward.
The reason for the question in the first place is this thread going on right now on the rec.martial-arts newsgroup entitled "Shaolin". The original poster basically asked what the deal was with the Shaolin Temple monks. Where they 'real', or was everything fake (i.e., Wushu). It's kind of a tricky question to answer, in that what we are exposed to here in the West is most often fake, (wushu troupes that simply come over and slap the word 'Shaolin' on the top of their program), but also that even the best trained Shaolin Monk is still somehow not 'real', simply because there was very little infrastructure for such a long period of time. The perception here being, with the Temple in ruins, you couldn't possibly have a program in place to promote Shaolin. NOT that I'm taking anything away from those that started their training in the 70s or 80s when the Temple was being rebuilt. Most of them are just awe-inspiring, and I can only ever hope to be half as good. But it does beg the question: how much of Shaolin survived after 1928 to be passed on? By knowing who survived the Cultural Revolution, and who helped develop the current Shaolin training program might help us better understand what it is that is being presented to us nowadays. Hence, the notion of a Shoalin Family Tree and the tap on your shoulder to see what the likelihood of such a project would entail.
Anyway, I just want to thank you for all your hard work and for putting such a great site together. I look forward to seeing where you take it in the future!
The question is not where I'm going to take the site in the future. The question is, where is the site going to take me (and us)? It's been one hell of a journey so far. I'm just holding on for the ride. Like some frisky old man on top of some young insatiable bitch, just wondering what she's gonna pull out or on, next.
Wait, gonna have to think about that analogy for a bit...
Well, anyhoo, I'm certainly not going to attempt a family tree. I've done some digging around with respect to this, and I've answered it, in a few places, somewhere in the site. But, a few basics; I'll save the details for the book. One day....
There is definitely a continuity between the monks of the late 1800's and the present day masters, well, more specifically, those of the "De" and Xing generations in particular. Or, more specifically, those monks who inhabited the temple during the 70's and 80's. The present day monks that are in the Wushu Guan and the temple, no doubt have learned some traditional stuff from their coaches, but, as I've discussed already in another thread (see the Shaolin Journals, one of my later journals, in the Archive), they are getting a more wushu oriented education. I've seen this in some of the Xing generation monks. If you want to see traditional stuff, as it has been taught way in the past, in my opinion, the De generation monks, the ones who learned directly from the Su generation monks, are the ones who really know the stuff. After the De generation, there was an ever growing preponderance of wushu being taught, because of various external governmental and tournamental pressures.
For example, Shi De Cheng, who arrived at the temple proper in the mid seventies (I can't remember exactly right now), had as his master, Shi Su Yuan and Shi Su Xi. Shi Su Yuan, who died in 1998 in his late eighties, learned when he was a child, directly from one of Shaolin's previous abbots, Shi Cheng Xu. Shi Cheng Xu was a Shaolin monk prior to the 1928 burning, and was abbot sometime in the early 1900's. He died I think sometime in the 1950's (I actually had all of this written down, but I can't seem to find it anymore). Traditional forms have been passed down precisely, from master to disciple, along that lineage.
Also, even though the burnings of the temple in 1928 caused massive destruction (almost all of it, with the exception of the Thousand Buddha Pavilion in the back), not all records were lost. There was a monk in the early 1900's whose name I can not remember, who's master was responsible for the sacred texts. He spent a lot of his time copying those texts, including the ones which described Shaolin gong fu over the ages, and kept them for himself. When the temple was burned in 1928, he left with those copies. In fact, his copies were not all inclusive; there were other monks who copied other parts of the texts, and kept them for themselves. But when the temple was destroyed, these monks left, and brought their copies with them. Some made the journey as far as XinJiang province, in their efforts to escape the warlord's devastation.
A monk, whose name I think was Deding, came across these documents, by virtue of the fact that one of the original monks who copied these ancient texts was his master. Upon that master's becoming ill, Deding (who didn't have a common "Shi" monk name) took those copies, and buried them. He thus hid them during the madness of the Cultural Revolution.
Shi De Qian, one of Shaolin's prolific writers, was given those copies by Deding. He still has them. He has used some of them to write his famous book, which, unfortunately is in Chinese. But, I've gone through it, and by looking at the primitive drawings, I can easily identify some traditional forms, which are almost exactly drawn as Shi De Cheng has taught them to me.
I don't need further proof. Oh, and don't believe everything that you read on the internet. Especially since when many of these forums are inhabited by people who couldn't find Shaolin on a map.
Making a family tree is another matter. I got Deyang's, and XingHong's and DeCheng's, and XingXi's lineage, but, you've got to remember something about these guys. They know who their masters were, but they don't necessarily know their master's masters. I had the opportunity to talk to Shi Wan Heng, one of the original fourteen (along with Shi Su Xi, and eventually, Shi De Qian) who returned to Shaolin after the Cultural Revolution, and he had given me the names of all fourteen who started the whole shibang, all over again. (Lost that piece of paper too). But he didn't know the masters of those masters, I don't think. And, after the political upheaval of the temple in the late 1990's, he disappeared, I heard, somewhere in Europe. In fact, many of the De generation monks left after that upheaval. So, putting together a lineage at this time, in my opinion, would be fairly difficult. I'm not sure there are any records, and if there were, I'm not sure that they're complete. There were a lot of changes and movements and migrations during the twentieth century with respect to the monks. And I'm not sure complete records are being kept now. If you can read some of the worn out stones of the Pagoda Forest, you might be able to find the names of some of the important monks from the past; but, many of those stones are fairly worn out. I guess it can be done, but I'm not sure how you would approach it. I certainly wouldn't want to attempt that project.
It's hard enough keeping up with the emails and the questions...
Well, if you ever come across this piece of paper again, PUH-LEEEEZE let us know! Thanks bunches.
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