......Very little is known about the SHAOLIN TEMPLE and its training regime. The most 
credible history states that when Emperor Hsiao Wen of the Northern Wei dynasty 
(386-534) located his capital at Loyang, he built the SHAOLIN TEMPLE on the northern 
side of Shao-shih Mountain south of Sung Mountain in Honan Province. Here it was 
that Bodhiruchi translated Buddhist scriptures into Chinese, where Tamo was reputed 
to have stayed, and where Hsuan Tsang (because it was "a very quiet place") wished 
to repair on his return from India with more than six hundred volumes of sanskrip 
scriptures.
...... The Temple had twelve upper and lower courts and was ringed almost 
completely by mountains, festooned with bamboos, cassia and cedar trees, and laced 
with waterfalls. The westrern terrace was where Bodhiruchi did his translations and 
where Tamo meditated.  At the end of the Ta Yeh period (A.D. 605-617) thieves
 attemped to burn the pagoda containing Tamo's remains. When it would not 
burn, everyone regarded it with awe.
......Tamo (P'u-t'-ta-mo or, as he is generally called, Bodhidharma) is a great, if mysterious, 
figure in both boxing and in Ch'an (Zen). Beyond the fact that he actually lived and 
came to China, little is known about him. Even the traditional histories are not consistent
regarding details of his life. He traveled to China in about A.D. 500.  After a visit with the 
Emperor at Nanking he proceeded north to the Shaolin Temple in Honan.  It is said 
that for nine years he sat facing a wall, listening "to the ants scream." He is represented
in art as a man of almost demonic power.  Once when meditating he fell asleep.  Legend
has it that this so angered him that he cut off his eyelids and threw them to the ground,
whence sprouted tea shrubs, the leaves of which thereafter were used by the monks
to deter sleep.  He died at a ripe old age.
......Tamo's boxing role is even more ambiguous than his Ch'an role. It is said that the blue
eyed monk became disturbed by the inability of the other monks to stay awake during
meditation. To counter this tendency and to improve their health, he purportedly introduced
exercise, which were the forerunner of Shaolin boxing. Now it is known that boxing existed 
in China before Tamo's coming, but how systematized it was in moot. He is said to have
left two manuscrips, only one of which has come down to us-the Muscle Change Classic
(I-chin Ching).  No verification of Tamo's authorship exists for this and the available versions
are of a much later time. W. Hu states that the earliest mention of it in literature goes back
only to 1835.
......Of much more pertinence than the dating and authenticating of the various versions 
of the Muscle Change Classic is its relevance for boxing. The exercise detailed in this
work are static tensing postures, calisthenic in nature and function. If it is assumed that 
Tamo created them - and this is impossible to prove they remain distant from boxing 
tactics. Therefore, it must be concluded that Tamo probably did not introduce boxing.
......Some authorities state that there was a second Shaolin Temple located in Fukien
Province. Said to have been built by a priest named Ta Tsun-shen over one thousand
years ago, much of the data on this temple cannot be verified. D. Bloodworth is merely
one of a long line of tale - spinners when he relates the story that the monks at the 
Shaolin Temple in fukien chopped the wood for their stoves with their bare hands,
because monks in Buddhist monasteries were forbidden by their faith to use knifes
or axes. Indeed, the chief monk was reputed to have said: "We may not have knifes,
so make every finger a dagger; without spears, every arm must be a spear, and every
open hand a sword."
......Tradition has it that during the reign of Emperor K'ang (1662 - 1723 ) imperial troops
sent against marauding bands in the western border areas were defeated.  When the 
Emperor asked for volunteers, 128 of the Fukien Shaolin monks responded and routed
the enemy without themselves suffering a single casualty.  Subsequently the Emperor
was persuaded by Manchu officials to send a force against the Fukien temple on a
purported charge of sedition. The temple was burned and only five monks survived
the battle. Out of this grew the anti-Manchu Triad Society or Hung League, with the
battle cry "overthrow the Ch'ing and restore the Ming."
......Both temples reportedly were burned down by the third Manchu Emperor,
Yung Cheng, but rebuilt by Ch'ien-lung (1736 - 1795). Temple burning is not unusual
in Chinese history, and the Shaolin Temple may have been burned and rebuilt earlier 
also. For example, in the great persecution of the Buddhists in A.D. 845-6 some
4,600 large temples and 40,000 minor ones were destroyed. Despite the burning, 
the Shaolin Temple was the hub of boxing activity for more than a thousand years.
Shaolin boxing originally contained eighteen forms. Emperor T'ai Tsu  (r 960-76)
reportedly evolved thirty-two forms of Long Boxing and Six Steps Boxing off the 
basic core. A century later Monk Chueh Yuan modified the system further to embrace
seventy-two forms. The Shaolin Temple was not only a repository of boxing knowledge
and a rigorous training academy but, as important, a stimulus for other boxing styles.
Graduates of the Shaolin Temple spread boxing to every part of  China.
......Wan Lai-sheng, an excellent boxer but an uneven historian, has outlined shaolin
as follows:......THE FIVE SCHOOLS......All used five basic forms: Draagon, Snake 
Crane, Tiger and Leopard. The five schools, O-mei Shan, Wa-tang, Fukien, Kwantung
and Honan.  Subsequently,  Wan says, shaolin split into northern and southern types
and boxing of the south was embraced in five schools:1.  Ta-hung Men, 2.  Liu-chia 
Ch'uan, 3.  Ts'ai-chia Ch'uan, 4.Lchia Ch'uan, and 5.  Mo-chia Ch'uan.This break-
down is disputed by hisyorians and is given here only because it paralles traditional 
belief, particularly in the south.



MORE TO COME AS TIME PERMITS