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Henning, Stanley E.
Features
1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
The Chinese martial arts are among the oldest elements of Chinese culture, tracing their origins to Chinas earliest recorded dynasty and still performed today in
forms modified over the centuries. Originally practiced in a rough-and-tumble
environment where strength and bravery were highly valued, these skills were
used in hand-to-hand combat among the large infantry forces pitted against each
other during the Warring States period. How-to manuals for some of these
skills are listed in the Former Han Bibliographies, among them one for boxing,
which was considered the foundation for training in the martial arts, and even
one for a form of football thought ideal for developing agility on the battlefield.
Many of these skills were widespread throughout society during Chinas early imperial age through the tenth century; they were the core military skills into the
Qing period; and they have been reflected in various aspects of the popular culture throughout Chinese history to the present. Widespread as they were, outside
the military these skills were nonetheless transmitted in a relatively secretive
atmosphere, dominated by narrow loyalties, and their true nature and origins
eventually became shrouded in a mist of myth and mystery that even now clouds
both Chinese and non-Chinese perceptions of their place in history, continuing
to confound laymen, practitioners, and scholars alike.
In academia, the Chinese martial arts have been conspicuous by their relative
absence from scholarly discussion, but when they have made an appearance it has
usually been fleeting and in a muddle not much beyond what one sees in the bulk
of martial-arts literature on the popular market. This can be seen in scattered
writings at every step up the scholarly staircase to the pinnacle of sinology in Joseph Needhams Science and Civilisation in China. The possible reasons for this
phenomenon are many, but hardly excusable in the halls of academe, where thorough research should be the norm. Whether these arts are misperceived by viewing them uncritically through popular legends, Japanese and other modern
practices, Chinese chivalric novels, fabricated secret-society history, the practices of late Qing-period heterodox religious sects, or the Boxers of ,
they appear to be taken too seriously in their mantle of myth and treated with a
strange, reverential awe and, at the same time, not seriously enough to expend the
extra effort necessary to find out their true story.
Of the Chinese martial arts, boxing, the most basic, is also the least understood.
A form of no-holds-barred weaponless fighting, variously combining strikes with
the hands, kicks, holds, grappling, and throws, boxing was originally called bo ,
known as shoubo in the Former Han ( ..), and only much later, in
the Southern Song (.. ), by its present name, quan . The Han History Bib-
1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
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Features
military thought, from Sunzis Art of War, at the strategic and tactical level,
to the hand-to-hand combat theory expounded in the story of the Maiden of Yue
! in the Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue. However, the combative arts were not necessarily associated with Taoist cultivation techniques,
alchemy, or religious Taoism generally. Needhams observation that Chinese boxing embodies a certain element of ritual dance reflects a combination of insight
and misunderstanding natural to the uninitiatedmisunderstanding in that he
apparently fails to realize that the ritual dance is actually a mnemonic device tying together individual forms or fighting techniquesa kind of shadow boxing
routine called kata , in the more familiar Japanese karate (or )
parlance. Needhams observation is also insightful in that martial-arts routines,
probably in modified forms, were an important part of ancient ritual military
(not Taoist) dances. To this day, the Chinese describe sword practice as dancing
with the sword, an activity immortalized by the Tang poet Du Fu () in
his Observation of a Sword Dance by Madam Gongsuns Disciple.
Needhams claim that Chinese boxing is an art with rules different from that
of the West appears to be based on the misassumption that it was ever considered to be a sport in the same sense as modern Western boxing. Chinese boxing
was never really meant to be a sport, although there is some evidence that it was
treated as such under some circumstances, in which it may have resembled the
Greek pankration. That it was probably not considered ideal as a sport can be
seen in the decree of the first emperor of Qin !, which designated
wrestling, not boxing, as the official skill for military ceremonies.
Needham describes taijiquan , in association with the legendary Taoist alchemist Zhang Sanfeng (dates unknown, between the Song and
Ming periods), as an aspect of physiological alchemy, A kind of physical exercise,
part self-defense, part medical eurhythmics, going back at least as far as Hua
Tho. Hua Tuo (d. .. ) was a famous physician who is said to have created
1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
the Five Animal Frolics, exercises that have no known association with taijiquan
or any other form of boxing. The association with Zhang Sanfeng can be traced
back no earlier than , but is primarily a fabrication of early twentieth-century
taijiquan proponents. Needhams description of current taijiquan practice is at
least partially accurateit reflects characteristics of Yang-style taijiquan that
have evolved over the past one-hundred-plus years and that have been encouraged by the government as a nationwide form of exercise. However, the name
taijiquan does not appear to date back earlier than about . Its original form,
Chen style , which is still practiced, was originally called Cannon Pounder
(paochui ), among other names, and may be a living descendant of General
Qi Jiguangs thirty-two forms, which he developed to train peasant volunteers for
campaigns against Japanese and indigenous pirates. The names of nearly all of
Qis thirty-two forms are similar or identical to Chen-style forms.
1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
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Features
Figure . Escape
technique, Escape
from being seized
by three persons.
Material reflecting
skills similar to and
possibly associated
with the development of Japanese
jjutsu.b
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1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
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tion of the martial arts with Japanese Zen practices; the confusion of modern
sports and exercise regimens reflected in wushu , jd , karated
o
, taekwondo , and taijiquan with traditional martial arts; and, in the case
of the Chinese martial arts, an overemphasis on the significance of their relationship to heterodox religious sects and secret societies during the mid- to late Qing
period. The end result of all this is that a kind of new age martial arts reality
has been formed from distorted perceptions. This is an attempt to describenot
to pass moral judgment onwhat appears to have happened. As the views of a sinological icon, though, Needhams writings can be said to contribute, at least
partially, to this state of affairs through their influence on those only beginning
their ascent up the scholarly path. For example, Charles Holcombe, basing an entire article on Needhams premise that Chinese boxing . . . probably originated
as a department of Taoist physical exercises, comes to the untenable conclusion
that premodern Chinese martial arts were inseparable from a religious context.
Following Needhams premise rather than doing some independent research, he
is apparently unfamiliar with all the historical evidence to the contrary, and so
concludes that the historical Chinese martial arts first appeared out of the
White Lotus or similar societies.
Several of the misunderstandings concerning the Chinese martial arts that
appear in the volumes of Science and Civilisation rear their heads again, along
with some new bits of misinformation, in Celestial Lancets: Acupuncture and Moxibustion, which Needham coauthored with Lu Gwei-Djen, although here the authors openly complain that most of the literature on the subject is quasi-esoteric
and unscholarly. But, even after observing that the secondary sources available
in both Chinese and Western languages are vague, contradictory, and unsatisfactory,
they go right on to rely on some of these very sources in their narrative, thus
lending these sources undue credence and muddying their own arguments. As a
result, the authors, apparently unaware of the pioneering works by the Chinese
martial-arts historian Tang Hao =(), and substituting the words
according to tradition for lack of in-depth research, merely repeat the myth
that attributes the origins of Chinese boxing to the legendary Zen monk
Bodhidharma, as well as a garbled account of the so-called Northern exoteric
(waijia ) Shaolin versus Southern esoteric (neijia ) Wudang
schools of boxing.
The authors blame the sparseness of literature on the subject to an overwhelmingly oral tradition, yet there is no indication that they came anywhere
near to exploiting all the available sources. In China, even oral traditions are usually recorded somewhere. Literature on the subject appears to be adequate
enough to confirm the absence of either a written or an oral tradition associating
Shaolin Monastery directly with boxing prior to the mid-sixteenth century, and
Bodhidharma with boxing prior to the twentieth century. The earliest extant writ-
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1999 by University
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1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
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Yue, is based on the interaction of the opposite attributes of yin and yang, and inherently combines so-called hard and soft or pliant techniques. This concept
is most succinctly stated in Wu Shus Record of the Arm (ca. ), where he
quotes the Meng Lu Tang Spear Method !" manual: In the art of war it
says, the pliant can control the unyielding, the weak can overcome the strong.
The concept is applicable to all martial arts, but the degree of application may
vary with the individual. One could say that boxings hard aspect is reflected in
kicks and punches, while escape and seizing methods appear to emphasize soft
techniques, but to categorize these aspects as Northern Shaolin versus Southern
Wudang is an oversimplification resulting from misinterpretations of Huang
Zongxis Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan that have clouded our understanding of
Chinese boxing. In A Taoist Immortal of the Ming Dynasty: Chang San-feng,
Anna Seidel points to the Epitaph as the second historical source, after the biography of Zhang Songqi in the Ningbo Gazetteer (ca. ), to mention Zhang
Sanfeng as a boxing master (alleged originator of the esoteric school of boxing)
who, in modern times, has been viewed by many as the patron saint of taiji
boxers. Much to her credit, Professor Seidel comes to the conclusion that the esoteric or Wu-tang school represented more a method of military training
than of physical self-cultivation, unrelated to taijiquan. However, apparently
unknowingly, Seidel reverses the true sequence of her sources. The Epitaph ()
is really the earliest source, and careful study of this piece in the historical context
in which it was written reveals that the real significance in its discussion of Zhang
Sanfeng and the esoteric school of boxing lies in its anti-Manchu symbolism.
This helps explain why the variant sanfeng instead of sanfeng appears
almost exclusively in legends alien to his original hagiography. Seidel notes the
difference but misses the symbolism.
Ironically, the full significance of the symbolism in the Epitaph has been
overlooked over the centuries, its content interpreted literally by scholars and
martial artists alike, and a confused discourse on exoteric versus esoteric
schools of boxing has permeated thinking on the subject at every level, from popular martial-arts magazines all the way up to Needhams Science and Civilisation
in China. On the dark side, it has bred further divisiveness in a community already rife with narrow loyalties. On the lighter side, it has added to the lure of
tourism to both Shaolin Monastery and Mount Wudang. However, even here,
scholarship has been groping in the dark. In Naquin and Yus Pilgrims and Sacred
Sites in China, John Lagerwey admits that he is not clear when Wu-tang Shan
became almost exclusively identified with Tai-chi chuan and, as such,
came to be known as the Taoist counterpart and rival of the Buddhist Shao-lin.
Curiously, neither Lagerwey nor Bernard Faure, who, in the same volume, contributes the chapter on Mount Song (the location of Shaolin Monastery),
references Huang Zongxis Epitaph, the real source of the problem. But, the
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1999 by University
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Epitaph only associates Mount Wudang with the esoteric school of boxing, not
taijiquan. It was not until the early twentieth century, after taijiquan became associated with the esoteric school of boxing, that Mount Wudang came to be associated with taijiquan.
Armed with their imperfect understanding of the martial arts, the authors of
Celestial Lancets attempt to illustrate with overlapping circles the interrelationship
between the martial arts and other cultural elements such as medicine, exercise,
dance, and theater. They begin on the wrong foot by separating unarmed
combat, which they identify as wushu, from armed combat. Wushu comprises
both armed and unarmed combat in sport form, but, more importantly, they fail
to show the direct, overlapping relationship between wushu and ritual dance
(thus partially ignoring Needhams own initial description of Chinese boxing)
and theatrical acrobatics. The relationship with theatrical acrobatics is equally
intimate, although the performance-oriented acrobatics exceed the practical requirements of real hand-to-hand combat. The fight scenes require a foundation
in the martial arts, though, and, in the past, there were occasions when real weapons were used.
The most widespread current image of the Chinese martial arts appears to be
a belief in their association with secret societies and heterodox religious sects
from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries, and a belief in their inherent spirituality. While the association itself was real, the nature of this association, and especially the role of spirituality, is usually distorted. To begin with,
some college textbooks, such as recent editions of Immanuel Hsus The Rise and
Fall of Modern China, unwittingly persist in spreading Heaven and Earth Society
(also variously known as the Triads or the Hong League )
misinformation about their own origins, ostensibly in a Shaolin Monastery in
Fujian, by treating it as history. This story, never backed up by a single kernel of
historical evidence, was hopefully laid to rest by Chinese research outlined in Qing
History Research in and further detailed in Dian Murray and Qin Baoqis The
Origins of the Tiandihui: The Chinese Triads in Legend and History ().
While the Heaven and Earth Societys Shaolin Monastery story establishes a
superficial religious aura around martial-arts practices, the practices of various
heterodox religious sects such as the White Lotus and Eight Trigrams
further complicate views as to the possible spirituality of the martial arts.
Susan Naquin has published extensively on these sects and their various martialarts, meditation, and other practices, but I think Joseph W. Escherick comes closest to clarifying the martial-spiritual relationship in a note in The Origins of the
Boxer Uprising: The two elements, martial arts and heterodox beliefs, are clearly
alternatives, not linked elements of a single tradition. Members of heterodox
sects might practice martial arts, but martial arts were not inextricably linked to
spiritual practices.
1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
, No. , Fall
Features
small inner world of Yang-style taijiquan and accurately identify its place in the
overall context of Chinese martial arts and social history.
Stanley E. Henning
Stanley E. Henning is an independent scholar in Honolulu, Hawaii; he studied Chinese martial arts in Taiwan between and , and has spent nearly years
studying their history.
notes
, Jixiao xinshu
, Lianbing shiji
, Mohai jinhu
. Herbert A. Giles, The Home of Jiujitsu, in Adversaria Sinica (Shanghai: Kelly and
Walsh) , no. (): .
. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), p. .
. Ibid., vol. , pp. ; vol. , pt. (), p. ; vol. , pt. (), pp. ; vol. ,
pt. (), pp. n. e, n. b.
. Zhang Jue , trans. and ed., Wu-Yue Chunqiu quanyi
!"# (Complete
translation of the Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue) (Guiyang: Guizhou Renmin
Chubanshe, ), pp. .
. Xu Fang , Du Fu shi jinyi
. Tiao Luzi
mishi congshu
, No. , Fall
, Jueli ji
!"# []).
. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. , pt. , pp. ; Giles, The Home
of Jiujitsu, pp. ; Qi Jiguang, Jixiao xinshu, p. .
. Shen Shou , Taijiquanfa yanjiu
(Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Tiyu, ), p. :
)"#*+,
. Imamura Yoshio
!, Nihon taikushi
, Jiangnan jinglue
Taiwan Shangwu, ); Liu Shuangsong , ed., Xinban zengbu tianxia bianyong wenlin
miaojin wanbao quanshu
wanbao quanshu
(): .
. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. , pt. , p. ; Zhang Kongzhao
, Quanjing quanfa beiyao
yuan congshu
hongquan , associated with the Hung League, also variously called the Heaven and Earth
Society or the Triads, although he does not point this out), but his claim in the foreword (p. )
that Shaolin is the father of all boxing forms in China is groundless. The history in Huang
Wen-Shans book is a patchwork of fact and fiction tied into a Gordian knot too tedious to unravel here.
Features
Shaolin boxing methods) (n.d.; Hong Kong: Unicorn, ); Zun Wozhai Zhuren
(Master of the Studio of Self-respect), Shaolin quanshu mijue
!"
Zhonghua, ), qianji , pp. ab; Stanley E. Henning, Chinese Boxing: The Internal Versus
External Schools in the Light of History and Theory, Journal of Asian Martial Arts , no.
(): .
. Lu and Needham, Celestial Lancets: Acupuncture and Moxibustion, p. n. e.
. Ibid., p. .
. Zhang Jue, Wu-Yue Chunqiu quanyi; Wu Shu , Shoubei lu
(Record of the
!"#$%
!" (Fujian, Yunxiao, GaoqiThe Heaven and Earth Societys place of origin), Qingshi
yanjiu
! , no. (): ; Dian H. Murray and Qin Baoqi, The Origins of the
Tiandihui: The Chinese Triads in Legend and History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, ).
. Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China (New Haven: Yale University Press,
), Shantung Rebellion: The Wang Lun Uprising of (New Haven: Yale University Press,
), and The Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism in Late Imperial China, in David
Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan, and Evelyn S. Rawski, Popular Culture in Late Imperial China
(Berkeley: University of California Press, ), pp. ; Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of
1999 by University
of Hawaii Press
!"#$%&'(
(National Physical Culture and Sports Commission Martial Arts Research Institute), Zhongguo
wushu shi
, No. , Fall
. Douglas Wile, Lost Tai-chi Classics from the Ching Dynasty (Albany: State University of
New York Press, ).
. Stanley E. Henning, review of Lost Tai Chi Classics of the Late Ching Dynasty by Douglas Wile, China Review International , no. (Fall ): .
. Lu and Needham, Celestial Lancets: Acupuncture and Moxibustion, p. n. e.
notes to
the figures
!.
b. Liu Shuangsong , ed., Xinban zengbu tianxia bianyong wenlin miaojin wanbao
quanshu
of miscellany], Songlin Anzhengtang Liu Shuangsong Engraved Edition (; HarvardYenching Library), juan , b.
c. Zhang Kongzhao
Sinian Library, ], juan , a). This is the earliest extant reference to Shaolin Monastery as
Chinese boxings place of origin, an exaggerated and unsubstantiated claim typical of what
might be expected in a preface. However, this does not deny the possibility that some of the material in this manual may actually have originated in the monastery (the manual was handwritten by Cao Huandou based on the oral transmission of Zhang Kongzhao, and the material likely
comes from multiple sources over several generations).
1999 by University
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Introduction
This article is intended to provide an annotated survey of predominantly recent
literature in Western languages on Chinese philosophy. It is meant as a guide to
the study of Chinese philosophy for those who have not mastered the Chinese
language. Attention has gone primarily to book publications and, moreover, to
publications in English, French, and German. The important Russian contributions to the historiography of Chinese philosophy had to be left outnot to mention the massive literature on Chinese philosophy in Japanese and Chinese.
This survey is dressed up as a short narrative about the history of Chinese
philosophy, but it is not representative of Chinese philosophy as a whole, if only
for the reason that publications about Chinese philosophysecondary literature
as well as translationsare not equally spread over the different periods, thinkers,
and schools. Neither does it aim at completeness. The survey is ordered according