Well, we can call the Shaolin Encyc. the Da Quan Book, which is what it is named in Chinese, much shorter, yes?Originally Posted by LFJ
i get tired of typing out encyclopedia too!
well, i have the old four volume edition. planning on getting the revised one soon. so i dont know how much different these are, but apparently the newer one says in the dahongquan poem; "if you ask the name of this quan, it is taizu guandong dahongquan".
whereas the older version starts off calling it "taizu hongquan", and the last sentence is instead; "if you ask where this quan originates, it is at shaolin monastery".
i guess they revised it for more than technical accuracy of the sets.
as for xiaohongquan erlu, it (the old encyc.) is a bit vague, but says it was created by monks who left the order and returned home (huánsúsēng 还俗僧) by combing the basic skills of shaolin xiaohongquan, luohan 18 shou, and other sets. then describes its attributes. finally it says the set is practiced today by no fewer than 50,000 people. among those who have mastered it are ven. sufa (素法) and deyan (德炎, the female co-author). it also says they copied the set down based on her demonstration of it.
as far as history, the poem is a bit more specific. it says it was passed on by monk rujing (如精), and originally from zhenkui (真魁). it doesnt really give a date, but you can figure. these are 23rd and 24th generation monks. definitely within the qing dynasty still. maybe 1700's.
clues: monks returning home, 23rd and 24th generation monks named... it was probably from around the time the monastery was destroyed by the qing government for suspected anti-qing activity. whichever date that may have been approximately.
taizu guandong dahongquan is what it is called in history books as well. So, they must have corrected that. Hmmm.
now about it saying "monks returning".
There's two periods:
During the mid 1600s, ALL the monks attending religious services were massacred by the rebel leader Li, who felt that they were too loyal to the emperor, whether it be Ming or Qing.
The only people who didn't die were those that weren't there that day. I mean everyone was killed by hundreds of rebel armymen, they waited till the monks were in services and unawares. This a historical fact. They destroyed the temple grounds as well, demolished most of it.
So, I would think this is when some monks came back, if they were ordained monks.
In the mid 1700s, the Qing emperor, REBUILT Shaolin completely. BUT< he used this as an opportunity to evict and destroy all the shrine area temples, where the anti-Qing rebels hid out and where the guard Martial Monks were stationed, who were not ordained. They were rebels who posed as monks, learning Shaolin martial arts, but not being religious.
These "monks" spread out at that time to Shandong and spread the Kanjia Quan (which become Bei Shaolin 10 famous sets), Shaolin Hong Quan, and Shaolin Chang Quan. Some went to Hebei where they spread Luohan Quan and other styles. Some went to other provinces and spread what they had specialized on as well. This was a big Shaolin diaspora but they weren't religious monks at all.
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