Читать книгу Empty Hand. The Essence of Budo Karate онлайн

26 страница из 56

The Shaolin-Kempō was created in the Chinese Shaolin monastery that was built in 495 (late Wei period) by order of the emperor Xiào Wén (471-499) for the Zen Buddhist priest Ba Tuo, who had come from India. The monastery is placed in the Honan province south of the Yellow River at the foot of the Songshan mountains. That is why it was also named Songshan Shaolin. It became famous because Bodhidharma19 (Japanese: Daruma), who became the founder of Zen Buddhism in China, stayed there and introduced zazen20. This might be the reason why he was – probably by mistake – considered to be the founder of the temple and the father of kempō, too.

Fighting techniques were developed particularly in the monasteries because they owned rich treasures of art and other property that the monks had to defend in this country that was ceaselessly stricken by unrest and war. The term Shaolin kempō includes all techniques that were invented in the monastery itself or came from the surrounding region. Some of them got lost in the course of time, such as the “smashing fist” (tsūhai ken), the “animated fist” (shin i ken) or the “cosmic fist” (rikugō ken).