Burning of Shaolin Temple

[Zorro Dantes]

Given how terrified the Qing empire was of the fifth Dalai Lama and how dirty they did the Sixth Dalai Lama.

what if the destruction of the Shaolin temple was done in order to prevent the fifth Dalai Lama or any other group claiming to have a maitreya on their side from gaining influence over the Buddhist segments of society within China at that time? 
 

[Mig]

Which Shaolin temple, the one is Fujian province? Or the one in Henan province?

[Zorro Dantes]

Ah timeline, good point 1644 pretty sure fujian. 

[Mig]

There were actually two southern Shaolin Temples. The first one, known to the public, was situated in the city of Quanzhou (泉州), built by a Ming Dynasty emperor who moved the status of the Shaolin Temple as the imperial temple from the northern Shaolin Temple at Henan to this one. When the Qing Dynasty overthrew the Ming Dynasty, some Ming generals retreated to this temple to plot against the Qing.

A Qing prince, Yong Zheng (雍正), infiltrated into the temple as a monk to find out its secrets. When he became the emperor, he ordered the Qing Army, with the help of Lama kungfu experts from Tibet with their notorious flying guillotines, to burn down the temple.

Some top level kungfu masters escaped. One of them was the Venerable Chee Seen (至善禅师), spelt as Zhi Shan in Romanized Chinese, who built a secretive southern Shaolin Temple on the Nine-Lotus Mountain (九莲山), also in Fujian Province. This second southern Shaolin Temple was also burnt down by the Qing Army under the order of Emperor Yong Zheng, and led by Pak Mei (白眉), a Shaolin grandmaster who was a senior classmate of Chee Seen.

[Zorro Dantes]

Apologies for the late reply Mig. Im somewhat familiar with the narratives provided but there are bizarre inconsistencies as far as Tibetan involvement goes. Lamas used key shaped rope darts. Flying guillotine is always presented as a long distance circular bladed assassin weapon,it’s also Baguazhang iconography and is even mentioned in the old movies as an instrument of centrifugal and centripetal force… National Geographic did a small piece on it and it looked pretty dang difficult to use. Not really a siege weapon if you ask me.🧐Other depictions say it was sharpened up cymbal,Then throw into the mix that the  flying guillotine used in the siege of shaolin temple turns into eyewitness anecdotes of people who’s whole existence becomes questionable 🤨 a lot of cats say these five individuals were fake but then these same guys who say those guys weren’t real at all are like “oh yeah the flying guillotine gets you can’t do nothing about that!”🫣(personally I think they did exist. Why even go about the whole propaganda campaign in Kung fu movies just to establish the notion of “these three elders good, those two elders bad!”)

in 1639-40 you had the Tibetan civil war  that resulted in Tibets unification. After ward according to some scholars The great 5th Dalai Lama went into neighboring kingdoms in what seems like seminar works?
What If the Qing Empire hired Sikh martial arts experts disguised as lamas and their “flying gulliotines” were actually just throwing chakrams. Dang…😱🤯what if the real reason behind the burning of Shaolin was to fracture the regional relationship of the two nations🤔 

 

Sorry Mig, I’ve been reading the fifth Dalai lamas biography apologies if this seems conspiracy theory. Just doesn’t seem like something the 5th Dalai Lama would endorse…he didn’t   even endorse the faction that supported him in the Tibetan civil war! they faked his approval and apologized afterwards. Which is kind of hilariously cool. Interesting to say the least. But yeah man I think Tibet was innocent of this one.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Zorro Dantes