Shaolin Monastery Stele

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Shaolin Monastery Stele Stele of Emperor Taizong[1] Li Shimin Stele
Chinese: 皇唐嵩岳少林寺碑
Above: Front surface of the Shaolin Monastery stele Below: The half of the brick structure containing the Shaolin Monastery stele visible before the Bell Tower
Type	Imperial proclamation
Material	Inscribed stone supported by brick structure
Long	38.18 cm (15.03 in)
Height	4 m (13 ft)[2][i]
Width	136 cm (4.46 ft)
Writing	Chinese
Created	728
Discovered	1513[3] Shaolin Monastery 34°30′28″N 112°56′08″E / 34.507885°N 112.935689°E / 34.507885; 112.935689
Discovered by	Du Mu
Present location	Remains approximately in place.[4][ii]
Culture	Beginning of the Tang dynasty

The Shaolin Monastery Stele (Shaolin Si Bei; Chinese: 皇唐嵩岳少林寺碑) is a tablet inscribed front and back to obtain two faces of continuous text in Chinese characters. The total engravable surface is about 10 m² (110 sq ft).^[5] The name was in use by later scholars studying the Tang dynasty (618–907), who understood the tablet to be an important primary source on early Tang dynasty events.^[6] It is being presented by many writers of the current times as the first source indicating that the professedly pacific monks did in fact participate in dynastic wars.

The issue was a disputed succession among the reigning House of Li. The father, Li Yuan, the first Tang emperor, who had taken the regnum away from the previous rulers, the Sui dynasty (581-618), now favored his second son, Li Shimin, on the basis of his close support, which earned him the later identification as co-founder of the dynasty. Li Shimin's brothers, who had been keeping the "barbarians" at bay on the frontier, raised the standard of civil war. Li Shimin triumphed, becoming the second Tang regnant, Taizong.^[7]

The monks of Shaolin had volunteered some assistance, first to the father, then to the son, in keeping the Mount Song territory. There is no evidence that they had any special martial arts skills. Nevertheless, their being selected subsequently as a unit of the imperial army suggests they had more military merit than an offer of moral support. Later they are known to have excelled in two main martial arts: primarily the staff (English quarter-staff), and its non-staff adjunct, hand-to-hand fighting (kung fu). The substitution of "sword" for "staff" in some texts suggests staffmanship may have spilled over into its more dangerous partner, swordsmanship.

Nearly a century later, during the Tang "golden age," Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji (regnit 712–756), deciding for reasons of his own to publicly clarify and commemorate the status of the monastery with regard to the empire, entrusted the matter to his Minister of Personnel, Pei Cui, who had the stele erected as a public declaration not unlike the publication of Greek law in stone in the marketplace. The original design and composition of the text were his work. On 15 July 728, a festival day,^[4] Pei Cui ordered the text published on one stele in front of Bell Tower.^[7][iii] It survived intact except for wear, tear, and cracks, through all the centuries of the monastery's trials and troubles, even the last one, Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.

When the Bell Tower came to be rebuilt, a number of steles were in front of it. They were scarcely legible except by special study.^[5] To protect two of them the restorers built a brick structure around them^[4] in which they appear tandem in two archways.^[iv] Special cases were placed over the inscriptions with the letters appearing color-enhanced within them. The larger stele, on the right of the front face, is the topic of this article. The smaller, on the left, is generally ignored.^[v] Media generally try to take pictures only of the right half. Sometimes the left half is mistaken for the reverse of the stele of interest. Since there is only one Shaolin Monastery stele,^[vi] that case is impossible. Not usually shown is the reverse of the structure, displaying the inscriptions on the reverse sides of the tablets. The inscription of present interest would then be on the viewer's left.

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