Bao wrote:I've never heard a good explanation why several similar taoists should have had the exact same name written with the same characters. Seems highly unlikely. I've heard people claim there were several Zhang Sanfeng, but they don't explain how or who they were.
There's only one historically recorded Zhang Sanfeng, the rest is just fiction. But I am sure the myth making around him might have made ppl confuse him with other ppl or they might have different reasons to put his birth in another time.
My book has info about the various Zhang SanFeng, which did have different characters for the name, and they were from different time periods.
There is a Zhang SanFeng that was around in the Ming Dynasty, not known as an immortal, but a martial artist that studied both Taoist and Shaolin arts.
By what a certain time, they were all convoluted and conflated into one person. People who had nothing to do with each other.
I have it all laid out in my book.
And I have all the known info about Wang ZongYue as well.