The Shaolin temple has many legends and mysteries surround it. The
origin of martial arts, the origin of kung fu surround the vague mysteries of
the Shaolin Temple and the shaolin monks.
Shaolin Temple is probably
the most famous temple in China, not only because of its long history and its
role in Chinese Buddhism, but also because of its martial arts or Wushu Chan.
Shaolin Temple is situated in the beautiful Songshan Mountains, which is only
eight miles of Dengfeng and about 50 miles southwest of Zhengzhou, the capital
of Henan Province. Shaolin Temple was established in 495 during the Northern Wei
Dynasty (386-534). Batuo, an Indian monk, came to Luoyang, the ancient capital,
for spreading Buddhism at that period. Emperor Xiaowen was a believer of
Buddhism so he decided to build the temple in the Songshan Mountains to house
Batuo, who translated many Buddhist works and had a few hundred followers
there.
Damo (Bodhidharma), the legendary Indian monk, came
to Shaolin in 517, who was the creator of Chinese Zen. There are many legendary
stories about him. One of the well-known stories says he was meditating in a
cave for nine years. The cave is now called Damo Cave. Many people believe he
wrote the famous 'Yijinjing,' the base of Shaolin martial arts or Gongfu. But
there is no record about the book before and during the Tang Dynasty (618-907)
so experts think Damo has little to do with Shaolin Gongfu. Zongheng, a Taoist
priest of Tiantai Mountain, wrote 'Yijinjing' in 1624, but to add mystery to it,
he made up a story saying 'Yijinjing' was originally written by Damo.
Shaolin
does have a long tradition of Chinese martial arts, as the saying goes 'All
martial arts (gongfu) are from Shaolin.' This is partly because Shaolin was
located in a strategic area so they had to protect the temple themselves from
wars or any invading, and partly because of the support of most emperors from
different dynasties, which came after the 13 Shaolin monks once saved Li Shimin,
the emperor of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Since then Shaolin was allowed to
have solider-monks. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Shaolin housed over
1,000 solder-monks at its peak and they were often used by the government to
combat rebellions and Japanese bandits. But martial arts were forbidden during
the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Even with the protection of solder-monks, Shaolin
was severely damaged by fire a few times. The largest fire set by the army of
Shi Yousan in 1928 destroyed most of the buildings of Shaolin Temple.
There are many
noted relics at Shaolin. There are over 300 ancient stone inscriptions, some of
them by famous calligraphers. The large mural of 500 arhats in the Qianfo Hall
was from the Ming Dynasty. There are 232 pagodas from different dynasties, known
as the forest of pagodas. The oldest one was from the Tang Dynasty. The pagodas
are the tombs of the celebrated Shaolin monks. The Shaolin martial arts are an
important part of the relics.
