Shaolin Monastery

The Shaolin Monastery or Shaolin Temple , is a Chan Buddhist temple at in Henan of what is now the People's Republic of China. The monastery was built by the Emperor Hsiao-Wen in AD 477, and the first abbot of Shaolin was Batuo, (also, ''Fotuo'' or ''Bhadra'' , an Indian dhyana master who came to China in AD 464 to spread Buddhist teachings. Long famous for its association with Chinese martial arts and particularly with Shaolin Kung Fu, it is the Mahayana Buddhist monastery perhaps best known to the Western world.

Name

The ''Shao'' in "Shaolin" refers to "Mount ''Shao''shi", a mountain in the . The ''lin'' in "Shaolin" means "forest". Literally, the name means "Monastery in the woods of Mount Shaoshi".

Early history

According to the ''Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks'' by Dàoxuān, the Shaolin Monastery was built on the north side of Shaoshi, the western peak of Mount Song, one of the Sacred Mountains of China, by of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Yang Xuanzhi, in the ''Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang'' , and Li Xian, in the ''Ming Yitongzhi'' , concur with Daoxuan's location and attribution.
The ''Jiaqing Chongxiu Yitongzhi'' specifies that this monastery, located in the province of Henan, was built in the 20th year of the ''Tàihé'' era of the Northern Wei Dynasty, that is, the monastery was built in AD 497.

Kangxi, the second emperor, was a supporter of the Shaolin temple in Henan and he wrote the that, to this day, hangs over the main temple gate.

Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma is said by the Shaolin monks to have introduced the sect of Chan Buddhism to them at Shaolin Temple in Henan, China during the 6th century. Bodhidharma was also given the opportunity to teach what the monks called “18 Hands of the Lohan,” .

Various styles of Chinese martial arts are said in some sources to have been practiced even before the Xia dynasty , styles such as Jiao Di, the precursor of Shuai Jiao. Not to mention Shou Bo kung fu practiced during the Shang dynasty , and Xiang Bo from the 600s BC, along with the hundreds of other systems of Chinese martial arts that have persisted from ancient times to the present day. There is a story that Huiguang and Sengchou were martial artists before the arrival of Bodhidharma, when they became two of the very first Shaolin monks.

Destruction

The monastery has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. Perhaps the best-known story of the Temple's destruction is that it was destroyed in 1644 by the Qing government for supposed anti-Qing activities ; this destruction is also supposed to have helped spread Shaolin martial arts through China by means of the 5 fugitive monks Ng Mui, Jee Shin Shim Shee, Fung Doe Duk, Miu Hin and Bak Mei. This story commonly appears in martial arts history, fiction, and cinema.

However, accounts of the Qing Dynasty destroying the Shaolin temple may refer to a southern Shaolin temple, which Ju Ke, in the ''Qing bai lei chao'' , located in Fujian Province. Additionally, some martial arts historians, such as Tang Hao and Stanley Henning., believe that the story is likely fictional, appearing only at the very end of the Qing period in novels and sensational literature.

Recent history

There is evidence of Shaolin martial arts techniques being exported to Japan in the 18th and 19th centuries. Okinawan Shōrin-ryū karate , for example, has a name meaning "Small lin". Other similarities can be seen in centuries-old Chinese and Japanese martial arts manuals.

In 1928, the warlord Shi Yousan set fire to the monastery, burning it for over 40 days, destroying 90% of the buildings including many manuscripts of the temple library.

The Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 targeted religious orders including the Monastery. The five monks who were present at the Monastery when the attacked were shackled and made to wear placards declaring the crimes charged against them.