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The Shaolin Monastery or Shaolin Temple, is a Chan Buddhist temple at Song Shan in Dengfeng, Henan Province of the People's Republic of China. The monastery was built by the Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty in AD 477, and the first abbot of Shaolin was Batuo, also called Fotuo or Bhadra (the Chinese translation for Buddha), 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.

History
According to the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (AD 645) 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 Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty. The name of the temple comes from its location with the Shao in "Shaolin" refering to "Mount Shaoshi". The lin in "Shaolin" means "forest". Literally, the name means "Monastery in the woods of Mount Shaoshi". Yang Xuanzhi, in the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang (AD 547), and Li Xian, in the Ming Yitongzhi (AD 1461), concur with Daoxuan's location and attribution. The Jiaqing Chongxiu Yitongzhi (AD 1843) 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 Qing emperor, was a supporter of the Shaolin temple in Henan and he wrote the calligraphic inscription that, to this day, hangs over the main temple gate. 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 (giving birth to the famous slogan "Destroy the Qing, restore the Ming!"); this destruction is also supposed to have helped spread Shaolin martial arts through China by means of the five 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 (1917), 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 (小林流), for example, has a name meaning "Small [Shao]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 Red Guard attacked were shackled and made to wear placards declaring the crimes charged against them. The monks were jailed after being flogged publicly and parading through the street as people threw rubbish at them. The government purged Buddhist materials from within the Monastery walls, leaving it barren for years.

Martial arts groups from all over the world have made donations for the upkeep of the temple and grounds, and are subsequently honored with carved stones near the entrance of the temple.

In the past, many people have tried to capitalize on the Shaolin Monastery by building their own schools on Mount Song. However, the Chinese government eventually outlawed this, and so the schools all moved to the nearby towns.

In 1994, the Shaolin temple became the first temple to register its name as a trademark. A Dharma gathering was held between August 19 and 20, 1999, in the Shaolin Monastery, Songshan, China, for Buddhist Master Shi Yong Xin to take office as abbot. He is the thirteenth successor after Buddhist abbot Xue Ting Fu Yu. Under Abbot Shi's leadership, the temple has expanded internationally, opening centers in Germany, and Italy. Recently though, Abbot Shi's leadership has come under attack by those who believe he is running the temple more like a business than a place of religion. The temple faced further criticism in April 2008, after opening two luxury bathrooms costing 3 million RMB. In November 2008, it was announced that the Shaolin temple has signed a contract to manage four temples located in Kunming.

In March 2006 Vladimir Putin of Russia became the first foreign leader to visit the monastery.

Pagoda Forest
300 meters away from the temple is a pagoda forest. The pagodas within are of many different types, 4-sided, 6-sided, cylindrical, cones, and many other kinds. The tallest is 10.45 meters tall and the shortest about 1 meter. The pagodas have from one to seven stories. The first pagoda was built during the Tang Dynasty in 791, and the final one built in 1803 during the Qing dynasty. There are a total of 242 pagodas in the forest, most of which are the tombs of famous monks from the Shaolin temple. Because the monks’ accomplishments and positions were not the same, the various pagodas where they are buried are also different in size. Within the pagoda forest, there are 2 pagodas dating from the Tang dynasty, 3 from the Song, 6 from the Jin, 40 from the Yuan, and others from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Patron saint
The patron saint of the Shaolin Monastery, is the Boddhisattva Vajrapani. A short story appearing in Zhang Zhuo's (660-741) Tang anthology shows how the deity had been venerated in the Monastery from at least the eighth century. It is an anecdotal story of how the Shaolin monk Sengchou (480-560) gained supernatural strength and fighting ability by praying to Vajrapani and being force-fed raw meat. Shaolin abbot Zuduan (1115-1167) erected a stele in his honor during the Song Dynasty. It reads: "According to the scripture [Lotus Sutra], this deity (Narayana) is a manifestation of Avaokitesvara (Guanyin). If a person who compassionately nourishes all living beings employs this [deity's] charm, it will increase his body's strength (zengzhang shen li). It fulfills all vows, being most efficacious. ... Therefore those who study Narayana's hand-symbolism (mudra), those who seek his spell (mantra), and those who search for his image are numerous. Thus we have erected this stele to spread this transmission."

- Stele re-erected (chong shang) by Shaolin's abbot Zuduan

Instead of being considered a stand alone deity, Shaolin followers believes Vajrapani to be an emanation of the Bodhisattva Guanyin. Shahar comments the Chinese scholar A'De noted this was because the Lotus Sutra says Guanyin takes on the visage of whatever being that would best help pervade the dharma. The exact Lotus Sutra passage reads: “To those who can be conveyed to deliverance by the body of the spirit who grasps the vajra (Vajrapani) he preaches Dharma by displaying the body of the spirit who grasps the vajra.”

He was historically worshiped as the progenitor of their famous staff method by the monks themselves. A stele erected by Shaolin abbot Wenzai in 1517 shows the deity's vajra-club had by then been changed to a Chinese staff, which originally "served as the emblem of the monk". Vajrapani's Yaksha-like Narayana form was eventually equated with one of the four staff-wielding "Kimnara Kings" from the Lotus Sutra in 1575. His name was thus changed from Narayana to "Kimnara King". One of the many versions of a certain tale regarding his creation of the staff method takes place during the Yuan Dynasty's Red Turban Rebellion. Bandits lay siege to the monastery, but it is saved by a lowly kitchen worker wielding a long fire poker as a makeshift staff. He leaps into the oven and emerges as a monstrous giant big enough to stand astride both Mount Song and the imperial fort atop Mount Shaoshi (which are five miles apart). The bandits flee when they behold this staff-wielding titan. The Shaolin monks later realize that the kitchen worker was none other than the Kimnara King in disguise.Shahar notes the part of the kitchen worker might have been based on the actual life of the monk Huineng (638-713). In addition, he suggests the mythical elements of the tale were based on the fictional adventures of Sun Wukong from the Chinese epic Journey to the West. He compares the worker's transformation in the stove with Sun's time in Laozi's crucible, their use of the staff, and the fact that Sun and his weapon can both grow to gigantic proportions.

Statues and paintings of Kimnara were commissioned in various halls throughout Shaolin in honor of his defeat of the Red Turban army. A wicker statue woven by the monks and featured in the center of the "Kimnara Hall" was mentioned in Cheng Zongyou's seventeenth century training manual Shaolin Staff Method. However, a century later, it was claimed that Kimnara had himself woven the statue. It was destroyed when the monastery was set aflame by the KMT General Shi Yousan in 1928. A "rejuvenated religious cult" arose around Kimnara in the late twentieth century. Shaolin re-erected the shrine to him in 1984 and improved it in 2004.

The Buddhist monk Bodhidharma erroneously came to be known as the creator of the monastery's arts. This occurred when a Taoist with the pen name "Purple Coagulation Man of the Way" wrote the Sinews Changing Classic in 1624, but claimed to have discovered it. The first of two prefaces of the manual traces this qigong style's succession from Bodhidharma to the Chinese general Li Jing via "a chain of Buddhist saints and martial heroes." Scholars damn the work as a forgery because of it's numerous anachronistic mistakes and the fact that popular fictional characters from Chinese literature, including the "Bushy Bearded Hero" (虬髯客), are listed as lineage masters. In fact, Shahar points out the "Qing scholar Ling Tingkan (1757-1809) dismissed the manual's author as an 'ignorant village master'."