Built in the shadow of Songshan Mountain, one of the five sacred mountains of China, the Shaolin Monastery was founded in 496 AD to be near the Northern Wei Dynasty's capital, named Luoyang.
This is the only temple in China which combines the study of Zen Buddhism with the practice of martial arts. It is believed that Zen Buddhism helps the practitioner to build up qi (life-force) while martial arts helped to release the qi, which means the two studies balance and complement each other. The Shaolin Monastery is known as the birthplace of Shaolin Martial Arts and though there seems to be some controversy over the exact length of time that Kung Fu has been taught here, displays can be seen daily at the Shaolin Monastery Martial Art Training Center.
Not all the monks are Martial Arts experts, but those who are study their art hard and are rarely seen by the outside world: the Shoalin performers who tour the world are based at the Shaolin Monastery, but are students from local schools and neither live at the temple nor practice Buddhism. The most famous of these performers, is undoubtedly Jet Li, who brought the name of Shaolin to the west through his practice of Shaolin Wushu and the martial arts movies he made.
Aside from martial arts, the Shaolin Monastery attracts visitors with a collection of 300 stone tablets, paintings of the 500 Disciples of Buddha (Arhat) and 5000 Buddhist Sutras. The temple also has a variety of halls and pagodas open to visitors, including the Hall of Heavenly Kings (Tianwang Dian), the Mahavira Hall (Daxiongbao Dian), the Pagoda Forest, Bell Tower, a Drum Tower the Dharma Cave, the Sutra-Keeping Pavilion and the Fangzhang Hall.
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