Shaolin's grounds include a forest of stone towers built specifically to mark the graves of its most respected monks, and its martial reputation traces to a specific legend about soldiers helping found a dynasty.
A forest built from graves
The Pagoda Forest, or Talin, at Shaolin comprises several hundred brick and stone stupas built as memorials over the burial sites of eminent monks across many centuries, varying in size and style according to the monk's rank and era, together forming one of the largest collections of ancient pagoda tombs in China and a direct physical record of the monastery's long lineage of leadership.
Soldier monks and a dynasty's debt
Temple legend credits a group of Shaolin monks with aiding Li Shimin, who went on to become a founding emperor of the Tang dynasty, in a military conflict during the dynasty's establishment, a story often cited as the origin point connecting Shaolin specifically to martial training and to a reputation for combining religious discipline with combat skill, distinct from Bodhidharma's earlier, purely meditative association with the monastery.
As this entry's companion article covers
Bodhidharma's legendary nine years of wall-facing meditation credited with founding Chan Buddhism at Shaolin, and the more recent controversy over the monastery's commercial branding under its modern abbot, are addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.