Shaolin

Shaolin is where Chinese tradition locates two beginnings, a school of Buddhism and a school of fighting, and, most recently, a very modern scandal.

The Chan claim. Founded around 496 on the slopes of Mount Song, Shaolin is remembered as the place where Bodhidharma, the Indian monk who is credited with bringing Chan (Zen) to China, sat facing a cave wall for nine years. The historical core beneath the legend is thin, but the association made Shaolin one of the symbolic homes of Chan.

The martial legend. The tie between the monastery and the martial arts is real but far later and much embroidered than the films suggest; by the Ming dynasty Shaolin monks were documented as fighters, even as soldiers. Over centuries this grew into the global idea of "Shaolin kung fu."

The brand and the fall. Burned in 1928 and revived under reform-era China, Shaolin was turned by its abbot Shi Yongxin into a worldwide commercial operation (performance troupes, martial-arts schools, a web of companies), earning him the nickname the "CEO monk" and years of criticism that a monastery had become a business. In July 2025 he was removed and stripped of his monastic status over accusations of embezzling temple money and of relationships with women in breach of his vows; he was arrested that November, indicted in March 2026 on charges of embezzlement, misappropriation and bribery, and in May 2026 sentenced to twenty-four years in prison, with a new abbot already installed. The episode is the sharpest test yet of a question Shaolin has embodied for decades: how far the commercialisation of a living monastery can go before it consumes the thing it sells.

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.