Shaolin Martial Arts

DENGFENG, ZHENGZHOU, HENAN PROVINCE, CHINA � APRIL 25, 2009: The Shaolin Buddhist temple in Defeng. Once upon a time there were Shaolin warrior monks at the monastery in Sun Song forest, which is on one of China's sacred mountains, about 70km from Luoyang, the ancient capital of Henan Province. It was at that monastery that in 527 AD the Indian monk Bodhidharma completed his journey. He was the father of the Ch�an school of Buddhism, also known as Japanese Zen Buddhism. According to legend, he combined body and spirit as the arcane disciplines of bar-handed combat. The story goes that in 630 AD, 13 Shaolin monks rescued the Emperor Tai Tsung from the Mongols, who thereafter decreed the temple had formed a caste of warrior monks, whose fame spread throughout China in the following centuries. Perhaps it was precisely for this reason that the monastery and its monks suffered cyclical destruction and persecution, most recently from the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. In recent years, the monastery has become a tourist attraction and the monks, lit by thousands of electric lights, are now the stars of their own impressive show. It is a spectacular version of �wu xia xiao shuo�, the martial art novels that sold millions of copies, giving rise to the �wu xia pian�, the martial art films that now have a cult status in the West. Schools around the temple have now became a magnet for tens of thousands of Chinese who want to follow in the footsteps of Jackie Chan, one of the biggest stars of the genre. But the rebirth of the Shaolin is not just for commercial value, it is also the expression of the rediscovery of traditional values implemented by the ruling class. Not by chance, Jiang Qing, one of the greatest theoreticians of contemporary Confucianism, was trained in the Shaolin temple. (Photo by Andrea Pistolesi/Getty Images)