The Shaolinsi Temple in Zhangzhou and holy Mount Song

The entrance of Shaolinsi

In Dengfeng county, in the prefecture Zhengzhou, the capital of Hunan district in China, is Mount Song located. It is one of the Five Sacred Mountains in Taoism. The mountain is situated on the south bank of the Yellow River.

The nearby Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Zen Buddhism and the collection of stupas is the largest in China. It is famous for its long association with martial arts.

Shaolinsi, the Chinese name for “monastery of the woods near Shaoshi peak”, was originally founded in AD 495 by the Buddhist monk Batuo, a dhyana master from India. He went to China to preach Buddhism in AD 464.

The monastery has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. The destruction of 1732 by the Qing dynasty, for supposed anti-Qing activities, is also supposed to have helped spread Shaolin martial arts through China by fugitive monks. This story commonly appears in martial arts history and movies.

Other famous places are the Zhongyue Temple, one of the earliest Taoist temples in the country, and the Songyang Academy, one of the four great academies of ancient China.

Song Shan and its vicinity are settled with many other Taoist and especially Buddhist monasteries, and are a wonderful site to visit.

Dengfeng near Zhengzhou in Henan

Dengfeng (Chinese: 登封; Pinyin: Dēngfēng) is a county-level city in Zhengzhou in Henan province. In ancient times, it was known as Yángchéng ( 陽城; 阳城). Dengfeng has an area of 1.220 square kilometers and about 630,000 inhabitants.