Source: CCTV.com

05-29-2007 08:55

Special Report:   Cultural Heritage Day

For a very long time the Shaolin Temple, sitting on the top of the Mount Songshan in central China's Henan Province, had been shrouded in mountain mist, as well as the mystery of time. Its famed Shaolin Kong-fu, the epitome of Chinese martial arts, could only be glimpsed from novels and movies. But now all that is changing.

A grand open-air performance of six hundred monks from the Shaolin Temple reciting Buddhist teachings simultaneously - this would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The Shaolin monks had been living for well over a millennium in heavily-guarded seclusion.

The performance, titled "Zen and Shaolin" with an investment of more than one hundred million yuan, or about 12 million US dollars, is being staged in a valley about seven kilometers away from the temple.

The visual spectacle may be breathtaking, but some questions are left unanswered. Will efforts such as this one help to bring an ancient religion closer to the modern public? Or is it just another kitsch take on the popular idea of Zen? After centuries of seclusion, the Shaolin Temple is opening it doors more widely to the outside world.