Located in Dengfeng County of Henan Province, Songshan is called the Central Mountain of the Five Sacred Mountains. It has 36 peaks and stretches 60 kilometers, composed of Taishi Mountain and Shaoshi Mountain. The highest peak is 1494 meters above sea level.

The Central Mountain has rich forest resources, some of which are rare ancient trees with odd figures and literary quotations, such as the General Cypress in the Songyang Academy, the Fifth-rank Chinese Scholar tree in the Shaolin Temple, the Han (206BC-220AD) Maidenhair Tree in Fawang Temple, the Cypress Forest in the Zhongyue Temple, and the Bodhi tree in the Yongtai Temple, etc. The forest resources of Songshan are praised as “rare treasure” for their large quantity, antiquity, abundant literary quotation and vivid shapes.

The mountain also boasts a large number of showplaces and cultural relics. The most famous Shaolin Temple is located here, where Shaolin monks exercise Qigong, Qinggong and other Shaolin Kong-fu (martial arts).

There are some other temples in the mountain, such as the Zhongyue Temple, which is nicknamed “the Little Palace”; the Fawang Temple and the Huishan Temple, the oldest temples extant in China; two earliest and well-preserved astronomical observatories extant in China; etc.

Songshan abounds in stele carvings, totaling more than 2,000 pieces, left by famous calligraphers like Yan Zhenqing, Su Dongpo, Huang Tingjian and Mi You, etc.

Travel Scenes:

Zhongyue Temple

The Zhongyue Temple is nicknamed “the Little Palace”. The temple is one of the oldest of its kind in China, originally built in the Qin Dynasty over 2,200 years ago, and moved to its present site in the Tang (618-907). Along the center line of the temple lie about 400 constructions of various kinds including archways, pavilions, terraces, gates, halls, and towers, as well as many (over 300) tall, gnarled and weather-beaten cypresses, mostly in the large courtyard. It covers an area of 370,000 square meters.

Songyang Academy

The Songyang Academy, one of the most famous ancient academies, is also located here. Celebrities of ancient times like Sima Guang, Cheng Yi and Fan Zhongyan all gave lectures here. The building of the academy is old and elegant, but mostly broken. At the west side, there are two high and old cypresses named Great General and Second General, they are the oldest cypresses with over 4,000 years of history.

Tower of Songyue Temple

The Tower of Songyue Temple is the earliest Buddhist tower existing in China. It was built in the Northern Wei Dynasty (520). It has 15 storeys and a height of over 40 meters. With superb craft, it is the oldest polygonal tower in China.

Shaolin Monastery (Shaolinsi)

Shaolin Monastery (Shaolin si) is to Chinese martial arts (kongfu) what golf is to St. Andrews. The Monastery was built, in 495 AD, on the Shaoshi Peak (Shaoshi feng) from whence it took its name. Many legends ascribe different stories to the founding of the ancient site, but the Chinese follow the story that it was built by Emperor Xiawen of the Northern Wei Dynasty to accommodate an eminent Indian monk, Bodhidharma, alleged founder of the Chan (Zen) sect of Buddhism. In later years, another accomplished monk, and a disciple of the 29th generation of Sakimonia, made a long trek, via the capital in Nanjing, to preach here, thus securing the monastery as a cradle of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, as well as Mecca for believers.

It is said that Kungfu was created because the monks of the monastery had little to do beyond long spells in contemplation of the meaning of life and the universe. To relieve themselves of the great monotony of daily life, the monks imitated the movements of various different animals, gradually developing this imitation into a unique martial art. Thus was formed the first ever Chinese monk army, that was to give the monastery both fame and misfortune for many years. Shaolin became well known as a righteous brotherhood, that often meddled with "earthly matters", normally uprisings, always siding with the just, weak or poor (and normally all three). Despite the monks fighting prowess the monastery was destroyed many times over the years.

Today much of the kung fu that is known in the west accredits its origins in this small mountainous region of China. Unfortunately nowadays much of the spiritual side of the Shaolin art has been lost, as the monastery aspires to life in a modern, money making society. Pilgrims who come here may be disappointed by what they find: those paying the monastery a visit, will discover that the local folks depend heavily on the monastery for a living - the route that goes uphill are lines with numerous stalls selling local snack food, ice-creams and shoddy souvenirs. Thousands of students, mainly local, come here after quitting school, to enroll in the kungfu academy.

The Grand Hall (Daxiang baodian) is the centerpiece of the entire monastery proper, which has undergone several renovations, the latest being in 1986. In the midst of the hall is the venerable statue of Sakimonia, above which is the imperial calligraphy written by Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). On both sides of the Grand Hall are two towers, the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower, the former striking at 5am and the latter at 5pm, signaling the beginning and the conclusion of daily life. The Thousand Buddha Hall is the largest one in the monastery, which houses a big Buddhist figure in the center and colorful murals bearing the 500 Arhats on the eastern, western and northern walls. What truly fascinates visitors most are the 48 deep depressed footprints, which are said to have been left by the monks practising kongfu.

The monastery still boasts a sizable collection of cultural relics, including over 400 pieces of stone carvings from the Northern Qi Dynasty, more than 250 dagobas dated back as far as the Tang Dynasty and 500 murals painted in the Ming Dynasty. It is advised that you go to the monastery on a weekday, when fewer visitors are expected and when you will stand a better chance of watching the practicing, or even performing, monks.

Forest of Dagobas

300m or so west of the Shaolin Monastery lies an open space mushroomed with over 200 stone memorials--the Forest of Dagobas (Ta lin). This area is a graveyard for accomplished monks and abbots from the eighth century to the nineteenth, covering a total area of more than 14,000 square meters.

The dagobas vary greatly in size, height, age and in their cross section (square, rectangular, hexangular, octagonal and circular), and these factors are a distinct sign of the hierarchical ranking of their respective occupants. The ages of the dagobas date from 791 AD to 1995 and they are sized variously from two to seven levels high. The bodies of all the dagobas bear different Buddhist patterns and inscriptions carved to depict briefly the life of the occupants,and it is these that have drawn numerous Buddhist scholars here each year.

For laymen, the best time to come is during the sunset, when the dagobas bask in crimson light, or when the monk students from the monastery come here to practice kungfu in their orange robes. Winter is also a good time to view the forest at a distance against the purple mountain.