Story of the Shaolin Temple:

The temple was first built in China as a Buddhist temple. Afterwords one of the emperors who really loved Buddism decided to give extra founding to the temple, so the Shaolin Monks who lived in the temple aquired many treasures. Unfortunately that attracted bandits and theves. To protect their treasure the monks their developed a system of fighting called Kung Fu. They studied and formed this martial art as a part of thier lives.

The Shaolin Monks became so good at Combat, that legend says that a single shaolin monk could defeat 10 soldiers at once. The emperors for hundreds of years would call on the Shaolin Monks for special missions.

But a later Emperor became very afraid of the monks. Greedy land owners convinced the emperor that if the monks were so powerful they must be the emperors greatest threat. The Emperor sent Thousands of soldiers to destroy the Shaolin Temple, and they were lead by a renegade shaolin monk. according to legend out of the 113 shaolin monks only 5 survived and those 5 went on to make the 5 different styles of kung fu you find today (tiger, dragon, crane, mantis, and viper).

Why I Made This Artwork:

I wanted to know what the Shaolin Temple looked like back when the monks of legend lived there. I did some research and found out what it looked like, and there were no color pictures of it as it was back then. So I took it upon myself to do one. One of the things I did not expect was that the Shaolin Temple was made up of many buildings, for I imagined it was all one. This drawing is a close representation of what it would look like back in those times. (1600's AD)