Ba Tao kindly declined this offer and asked for a Piece of land far away from any ‘civilized’ place in the province of Henan, on the side of the Song sang Mountain. There he was given a large piece of land and the resources to Build a monastery in an area called ‘Wooded Hill’ or ‘Small Forest’, which translates to Shaolin in Mandarin of Sil-Lum in Cantonese. According to the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (AD 645) by Daoxuan, the Shaolin Monastery was built on the north side of Shaoshi, the western peak of Mount Song, one of the Sacred Mountains of China, by Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty for the monk Bu To. Yang Xuanzhi, in the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang (AD 547), and Li Xian, in the Ming Yitongzhi (AD 1461), concur with Daoxuan’s location and attribution. The Jiaqing Chongxiu Yitongzhi (AD 1843) specifies That this monastery, located in the province of Henan. |