Shaolin Temple is located in the Shaoshi Forest at the foot of the Shongshan Mountain, in China’s Henan Province, about 13 kilometers northwest of the city of Dengfeng. It was first established in 495 a.d., when Emperor Xiaowen ordered that a temple be built for an Indian dhyana master named Batuo.

Batuo went to China to preach Buddhism in AD 464. The Shaolin Temple was built thirty-one years later in AD 495, by the order of emperor Wei Xiao Wen (471–500). The temple originally consisted of a round dome used as a shrine and a platform where Indian and Chinese monks translated Indian Buddhist scriptures into native Chinese languages. http://www.shaolin.cn.com/