Earlier this year, the 1,500-year-old martial art started an application process to the United Nation's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) to become a "World Intangible Heritage."

The Chinese Academy of Arts will evaluate the application over the following few months and present a final submission to the Unesco at the end of the year.

An international seminar on Shaolin kung fu will be held in Dengfeng this year, according to the China Daily Thursday.

"Most people nowadays barely scratch the surface of Shaolin kung fu. The successful application will greatly help protect and rejuvenate the endangered culture of Shaolin," the paper quoted Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple, as saying.

Located in Dengfeng County in Central China's Henan Province and is widely regarded as the birthplace of Shaolin kung fu, the temple was built in 495 AD at the foothills of Songshan Mountain.

Thirty-two years later, Bodhi Dharma, an India monk, began to spread Zen Buddhism in the temple and started the temple's martial art tradition.

Generations of Shaolin monks have devoted themselves to enriching and improving tradition and gradually developed it into a complex and colossal system of fighting.

The local government has spared no efforts in protecting both the Buddhist temple and its martial art tradition over the past few years.

(People?s Daily March 13, 2003)