Shaolin Temple, the home of kung fu master monks, plans to launch its own line of health drinks next year and build a new hospital.

Shi Yanlin, head of the temple's medicine bureau.

The first batch of Shaolin's tea treatment drinks has been approved for production by authorities and will be on retail shelves next spring, said Shi Yanlin, head of the temple's medicine bureau.

Set up in 1217 AD, the bureau is famous for many home-made medicines with secret recipes.

Led by abbot Shi Yongxin, the temple's so called "CEO monk," the Buddhist temple in China's Henan Province is ambitious about its new business expansion.

The Shaolin drinks will be based on the temple's traditional Chinese herbal therapies using ingredients such as lucid ganoderma, longan, perilla, and dried ginger, the Henan Business News reported today.

The temple is seeking to partner with potential producers and it also planned to expand into running a hospital, Shi Yanlin told the newspaper.

It has identified a hospital site and reached preliminary agreement with local villagers on land acquisition and relocation to a nearby 6.67-hectare site, the newspaper reported.

"We are waiting for government approval and the hospital would open to the public in 2010 if all goes smoothly," Shi Yanlin said.

An outpatient building would be a feature design in the planned facility, Shi Yanlin said. But the center of the hospital would be a meditation room, in which treatment would be based on the Chinese Buddhism regimen.

However, modern medicine wouldn't be excluded, Shi Yanlin said.

Shaolin has embarked on a training program for its potential medical monks and sent several to study in medical schools. The temple has more than 20 monks licensed to practice as doctors or pharmacists.

Medical school graduates or university graduates studying traditional Chinese medicine or kung fu would qualify for the medical staff, Shi Yanlin said.

The 1,500-year-old temple has moved rapidly to develop its business operation.

It recently introduced a "trustee" system to run four 2,000-year-old temples in Yunnan Province, dispatching Shaolin monks to hire managers.

Under Shi Yongxin's management, Shaolin has also expanded into film production, e-commerce and kung fu shows.

Shi has rejected criticism that the apparent "chain store" temple model is too commercial. "I did so at the invitation of officials in Yunan," he said.

(Shanghai Daily December 23, 2008)