Beijing, May 30: The world famous Shaolin temple of central China's Henan province has dismissed four monks for violating the temple's SARS-related rules, the state media reported today. The four monks were punished for staying out the whole night without coming back, Xinhua news agency reported. The temple's decision has been approved by the local administration for religious and ethnic affairs, it said. In the face of the outbreak and spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the Shaolin temple had issued regulations to prevent the potentially lethal disease, demanding that all monks must seek permission if they need to go out for more than three hours and they have to be quarantined if they stay out for more than 12 hours. Anyone who fails to come back before night falls will be expelled, the rule stipulated.

SARS has killed 327 people and infected over 5,200 others in China. Henan province has reported no deaths but has 15 confirmed cases.

Located in Dengfeng county in central China's Henan province, the Shaolin temple was built in the foothills of the sacred Songshan mountain in ad 495 during the northern Wei Dynasty (386-534).

Thirty-two years later, an Indian monk, Bodhi Dharma began to teach in the temple and introduced an Indian form of exercise, which is regarded as the birth of the temple's martial art tradition.

Bureau Report