CHINA> Focus
|
Luxury cassock cloaks luster of famed Shaolin Temple
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-09 15:38 ZHENGZHOU -- The abbot of China's famed Shaolin Temple has caused another stir by accepting the gift of a luxury cassock on Monday -- after the monastery was criticized for its installation of lavish restrooms worth 430,000 dollars and the acceptance of an extravagant four-wheel-drive vehicle from the local government.
The cassock, with traditional Buddhist patterns such as lotus and sacred vases woven in gold thread, was given to Shi Yongxin, the country's most controversial monk, by a private brocade company in the eastern Nanjing City, where the "dragon robes", garments for ancient China's emperors, were usually manufactured.
"I started designing it in 2005, four years after Shi asked me to make such a cassock for him," Zhang was quoted as saying by the local Yangtze Evening News newspaper. But Shi said the cassock was only a gift and he never asked for it. "It's not specially tailored for the abbot," he told Xinhua on Monday. "It's just a gift and Shaolin did not spend a nickle on it." |