WUTAISHAN (China) - TEMPLES thrive, monks travel far and wide in search of enlightenment, the faithful fill the halls of worship - after decades of atheist policies, Buddhism is making a huge comeback in China.

Nowhere is this revival more apparent than at Wutaishan, the most important of China's four holy mountains and home to a sprawling complex of temples, 300 kilometres southwest of Beijing.

'I have come to study at Wutaishan because Zen Buddhism, Han Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, all the different schools from different places, are represented here and mixed together,' itinerant monk Master Shi told AFP.

Master Shi, sporting a shaved head and wearing a grey robe, has visited temples throughout China in search of Buddhist knowledge, repeating a pilgrimage undertaken by generations of monks before him.

Besides studying Tibetan Buddhism in Lhasa, he has visited the Hongfa Temple in Guangdong, south China, and been to the White Horse Temple - China's oldest Buddhist place of worship - in Henan province in the center of the country.

Interest in Buddhism has grown dramatically since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, a period when religion was largely banned, the clergy persecuted and many temples and monasteries destroyed.

In stark contrast to this era, during the opening and reform era of the last 30 years, the state has largely allowed religion to develop, albeit within strict parameters.

For decades, the communist-run State Administration for Religious Affairs has said there were only about 100 million religious believers in China, but state press reports have recently said that number has grown to 300 million.

In late June, Wutaishan was named a World Heritage Site by the United Nation's cultural arm UNESCO, a move expected to bring more visitors to this holy shrine that houses some of China's oldest Buddhist manuscripts.

Currently 53 temples house monks and nuns, while the ruins of more than 150 temples are scattered around hillside terraces or isolated on remote mountain tops. - AFP.