Tsai Chih-chung Photo: IC

Tsai Chih-chung, the 72-year-old cartoon master from Taiwan, became a Buddhist monk on Tuesday in the famed Shaolin Temple of Henan Province on the Chinese mainland, according to media reports.

Shi Yongxin, the current abbot of the temple, hosted the ordination ceremony for Tsai, granting him the Buddhist name Shi Yanyi, Henan media The Moment reported.

Tsai was ordained as a novice monk, subject to 10 Buddhist principles, instead of a Bhikkhu, who are subject to all Buddhist principles, because of his advanced age.

Tsai dropped out of school and started his professional cartooning career at the age of 15. As one of China's most successful cartoonists, Tsai is famous for creating cartoon stories based on traditional Chinese sinology and classic tales, making his stories relatable and easy to understand.

He has created more than 100 classic comics such as Zhuangzi Speaks and Old Master Q, over 50 million copies of which have been published in multiple languages in more than 30 countries and regions.

He also drew a four-panel cartoon of the Shaolin Temple in the 1980s, according to media reports.

Tsai began to publish four-panel cartoons in magazines from 1983, which were serialized in newspapers in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and China's Hong Kong for a long time.