Myths, Masters and Mayhem

Stories of the Martial Arts

8 - Bodhidharma: The Originator of the Oriental Martial Arts Tradition?

Woodblock print (1887) by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)

Most oriental martial arts, including Seido karate, can trace their lineage back in some way to the 6th Century Buddhist monk Bodhidharma.

There is very little written about his life, but what we do know is that Bodhidharma (the name is often shortened to Bodhi but is also known as Dharma or Daruma in Japanese) was probably born late in the 5th century in Kanchipuram near Madras. It appears that at the extremely young age of 28 he became the 28th Buddhist patriarch.

What is generally accepted that by 526/7 AD he had made the difficult trip from India to China and there began teaching a type of Buddhism that would become known as Zen (Chan). At first he travelled through southern China into Northern China where is spent time visiting various Buddhist temples teaching his understanding of the Buddhist way.

According to legend he eventually reached the Shaolin monastery, in what was then the Kingdom of Wei, where decided to stay and teach. As it is today Zen practice involves extensive periods of zazen (meditative sitting). Legend tells of how the Dharma found that the Shaolin priests could not maintain the intensity of concentration required for zazen, so he went into a cave and meditated on the problem for nine years. At the end of this period he had developed a series of exercise with which to strengthen his disciples for the rigours of zazen. These first exercises are credited as being the basis of Shaolin gung fu, which then went on to influence most styles of Chinese wushu and the empty hand styles of Japan and Korea.

These legends are used by martial art teachers to highlight the importance of India in the early development of gung fu and the strong link between martial arts and Zen.

However, history indicates that the story is both more prosaic and complicated. There are clear accounts that martial arts where already being practiced at the Shaolin monastery and in China long before the arrival of the Dharma. There is also strong evidence that Indian culture had an influence on the development of Chinese martial arts possibly as early as 500 BC and this contact occurred over a longer period and was not all one way with Chinese practitioners also travelling to and teaching in India.

Despite the unromantic facts of history it is often encouraging to think that when you on the training floor you are continuing a tradition that can be traced back to the 1st patriarch of Zen Buddhism.