Bodhidharma


Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin kungfu. In Japan, he is known as Daruma. His name means "dharma of awakening " in Sanskrit.
Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend and unreliable details.
According to the principal Chinese sources, Bodhidharma came from the Western Regions, which refers to Central Asia but may also include the Indian subcontinent, and was either a "Persian Central Asian" or a "South Indian the third son of a great Indian king."
Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as an ill-tempered, profusely-bearded, wide-eyed non-Chinese person. He is referred as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" in Chan texts.
Aside from the Chinese accounts, several popular traditions also exist regarding Bodhidharma's origins.
The accounts also differ on the date of his arrival, with one early account claiming that he arrived during the Liu Song dynasty and later accounts dating his arrival to the Liang dynasty. Bodhidharma was primarily active in the territory of the Northern Wei. Modern scholarship dates him to about the early 5th century.
Bodhidharma's teachings and practice centered on meditation and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall identifies Bodhidharma as the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends all the way back to the Gautama Buddha himself. Bodhidharma also known as "The Wall-Gazing Brahmin".

Biography

Principal sources

There are two known extant accounts written by contemporaries of Bodhidharma. According to these sources, Bodhidharma came from the Western Regions, and was either a "Persian Central Asian" or a "South Indian the third son of a great Indian king." Later sources draw on these two sources, adding additional details, including a change to being descendent from a Brahmin king, which accords with the reign of the Pallavas, who "claim to belong to a brahmin lineage."
The Western Regions was a historical name specified in the Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of Yumen Pass, most often Central Asia or sometimes more specifically the easternmost portion of it. Sometimes it was used more generally to refer to other regions to the west of China as well, such as the Indian subcontinent.

''The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang''

The earliest text mentioning Bodhidharma is The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang which was compiled in 547 by Yáng Xuànzhī, a writer and translator of Mahayana sutras into Chinese. Yang gave the following account:
The account of Bodhidharma in the Luoyan Record does not particularly associate him with meditation, but rather depicts him as a thaumaturge capable of mystical feats. This may have played a role in his subsequent association with the martial arts and esoteric knowledge.

Tánlín – preface to the Two Entrances and Four Acts

The second account was written by Tánlín. Tánlín's brief biography of the "Dharma Master" is found in his preface to the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices, a text traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma and the first text to identify him as South Indian:
Tánlín's account was the first to mention that Bodhidharma attracted disciples, specifically mentioning Dàoyù and Dazu Huike, the latter of whom would later figure very prominently in the Bodhidharma literature. Although Tánlín has traditionally been considered a disciple of Bodhidharma, it is more likely that he was a student of Huìkě.

"Chronicle of the ''Laṅkāvatāra'' Masters"

Tanlin's preface has also been preserved in Jingjue's Lengjie Shizi ji "Chronicle of the Laṅkāvatāra Masters", which dates from 713–716./ca. 715 He writes,

"Further Biographies of Eminent Monks"

In the 7th-century historical work "Further Biographies of Eminent Monks", Daoxuan possibly drew on Tanlin's preface as a basic source, but made several significant additions:
Firstly, Daoxuan adds more detail concerning Bodhidharma's origins, writing that he was of "South Indian Brahman stock".
Secondly, more detail is provided concerning Bodhidharma's journeys. Tanlin's original is imprecise about Bodhidharma's travels, saying only that he "crossed distant mountains and seas" before arriving in Wei. Daoxuan's account, however, implies "a specific itinerary": "He first arrived at Nan-yüeh during the Sung period. From there he turned north and came to the Kingdom of Wei" This implies that Bodhidharma had travelled to China by sea and that he had crossed over the Yangtze.
Thirdly, Daoxuan suggests a date for Bodhidharma's arrival in China. He writes that Bodhidharma makes landfall in the time of the Song, thus making his arrival no later than the time of the Song's fall to the Southern Qi in 479.
Finally, Daoxuan provides information concerning Bodhidharma's death. Bodhidharma, he writes, died at the banks of the Luo River, where he was interred by his disciple Dazu Huike, possibly in a cave. According to Daoxuan's chronology, Bodhidharma's death must have occurred prior to 534, the date of the Northern Wei's fall, because Dazu Huike subsequently leaves Luoyang for Ye. Furthermore, citing the shore of the Luo River as the place of death might possibly suggest that Bodhidharma died in the mass executions at Heyin in 528. Supporting this possibility is a report in the Chinese Buddhist canon stating that a Buddhist monk was among the victims at Héyīn.

Later accounts

''Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall''

In the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall of 952, the elements of the traditional Bodhidharma story are in place. Bodhidharma is said to have been a disciple of Prajñātāra, thus establishing the latter as the 27th patriarch in India. After a three-year journey, Bodhidharma reached China in 527, during the Liang. The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall includes Bodhidharma's encounter with Emperor Wu of Liang, which was first recorded around 758 in the appendix to a text by Shenhui, a disciple of Huineng.
Finally, as opposed to Daoxuan's figure of "over 180 years," the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall states that Bodhidharma died at the age of 150. He was then buried on Mount Xiong'er to the west of Luoyang. However, three years after the burial, in the Pamir Mountains, Sòngyún —an official of one of the later Wei kingdoms—encountered Bodhidharma, who claimed to be returning to India and was carrying a single sandal. Bodhidharma predicted the death of Songyun's ruler, a prediction which was borne out upon the latter's return. Bodhidharma's tomb was then opened, and only a single sandal was found inside.
According to the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall, Bodhidharma left the Liang court in 527 and relocated to Mount Song near Luoyang and the Shaolin Monastery, where he "faced a wall for nine years, not speaking for the entire time", his date of death can have been no earlier than 536. Moreover, his encounter with the Wei official indicates a date of death no later than 554, three years before the fall of the Western Wei.

''Record of the Masters and Students of the Laṅka''

The Record of the Masters and Students of the Laṅka, which survives both in Chinese and in Tibetan translation, states that Bodhidharma is not the first ancestor of Zen, but instead the second. This text instead claims that Guṇabhadra, the translator of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, is the first ancestor in the lineage. It further states that Bodhidharma was his student. The Tibetan translation is estimated to have been made in the late eighth or early ninth century, indicating that the original Chinese text was written at some point before that.

Dàoyuán – Transmission of the Lamp

Subsequent to the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall, the only dated addition to the biography of Bodhidharma is in the Jingde Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, by Dàoyuán, in which it is stated that Bodhidharma's original name had been Bodhitāra but was changed by his master Prajñātāra. The same account is given by the Japanese master Keizan's 13th-century work of the same title.

Popular traditions

Several contemporary popular traditions also exist regarding Bodhidharma's origins. An Indian tradition regards Bodhidharma to be the third son of a Pallava king from Kanchipuram. This is consistent with the Southeast Asian traditions which also describe Bodhidharma as a former South Indian Tamil prince who had awakened his kundalini and renounced royal life to become a monk. The Tibetan version similarly characterises him as a dark-skinned siddha from South India. Conversely, the Japanese tradition generally regards Bodhidharma as Persian.

Legends about Bodhidharma

Several stories about Bodhidharma have become popular legends, which are still being used in the Ch'an, Seon and Zen-tradition.

Encounter with Emperor Xiāo Yǎn 蕭衍

The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall says that in 527, Bodhidharma visited Emperor Wu of Liang, a fervent patron of Buddhism:
This encounter was included as the first kōan of the Blue Cliff Record.

Nine years of wall-gazing

Failing to make a favorable impression in South China, Bodhidharma is said to have travelled to the Shaolin Monastery. After either being refused entry or being ejected after a short time, he lived in a nearby cave, where he "faced a wall for nine years, not speaking for the entire time".
The biographical tradition is littered with apocryphal tales about Bodhidharma's life and circumstances. In one version of the story, he is said to have fallen asleep seven years into his nine years of wall-gazing. Becoming angry with himself, he cut off his eyelids to prevent it from happening again. According to the legend, as his eyelids hit the floor the first tea plants sprang up, and thereafter tea would provide a stimulant to help keep students of Chan awake during zazen.
The most popular account relates that Bodhidharma was admitted into the Shaolin temple after nine years in the cave and taught there for some time. However, other versions report that he "passed away, seated upright"; or that he disappeared, leaving behind the Yijin Jing; or that his legs atrophied after nine years of sitting, which is why Daruma dolls have no legs.

Huike cuts off his arm

In one legend, Bodhidharma refused to resume teaching until his would-be student, Dazu Huike, who had kept vigil for weeks in the deep snow outside of the monastery, cut off his own left arm to demonstrate sincerity.

Transmission

Skin, flesh, bone, marrow

Jǐngdé Records of the Transmission of the Lamp of Dàoyuán 道原, presented to the emperor in 1004, records that Bodhidharma wished to return to India and called together his disciples:
Bodhidharma passed on the symbolic robe and bowl of dharma succession to Dazu Huike and, some texts claim, a copy of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. Bodhidharma then either returned to India or died.

Bodhidharma at Shaolin

Some Chinese myths and legends describe Bodhidharma as being disturbed by the poor physical shape of the Shaolin monks, after which he instructed them in techniques to maintain their physical condition as well as teaching meditation. He is said to have taught a series of external exercises called the Eighteen Arhat Hands and an internal practice called the Sinew Metamorphosis Classic. In addition, after his departure from the temple, two manuscripts by Bodhidharma were said to be discovered inside the temple: the Yijin Jing and the Xisui Jing. Copies and translations of the Yijin Jing survive to the modern day. The Xisui Jing has been lost.

Travels in Southeast Asia

According to Southeast Asian folklore, Bodhidharma travelled from Jambudvipa by sea to Palembang, Indonesia. Passing through Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Malaysia, he eventually entered China through Nanyue. In his travels through the region, Bodhidharma is said to have transmitted his knowledge of the Mahayana doctrine and the martial arts. Malay legend holds that he introduced forms to silat.
Vajrayana tradition links Bodhidharma with the 11th-century south Indian monk Dampa Sangye who travelled extensively to Tibet and China spreading tantric teachings.

Appearance after his death

Three years after Bodhidharma's death, Ambassador Sòngyún of northern Wei is said to have seen him walking while holding a shoe at the Pamir Heights. Sòngyún asked Bodhidharma where he was going, to which Bodhidharma replied "I am going home". When asked why he was holding his shoe, Bodhidharma answered "You will know when you reach Shaolin monastery. Don't mention that you saw me or you will meet with disaster". After arriving at the palace, Sòngyún told the emperor that he met Bodhidharma on the way. The emperor said Bodhidharma was already dead and buried and had Sòngyún arrested for lying. At Shaolin Monastery, the monks informed them that Bodhidharma was dead and had been buried in a hill behind the temple. The grave was exhumed and was found to contain a single shoe. The monks then said "Master has gone back home" and prostrated three times: "For nine years he had remained and nobody knew him; Carrying a shoe in hand he went home quietly, without ceremony."

Practice and teaching

Bodhidharma is traditionally seen as introducing dhyana-practice in China.

Pointing directly to one's mind

One of the fundamental Chán texts attributed to Bodhidharma is a four-line stanza whose first two verses echo the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtras disdain for words and whose second two verses stress the importance of the insight into reality achieved through "self-realization":
The stanza, in fact, is not Bodhidharma's, but rather dates to the year 1108.

Wall-gazing

Tanlin, in the preface to Two Entrances and Four Acts, and Daoxuan, in the Further Biographies of Eminent Monks, mention a practice of Bodhidharma's termed "wall-gazing". Both Tanlin and Daoxuan associate this "wall-gazing" with "quieting mind".
In the Two Entrances and Four Acts, traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma, the term "wall-gazing" is given as follows: Daoxuan states, "The merits of Mahāyāna wall-gazing are the highest".
These are the first mentions in the historical record of what may be a type of meditation being ascribed to Bodhidharma.
Exactly what sort of practice Bodhidharma's "wall-gazing" was remains uncertain. Nearly all accounts have treated it either as an undefined variety of meditation, as Daoxuan and Dumoulin, or as a variety of seated meditation akin to the zazen that later became a defining characteristic of Chan. The latter interpretation is particularly common among those working from a Chan standpoint.
There have also, however, been interpretations of "wall-gazing" as a non-meditative phenomenon.

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra

There are early texts which explicitly associate Bodhidharma with the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. Daoxuan, for example, in a late recension of his biography of Bodhidharma's successor Huike, has the sūtra as a basic and important element of the teachings passed down by Bodhidharma:
Another early text, the "Record of the Masters and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra" of Jìngjué, also mentions Bodhidharma in relation to this text. Jingjue's account also makes explicit mention of "sitting meditation" or zazen:
In other early texts, the school that would later become known as Chan Buddhism is sometimes referred to as the "Laṅkāvatāra school".
The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, one of the Mahayana sutras, is a highly "difficult and obscure" text whose basic thrust is to emphasize "the inner enlightenment that does away with all duality and is raised above all distinctions". It is among the first and most important texts for East Asian Yogācāra.
One of the recurrent emphases in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is a lack of reliance on words to effectively express reality:
In contrast to the ineffectiveness of words, the sūtra instead stresses the importance of the "self-realization" that is "attained by noble wisdom" and occurs "when one has an insight into reality as it is": "The truth is the state of self-realization and is beyond categories of discrimination". The sūtra goes on to outline the ultimate effects of an experience of self-realization:

Lineage

Construction of lineages

The idea of a patriarchal lineage in Ch'an dates back to the epitaph for Faru, a disciple of the 5th patriarch Hongren. In the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices and the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks, Daoyu and Dazu Huike are the only explicitly identified disciples of Bodhidharma. The epitaph gives a line of descent identifying Bodhidharma as the first patriarch.
In the 6th century biographies of famous monks were collected. From this genre the typical Chan lineage was developed:
D. T. Suzuki contends that Chan's growth in popularity during the 7th and 8th centuries attracted criticism that it had "no authorized records of its direct transmission from the founder of Buddhism" and that Chan historians made Bodhidharma the 28th patriarch of Buddhism in response to such attacks.

Six patriarchs

The earliest lineages described the lineage from Bodhidharma into the 5th to 7th generation of patriarchs. Various records of different authors are known, which give a variation of transmission lines:
The Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks
Xù gāosēng zhuàn 續高僧傳
Daoxuan 道宣
The Record of the Transmission of the Dharma-Jewel
Chuán fǎbǎo jì 傳法寶記
Dù Fěi 杜胐		History of Masters and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra
Léngqié shīzī jì 楞伽師資紀記
Jìngjué 淨覺
Xiǎnzōngjì 显宗记 of Shénhuì 神会
1BodhidharmaBodhidharmaBodhidharmaBodhidharma
2Huìkě 慧可 Dàoyù 道育Dàoyù 道育Dàoyù 道育
2Huìkě 慧可 Huìkě 慧可 Huìkě 慧可 Huìkě 慧可
3Sēngcàn 僧璨 Sēngcàn 僧璨 Sēngcàn 僧璨 Sēngcàn 僧璨
4Dàoxìn 道信 Dàoxìn 道信 Dàoxìn 道信 Dàoxìn 道信
5Hóngrěn 弘忍 Hóngrěn 弘忍 Hóngrěn 弘忍 Hóngrěn 弘忍
6-Fǎrú 法如 Shénxiù 神秀 Huìnéng 慧能
6-Shénxiù 神秀 神秀 Xuánzé 玄賾Huìnéng 慧能
7–––Xuánjué 玄覺

Continuous lineage from Gautama Buddha

Eventually these descriptions of the lineage evolved into a continuous lineage from Śākyamuni Buddha to Bodhidharma. The idea of a line of descent from Śākyamuni Buddha is the basis for the distinctive lineage tradition of Chan Buddhism.
According to the Song of Enlightenment by Yǒngjiā Xuánjué, one of the chief disciples of Huìnéng, was Bodhidharma, the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in a line of descent from Gautama Buddha via his disciple Mahākāśyapa:
Mahakashyapa was the first, leading the line of transmission;
Twenty-eight Fathers followed him in the West;
The Lamp was then brought over the sea to this country;
And Bodhidharma became the First Father here
His mantle, as we all know, passed over six Fathers,
And by them many minds came to see the Light.
The Transmission of the Light gives 28 patriarchs in this transmission:

Modern scholarship

Bodhidharma has been the subject of critical scientific research, which has shed new light on the traditional stories about Bodhidharma.

Biography as a hagiographic process

According to John McRae, Bodhidharma has been the subject of a hagiographic process which served the needs of Chan Buddhism. According to him it is not possible to write an accurate biography of Bodhidharma:
McRae's standpoint accords with Yanagida's standpoint: "Yanagida ascribes great historical value to the witness of the disciple T'an-lin, but at the same time acknowledges the presence of "many puzzles in the biography of Bodhidharma". Given the present state of the sources, he considers it impossible to compile a reliable account of Bodhidharma's life.
Several scholars have suggested that the composed image of Bodhidharma depended on the combination of supposed historical information on various historical figures over several centuries. Bodhidharma as a historical person may even never have actually existed.

Origins and place of birth

Dumoulin comments on the three principal sources. The Persian heritage is doubtful, according to Dumoulin: "In the description of the Lo-yang temple, bodhidharma is called a Persian. Given the ambiguity of geographical references in writings of this period, such a statement should not be taken too seriously." Dumoulin considers Tan-lin's account of Bodhidharma being "the third son of a great Brahman king" to be a later addition, and finds the exact meaning of "South Indian Brahman stock" unclear: "And when Tao-hsuan speaks of origins from South Indian Brahman stock, it is not clear whether he is referring to roots in nobility or to India in general as the land of the Brahmans."
These Chinese sources lend themselves to make inferences about Bodhidharma's origins. "The third son of a Brahman king" has been speculated to mean "the third son of a Pallavine king". Based on a specific pronunciation of the Chinese characters 香至 as Kang-zhi, "meaning fragrance extreme", Tsutomu Kambe identifies 香至 to be Kanchipuram, an old capital town in the state Tamil Nadu, India. According to Tsutomu Kambe, "Kanchi means 'a radiant jewel' or 'a luxury belt with jewels', and puram means a town or a state in the sense of earlier times. Thus, it is understood that the '香至-Kingdom' corresponds to the old capital 'Kanchipuram'."
Acharya Raghu, in his work 'Bodhidharma Retold', used a combination of multiple factors to identify Bodhidharma from the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India, specifically to the geography around Mt. Sailum or modern day Srisailam.
The Pakistani scholar Ahmad Hasan Dani speculated that according to popular accounts in Pakistan's northwest, Bodhidharma may be from the region around the Peshawar valley, or possibly around modern Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan.

Caste

In the context of the Indian caste system the mention of "Brahman king" acquires a nuance. Broughton notes that "king" implies that Bodhidharma was of caste of warriors and rulers. Brahman is, in western contexts, easily understood as Brahmana or Brahmin, which means priest.

Name

According to tradition Bodhidharma was given this name by his teacher known variously as Panyatara, Prajnatara, or Prajñādhara. His name prior to monkhood is said to be Jayavarman.
Bodhidharma is associated with several other names, and is also known by the name Bodhitara. Faure notes that:
Tibetan sources give his name as "Bodhidharmottara" or "Dharmottara", that is, "Highest teaching of enlightenment".

Abode in China

Buswell dates Bodhidharma abode in China approximately at the early 5th century. Broughton dates Bodhidharma's presence in Luoyang to between 516 and 526, when the temple referred to—Yǒngníngsì, was at the height of its glory. Starting in 526, Yǒngníngsì suffered damage from a series of events, ultimately leading to its destruction in 534.

Shaolin boxing

Traditionally Bodhidharma is credited as founder of the martial arts at the Shaolin Temple. However, martial arts historians have shown this legend stems from a 17th-century qigong manual known as the Yijin Jing. The preface of this work says that Bodhidharma left behind the Yi Jin Jing, from which the monks obtained the fighting skills which made them gain some fame.
The authenticity of the Yi Jin Jing has been discredited by some historians including Tang Hao, Xu Zhen and Matsuda Ryuchi. According to Lin Boyuan, "This manuscript is full of errors, absurdities and fantastic claims; it cannot be taken as a legitimate source."
The oldest available copy was published in 1827. The composition of the text itself has been dated to 1624. Even then, the association of Bodhidharma with martial arts only became widespread as a result of the 1904–1907 serialization of the novel The Travels of Lao Ts'an in Illustrated Fiction Magazine. According to Henning, the "story is clearly a twentieth-century invention," which "is confirmed by writings going back at least 250 years earlier, which mention both Bodhidharma and martial arts but make no connection between the two."

Works attributed to Bodhidharma