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Bodhidharma, woodblock print by Yoshitoshi, 1887.
Names (details)
Known in English as:	Bodhidharma
Sanskrit:	बोधिधर्म
Traditional Chinese:	菩提達摩
Hanyu Pinyin:	Pútídámó
Wade-Giles:	P'u-t'i-ta-mo
Japanese:	達磨 Daruma
Korean:	보리달마 Boridalma
Vietnamese:	Bồ-đề-đạt-ma

Bodhidharma (c. 6th century CE) was the Buddhist monk traditionally credited as the founder of Chán (Zen) Buddhism in China. Very little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend, but most accounts agree that he was a South Indian monk—possibly from Kanchipuram—who journeyed to southern China and subsequently relocated northwards. The accounts differ on the date of his arrival, with one early account claiming that he arrived during the Liú Sòng Dynasty (420–479) and later accounts dating his arrival to the Liáng Dynasty (502–557). The accounts are, however, generally agreed that he was primarily active in the lands of the Northern Wèi Dynasty (386–534).

Biography

Contemporary accounts

Currently, there are two extant accounts written by people who were contemporary to Bodhidharma.

Yáng Xuànzhī

The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang (洛陽伽藍記 Luòyáng Qiélánjì), was compiled in 547 by Yáng Xuànzhī, a writer and translator of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts into the Chinese language. Yang identifies Bodhidharma as a Persian (波斯國胡人 bō-sī guó hú rén) from Central Asia (西域 xī yù):

At that time there was a monk of the Western Region named Bodhidharma, a Persian Central Asian. He traveled from the wild borderlands to China. Seeing the golden disks reflecting in the sun, the rays of light illuminating the surface of the clouds, the jewel-bells on the stupa blowing in the wind, the echoes reverberating beyond the heavens, he sang its praises. He exclaimed: "Truly this is the work of spirits." He said: "I am 150 years old, and I have passed through numerous countries. There is virtually no country I have not visited. But even in India there is nothing comparable to the pure beauty of this monastery. Even the distant Buddha realms lack this." He chanted homage and placed his palms together in salutation for days on end.

According to one modern source, the temple referred to—Yǒngníngsì (永寧寺)—was built in 516 and destroyed in 526, thus dating Yang's sighting of Bodhidharma to these years. Another source states that Yongningsi was destroyed in 536. Jeffrey Broughton also notes that Yang may have been referring to a different monk named Bodhidharma, as he briefly mentions a Bodhidharma twice.

Tánlín

The second account by a person who seems to have encountered Bodhidharma was written by Tánlín (曇林; 506–574), who was likely one of Bodhidharma's disciples. Tanlin's brief biography of the "Dharma Master" is found in his preface to the Two Entrances and Four Acts, a text traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma, and is the first text to identify Bodhidharma as a South Indian:

The Dharma Master was a South Indian of the Western Region. He was the third son of a great Indian king His ambition lay in the Mahayana path, and so he put aside his white layman's robe for the black robe of a monk Lamenting the decline of the true teaching in the outlands, he subsequently crossed distant mountains and seas, traveling about propagating the teaching in Han and Wei.

Tanlin's account was the first to mention that Bodhidharma attracted disciples, specifically mentioning Dàoyù (道育) and Huìkě, the latter of whom would later figure very prominently in the Bodhidharma literature. Tanlin's account also implies that Bodhidharma was probably a prince of the Pallava dynasty of South India, indicating that he may have been born at the Pallava capital of Kanchipuram.

Later accounts

Dàoxuān

In the 7th-century historical work Further Biographies of Eminent Monks (續高僧傳 Xù gāosēng zhuàn), Dàoxuān (道宣; 596-667) 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" (南天竺婆羅門種 nán tiānzhú póluómén zhŏng). Broughton notes that Bodhidharma's royal pedigree implies that he was of the Kshatriya warrior caste, though South Indian inscriptions in the 4th and 5th centuries imply that the Pallava dynasty also had Brahmin origins; hence, they may have belonged to the caste of Braham-Kshatriya (Brahmin in origin and Kshatriya by profession).

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 River.

Thirdly, Daoxuan suggests a date for the 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 Dynasty in 479.

Finally, Daoxuan provides information concerning Bodhidharma's death. Bodhidharma, he writes, died at Luo River Beach, where he was interred by his disciple 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 Dynasty's fall, because Huike subsequently leaves Luoyang for Ye. Furthermore, the use of the Luo River Beach as an execution grounds suggests that Bodhidharma may have died in the mass executions at Heyin in 528. Supporting this possibility is a report in the Taishō shinshū daizōkyō stating that a Buddhist monk was among the victims at Heyin.

Epitaph for Fărú

The idea of a lineage of Chan Buddhism in China dates back to the epitaph for Fărú (法如 638–689), a disciple of the 5th patriarch Hóngrĕn (弘忍 601–674), which gives a line of descent identifying Bodhidharma as the first patriarch.

Yǒngjiā Xuánjué

In the Song of Enlightenment (證道歌 Zhèngdào gē) of Yǒngjiā Xuánjué (665-713)—one of the chief disciples of Huìnéng, the 6th patriarch of Chan Buddhism—it is written that Bodhidharma was the 28th patriarch in a line of descent from Mahākāśyapa, a disciple of Śākyamuni Buddha, and the first patriarch of Chan Buddhism:

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 idea of a line of descent from Śākyamuni Buddha became an important part of the lineage tradition of the Chan/Zen school.

Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall

Another later source of Bodhidharma's biography—and by far the most detailed—is found in the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (祖堂集 Zǔtángjí) of 952. By the time of this text, the basic account given by Daoxuan had received nearly all of the elements that are considered by Chan/Zen practitioners today to form the core of the story of Bodhidharma.

Bodhidharma, who was already considered the 28th patriarch of Chan, is said to have been a disciple of Prajñātāra,, thus establishing the latter as the 27th patriarch in India.

Also, the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall relates that Bodhidharma arrived in southern China, following a three-year journey, not during the Song period, but rather in 527, during the time of the Liang Dynasty.

Bodhidharma, prior to crossing the Yangtze River into Wei, is also said to have visited the Liang court in present-day Nanjing, but left soon after an encounter with Emperor Wu which made him realize that staying there would be fruitless. This encounter—which actually appeared for the first time around 758, in the appendix to a text by Shénhuì (神會), a disciple of Huineng—would later form the basis of the first kōan of the collection, the Blue Cliff Record.

Finally, as opposed to Daoxuan's figure of "over 150 years", the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall states that Bodhidharma died at the age of 150. He was then buried on Mount Xiong'er (熊耳山 Xióng'ĕr Shān) to the west of Luoyang. However, three years after the burial, in the Pamir Mountains, Sòngyún (宋雲)—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.

Insofar as, 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 " 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 last Wei kingdom.

Dàoyuán

Subsequent to the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall, the only dated addition to the biography of Bodhidharma is in the 1004 Jingde Records of the Transmission of the Lamp (景德傳燈錄 Jĭngdé chuándēng lù), by Dàoyuán (道原), where it is stated that Bodhidharma's original name had been Bodhitāra but had been changed by his master Prajñātāra.

Practice and teaching

Meditation

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" (壁觀 bìguān). Both Tanlin and Daoxuan associate this "wall-gazing" with "quieting mind" (安心 ān xīn). Elsewhere, Daoxuan also 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.

In the Two Entrances and Four Acts, traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma, the term "wall-gazing" also appears:

Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who meditate on walls, the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason.

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 (坐禪; Chinese: zuòchán) that later became a defining characteristic of Chan and Zen Buddhism; the latter interpretation is particularly common among those working from a Chan/Zen standpoint. There have also, however, been interpretations of "wall-gazing" as a non-meditative phenomenon.

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra

Daoxuan, in a recension of his biography of Bodhidharma's disciple Huike, makes the first known mention of Bodhidharma in connection with the Mahāyāna Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, an important element in the Yogācāra, or "Consciousness-only", school of Mahāyāna Buddhism:

In the beginning Dhyana Master Bodhidharma took the four-roll Laṅkā Sūtra, handed it over to Hui-k'o, and said: "When I examine the land of China, it is clear that there is only this sutra. If you rely on it to practice, you will be able to cross over the world."

Though the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is a highly "difficult and obscure" text, its basic thrust is to emphasize "the inner enlightenment that does away with all duality and is raised above all distinctions".

Another early text, the Record of the Masters and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (楞伽師資記 Léngqié shīzī jì) of Jìngjué (淨覺; 683–750), also mentions Bodhidharma in relation to this text. Jingjue's account also makes explicit mention of "sitting meditation", or zazen:

For all those who sat in meditation, Master Bodhi also offered expositions of the main portions of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, which are collected in a volume of twelve or thirteen pages, bearing the title of Teaching of Dharma.

In early texts, the school that would later become known as Chan (Zen) is sometimes referred to as the "Laṅkāvatāra school" (楞伽宗 Léngqié zōng).

Bodhidharma's approach

According to Chan/Zen tradition, Bodhidharma was the formulator of a well-known stanza which came to be seen as expressing the essence of the school's practice:

A special transmission outside the scriptures,

Not founded upon words and letters;
By pointing directly to mind

It lets one see into nature and attain Buddhahood.

Although this stanza in fact dates to the year 1108, it expresses the same lack of reliance on words that can be found in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra:

If, Mahamati, you say that because of the reality of words the objects are, this talk lacks in sense. Words are not known in all the Buddha-lands; words, Mahamati, are an artificial creation. In some Buddha-lands ideas are indicated by looking steadily, in others by gestures, in still others by a frown, by the movement of the eyes, by laughing, by yawning, or by the clearing of the throat, or by recollection, or by trembling.

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra also repeatedly stresses the notion of "self-realization":

will become thoroughly conversant with the noble truth of self-realisation, will become a perfect master of his own mind, will conduct himself without effort, will be like a gem reflecting a variety of colours, will be able to assume the body of transformation, will be able to enter into the subtle minds of all beings, and, because of his firm belief in the truth of Mind-only, will, by gradually ascending the stages, become established in Buddhahood.

This bears clear similarities with the ideas of "pointing directly to mind]" and " into nature and attain Buddhahood" that came to be considered the "quintessence of Zen as embodied in the figure of Bodhidharma".

Portrayals of Bodhidharma

Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian. He is described as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" 藍眼睛的野人 (lán yǎnjīngde yěrén) in Chinese texts.

The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (952) identifies Bodhidharma as the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends all the way back to the Buddha himself. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki contends that Zen'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 Zen historians made Bodhidharma the 28th patriarch of Buddhism in response to such attacks.

Legends

Encounter with Emperor Liang

According to the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall, in 527 during the Liang Dynasty, Bodhidharma, the first Patriarch of Zen, visited the Emperor Wu, a fervent patron of Buddhism.

The emperor asks Bodhidharma, "What is the highest meaning of noble truth?" Bodhidharma answered, "There is no noble truth."

The emperor then asked Bodhidharma, "Who is standing before me?" Bodhidharma answered, "I don't know."

The emperor then asked Bodhidharma, "How much karmic merit have I earned by ordaining Buddhist monks, building monasteries, having sutras copied, and commissioning Buddha images?"

Bodhidharma answered, "None."

Receiving Retribution

From then on, the emperor refused to listen to whatever Bodhidharma had to say. Although Bodhidharma came from India to China to become the first patriarch of China, the emperor refused to recognize him. Since he refused to believe in what Bodhidharma told him, he practically missed his chance to come face to face with someone who was important to Buddhism. Bodhidharma knew that he would face difficulty in the near future, but had the emperor been able to leave the throne and yield it to someone else, he could have avoided his fate of starving to death.

According to the teaching, Emperor Wu's past life was as a bhikshu. While he cultivated in the mountains, a monkey would always steal and eat the things he planted for food, as well as the fruit in the trees. One day, he was able to trap the monkey in a cave and blocked the entrance of the cave with rocks, hoping to teach the monkey a lesson. However, after two days, the bhikshu found that the monkey had died of starvation.

Supposedly, that monkey was reincarnated into Hou Jing of the Northern Wei Dynasty, who led his soldiers to attack Nanjing. After Nanjing was taken, the emperor was held in captivity in the palace and was not provided with any food, and was left to starve to death. Though Bodhidharma wanted to save him and brought forth a compassionate mind toward him, the emperor failed to recognize him, so there was nothing Bodhidharma could do. Thus, Bodhidharma had no choice but to leave Emperor Wu to die and went into meditation in a cave for nine years.

Bodhidharma and the Martial Arts

Main articles:

• Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts
• Bodhidharma, the martial arts, and the disputed India connection

Nine years of gazing at a wall

Bodhidharma traveled to the northern Chinese kingdom of Wei, to a cave near the Shaolin Monastery, where he “faced a wall for nine years, not speaking for the entire time”.

In the one version of the story, after the nine years, Bodhidharma “passed away, seated upright”.

In another version of the story, Bodhidharma disappears, leaving behind the Yi Jin Jing.

Daruma dolls

In yet another version of the legend, Bodhidharma's legs atrophied after nine years of sitting, which is why Japanese Bodhidharma dolls have no legs.

Tea

Seven years into his nine years of wall-gazing, Bodhidharma fell asleep.
Angry with himself, he cut off his eyelids to prevent it from happening again.
Where his eyelids fell, tea plants grew.

The lineage of Bodhidharma and his disciples

In the Two Entrances and Four Acts and the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks, Daoyu and Huike are the only explicitly identified disciples of Bodhidharma. The Jingde Records of the Transmission of the Lamp gives Bodhidharma four disciples who, in increasing order of understanding, are Daofu, who attains Bodhidharma's skin; the nun Dharani, who attains Bodhidharma's flesh; Daoyu, who attains Bodhidharma's bone; and Huike, who attains Bodhidharma's marrow.

• Bodhidharma
  • Daoyu
  • Yuan (Yuan-chi?)
    • Tao-chih
  • Huike
    • Tanlin (506–574)
    • Huineng (638-713)
      • Hsuan-chueh (665-713)
    • Layman Hsiang
    • Hua-kung
    • Yen-kung
    • Dhyana Master Na
    • Dhyana Master Ho
      • Hsuan-ching
      • Ching-ai
        • T'an-yen
        • Tao-an
        • Tao-p'an
        • Chih-tsang
        • Seng-chao
        • P'u-an
          • Ching-yuan (1067-1120)

Works attributed to Bodhidharma

• The Outline of Practice or Two Entrances
• The Bloodstream Sermon
• The Breakthrough Sermon
• The Wake-Up Sermon

Notes

1. Broughton 54–55
2. Ibid. 55
3. Reid and Croucher 26
4. Broughton 54
5. ^ Dumoulin (2005), 88
6. Broughton 8
7. Ibid. 9
8. Zvelebil 125–126
9. ^ Dumoulin (2005), 87
10. ^ Broughton 2
11. Mahajan 705–707
12. ^ Broughton 56
13. Broughton 139
14. Dumoulin, Heinrich (1993). "Early Chinese Zen Reexamined: A Supplement to Zen Buddhism: A History", 37.
15. Chang, Chung-Yuan (1967). "Ch'an Buddhism: Logical and Illogical".
16. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro (1948). Manual Of Zen Buddhism, 50.
17. McRae, John R. "The Antecedents of Encounter Dialogue in Chinese Ch'an Buddhism".
18. ^ Lin 1996:182
19. Broughton 9, 66. Broughton translates 壁觀 as "wall-examining".
20. Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, Vol. 50, No. 2060, p. 551c 06(02)
21. Broughton 9
22. ^ Dumoulin 96
23. Red Pine 3, emphasis added. Broughton 9 offers a more literal rendering of the key phrase 凝住壁觀 (níngzhù bìguān) as " in a coagulated state abides in wall-examining".
24. E.g., see Keizan Jokin-zenji "Chapter 29: Bodhidharma" in Denkoroku: Record of the Transmission of Luminosity; Child, Simon, "In the Spirit of Chan".
25. Viz. Broughton 67–68, where a Tibetan Buddhist interpretation of "wall-gazing" as being akin to Dzogchen is offered.
26. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Yogacara/Vijnanavada (Faxiang/Hosso)" in Buddhism.
27. Broughton 62
28. ^ Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. "Preface" in The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text; 1932.
29. Kohn 125
30. Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, Vol. 85, No. 2837, p. 1285b 17(05)
31. The "volume" referred to is the Two Entrances and Four Acts.
32. Dumoulin 89
33. Dumoulin 52
34. ^ Dumoulin 85
35. Dumoulin 102
36. Soothill and Hodous
37. Suzuki (1949), 168
38. Broughton 2–3
39. Lin 1996:183
40. Dumoulin 86
41. In the Jingde Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, Dharani repeats the words said by the nun Yuanji in the Two Entrances and Four Acts, possibly identifying the two with each other.

References

• Broughton, Jeffrey L. The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0-520-21972-4.
• Dumoulin, Heinrich; Heisig, James W.; and Knitter, Paul F. Zen Buddhism: A History, India & China. Bloomington: World Wisdom Inc., 2005. ISBN 0941532895.
• Ferguson, Andrew. Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and their Teachings. Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2000. ISBN 0-86171-163-7.
• Kohn, Michael H.; tr. The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen. Boston: Shambhala, 1991.
• Lin, Boyuan. 中國武術史 (Zhōngguó wǔshù shǐ). 臺北 (Taipei): 五洲出版社 (Wǔzhōu chūbǎnshè), 1996.
• Mahajan, Vidya Dhar. Ancient India. S. Chand & Co., 1972. ASIN B000GP3KEC.
• Red Pine; tr. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma: A Bilingual Edition. New York: North Point Press, 1989. ISBN 0865473994.
• Reid, Howard and Croucher, Michael. The Fighting Arts: Great Masters of the Martial Arts. Simon & Schuster, 1983. ISBN 0671472739.
• Soothill, William Edward and Hodous, Lewis. A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 1995.
• Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. Essays in Zen Buddhism. New York: Grove Press, 1949. ISBN 0-8021-5118-3.
• Watts, Alan. The Way of Zen. New York: Vintage Books, 1985. ISBN 0-375-70510-4
• Williams, Paul. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. ISBN 0-415-02537-0.
• Zvelebil, K. V. "The Sound of the One Hand" in Journal of the American Oriental Society 107 (1), 1987.

See also

• Chan
• Zen
• Buddhism in China
• List of Buddhist topics

External links

• Essence of Mahayana Practice By Bodhidharma, with annotations. Also known as "The Outline of Practice."
• Bodhidharma

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• Zen Patriarchs
• Indian philosophers
• Non-Chinese known by Chinese names
• Buddhists