Monk and founder of the Ch'an (or Zen) sect of Buddhism, born near Chennai (formerly Madras), SE India. He travelled to China in 520, where he had a famous audience with the Emperor. He argued that merit applying to salvation could not be accumulated through good deeds, and taught meditation as the means of return to Buddha's spiritual precepts.
| 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 was the Buddhist monk (usually Indian by most accounts) traditionally credited as the founder of Chan/Zen Buddhism in 6th century China.
The major sources about Bodhidharma's life conflict with regard to his origins, the chronology of his journey to China, his death, and other details. Heinrich Dumoulin emphasises the legendary nature of the traditional Bodhidharma life-story, and Paul Pelliot goes further and argues that Bodhidharma is an entirely fictional creation.
Biography
Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang (547) by Yang Xuanzhi
The earliest historical record of Bodhidharma was compiled in 547 by Yang Xuanzhi, the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang, in which Yang identifies Bodhidharma as a Persian Central Asian (Wade-Giles: po-szu kuo hu-jen).
At that time there was a monk of the Western Region named Bodhidharma, a Persian Central Asian.
According to Broughton, Yung-ning was built in 516 and destroyed in 526, dating Bodhidharma's exultation to these years.
Tanlin's preface to the Two Entrances and Four Acts
Tanlin, who was probably a disciple of Bodhidharma, identifies him as South Indian.
This biography of Bodhidharma is found in Tanlin's preface to the Two Entrances and Four Acts, which Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki found in 1935 by going through the Dunhuang collection of the Chinese National Library. In Daoxuan's account, Bodhidharma travels by sea to southern China and then makes his way north, eventually crossing the Yangtze River "on a reed," though Stephen Addiss argues that the Chinese character for "reed" also meant "reed boat," but lost that meaning over time, inspiring the idea that Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze on a reed rather than a reed boat. Daoxuan says that Bodhidharma makes landfall in the southern Chinese kingdom of Song, making his arrival in China no later than that kingdom's fall to Southern Qi in 479.
Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (952)
The version of the Bodhidharma legend found in the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (祖堂集 Zǔtángjí) follows Daoxuan but is distinguished by the following:
Bodhidharma's master Prajñātāra, 27th Patriach Bodhidharma makes landfall not during the Song period of southern China but in 527 during the Liang Dynasty. Before crossing the Yangtze River en route to Wei, Bodhidharma visits the Liang court in present-day Nanjing, but leaves soon after his uncompromising doctrines end up offending Emperor Wu. Three years later in the Pamir Mountains, Songyun, an envoy of one of the later Wei kingdoms, encounters Bodhidharma, who is on his way back West. The nine years of meditation after his departure from the Liang court in 527 mean that Bodhidharma's death can take place no earlier than 536, but his encounter with the Wei diplomat mean that his death can take place no later than 554, three years before the fall of the last Wei kingdom.Jingde Records of the Transmission of the Lamp (1004) by Daoyuan
This account of Bodhidharma's life is identical to that found in the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall but adds that Bodhidharma was born Bodhitara and was renamed by his master Prajnatara.
Bodhidharma eventually goes to a cave on Mount Song, where he “faces a wall for nine years, not speaking for the entire time”.
Spiritual approach
Tradition holds that Bodhidharma's chosen sutra was the Lankavatara Sutra, a development of the Yogacara or "Mind-only" school of Buddhism established by the Gandharan half-brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu.
Bodhidharma's approach tended to reject devotional rituals, doctrinal debates and verbal formalizations, in favour of an intuitive grasp of the "Buddha mind" within everyone, through meditation.
Legend also associates Bodhidharma with the use of tea to maintain wakefulness in meditation (the origin of Chado), and favoured paradoxes, conundrums and provocation as a way to break intellectual rigidity (a method which led to the development of koan).
Portrayals of Bodhidharma
Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian.
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.
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?"
The emperor then asked Bodhidharma, "Who is standing before me?"
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."
Bodhidharma and the Martial Arts
Receiving Retribution
From then on, the emperor refused to listen to whatever Bodhidharma had to say. 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.
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;
Bodhidharma Daoyu Yuan (Yuan-chi?) Tao-chih Huike Huineng (638-713) Layman Hsiang Hua-kung Yen-kung Tanlin Dhyana Master Na Dhyana Master Ho Hsuan-ching Hsuan-chueh Ching-ai T'an-yen Tao-an Tao-p'an Chih-tsang Seng-chao P'u-an Ching-yuan (1067-1120)
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