First Patriarch of Chan (Zen), Legendary Source of Shaolin Kung Fu
Buddhist tradition records that Bodhidharma was a monk from South India or Central Asia who crossed the sea to China in the Northern and Southern Dynasties period; legend says that after a dialogue with Emperor Wu of Liang that did not accord, he went north to the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song and sat facing a wall in meditation for nine years, and is honored as the first patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China. Chan stresses "not setting up words, a transmission outside the teachings, pointing directly at the mind, seeing one’s nature and becoming a Buddha," passing through generations to the sixth patriarch Huineng, and deeply shaped East Asian Buddhism and the spread of Japanese "Zen" culture in the modern West. Bodhidharma’s link to the origin of Shaolin kung fu is chiefly from later legend and martial-arts culture; the histories hold no firm record of any transmission of martial arts.
Legend says Bodhidharma sat facing the wall of a cave behind the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song for nine years without a word, until his shadow was said to have printed onto the stone. This near-extreme feat of meditation is the direct source of the later term "facing the wall," and set the Chan style of practice — "pointing directly at the mind," free of elaborate scripture.
Legend says that when Bodhidharma first came to China, Emperor Wu of Liang, a devout Buddhist, asked him, "since taking the throne I have built temples, copied scriptures, and ordained countless monks; what merit is there in this?" Bodhidharma answered, "no merit at all." The emperor asked, "why no merit?" and Bodhidharma said these were but small worldly fruits, "like a shadow following a form, real in seeming but not in truth." The two did not accord, and Bodhidharma crossed the river north — a dialogue often used in Chan to illustrate the basic difference between "seeking blessing through appearances" and "seeing one’s nature."
Bodhidharma’s link to the origin of Shaolin kung fu appears widely in martial-arts fiction and folk legend (the Yijin Jing is said to be his creation), but scholars broadly hold this to lack reliable historical documentation, the histories holding no firm record of any transmission of martial arts; this site lists it as legend rather than fact.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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