RavenDarkfellow said:
I do not believe (nor am I trying to impress upon anyone else) that Bodhidharma (Daruma, Ta mao, etc.) was the founder of all martial arts.
Really? Even if that's what you meant you still wrote this :
RavenDarkfellow said:
From what I've gathered, nearly everyone seems to concur that Bodhidarmha (a.k.a. Daruma, and at least two other names) was the originator of the martial arts.
7starmantis said:
I'm not quite understanding why the distinction?
7sm
Point taken... it doesn't really matter. I, and I 'm assuming the rest, will train as we already do regardless of any historical debate. I'm not hear to try to convice anyone of anything... I was stating an alternate point of view to, what I believe to be, just one of the many many myths still circulating the internet and some "smaller" martial arts circles. My sources are teachers I've had, Chinese history books they let me look through, and a couple of Chinese martial arts and history books I have on my shelf. If you're really a martail arts history buff I highly recommend
The Spring and Autumn of Chinese Martial Arts-5000 Years by
Professor Kang Ge-Wu.
But, for those that like to read stuff on the internet I ran across a few articles for you:
http://martialarts.about.com/od/history/a/ShaolinMyth.htm
"There are a lot of mythical, mystical, misunderstood and misrepresented aspects of the martial arts. The Shaolin Temple is possibly the biggest...
There is much debate about whether Damo/Bhodidharma existed. The evidence thus far seems to lean in the direction that Damo did exist, did travel to the Shaolin Temple, and did pass on some teachings to the monks there. There is also little doubt that the Shaolin Temple did spend some significant part of its history linked with the practice of the martial arts. However, there is little actual evidence to suggest that Damo taught the monks anything directly to do with fighting, despite the oft-repeated claims. "
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/holcom.htm
"Students of the Chinese martial arts like to repeat the legend of
Bodhidharma. [20] The story goes that in the early sixth century the Indian
monk Bodhidharma founded the outer school--one of the two major divisions
in the Chinese martial arts--at the Shao-lin monastery in Honan. The other
major division, T'ai-chi ch'uan, is said to have spun off from this later.
[21] If true, this would make Shao-lin the oldest such school in China, and
Bodhidharma the father of the Chinese martial arts. The martial arts,
however, existed long before this time, and it is now clear that this
legend is spurious.
Some recent scholars have expressed doubt that Bodhidharma ever lived at
all, and the infrequency with which legitimate early historical sources
mention him is worthy of note. "
http://www.hungkuen.net/history%2Ddamo.htm
"Damo: Conspiracy of Ignorance
Many martial artists will have heard the story of Bodhidharma or Damo. In the story, this Indian monk arrived in China, eventually making his way to Shaolin temple on Mt. Songshan. There he found the monks' physical condition poor and so unable to sit in prolonged meditation. At first he was so disgusted that he retired to a cave to sit in meditation for nine years. Then a monk named Hui Ke cut off his own arm to show that he had grasped Damo's deepest teachings. Damo then agreed to teach the "Marrow Washing" and "Tendon Changing" classics as well as the 18 Lohan stances, a series of exercises meant to improve the monks' ability to meditate. Many tellers add that these exercises were derived from martial routines familiar to Damo from his youth in a warrior caste family. In any case, the story concludes that these exercises were to blossom into Shaolin kung fu and are therefore the root of kung fu. It's a good story. What a pity it is a fake. ... "
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showexcerpt.cfm?isbn=0736045686&excerpt_id=3398
"
Myth 1
Damo (Bodhidharma) invented Shaolin Kung Fu.
Fact
Damo did not invent Shaolin Kung Fu. The Eighteen postures of Arhat represent health exercises based on yoga. Collective masters and missionaries were referred to as Bodhidharma. Their true contributions to the temple were Chan Buddhism and renewed impetus for health development.
Fact
Many of the monks present in the temple at the time of
DamoÂ’s arrival already possessed martial skills from previous military and private backgrounds and, by the templeÂ’s own admission, were freely trading kung fu knowledge with one another.
Fact
The tolerant environment and self-sufficient attitude of the Shaolin Temple set it apart from other Buddhist temples. The method of Hou Chuen San Sau (mind understanding through bodily experience) was the key component to stimulate the growth of martial skills within the Shaolin Temple. Their environment and attitude permitted ready absorption of military and martial knowledge from the best of Chinese culture and leadership. Ample evidence exists to suggest that the monks received as much kung fu as they gave in the first few centuries of the templeÂ’s existence. 150 years after
DamoÂ’s death, the Shaolin warrior monks had already earned a reputation as formidable fighters.
Myth 2
All Chinese Kung Fu comes from Shaolin.
..."
http://www.ryukyukenpo.org/About%20Ryukyu%20Kenpo.htm
"
One thing we can be certain of is: Bodhidharma (Ta Mo, Da Mo, Daruma) did not bring Chinese Boxing to the Shaolin monks, from India, in 649CE. This is a modern 20th century myth, brought about by a widely popular Chinese novel The Travels of Lao Ts’an, first published in Illustrated Fiction Magazine between 1904 - 1907. In the book the fictional character Liu Jen-fu learns boxing from a monk he met on Omei Mountain. When he asks his teacher for the source of his art he is told “The T’aitsu style that you have learned from me was handed down from the Dharma.” There is no written reference concerning his involvement with anything other than introducing Chan (Zen) Buddhismto China. All else is pure fabrication. On a secondary note: It has often been claimed that a second Shaolin monastery was built in Chiu-Lien-Shan, P’u-T’ien-Hsien, Fu-Chou-Fu, Fukien province. There is no evidence that this temple ever existed, and in fact the Chiu-Lien-Shan is located in Kwantung province. A Chinese scholar named Hsu K’o wrote the Ch’ing Pai Lei Chao in 1917. This work is a 48 volume collection of folk tales and fables which includes stories of the Heaven and Earth Society [Triads] which refer to the legendary Fukien Shaolin Temple. Unfortunately some martial art’s historians have regarded Hsu K’o’s work as history and have used it as a source."
http://www.nardis.com/~twchan/henning.html
"
While Shaolin was the ideal symbol to represent the more numerous, popular styles of boxing, this gave rise to serious misunderstandings and, as a result, later works, beginning with Zhang Kongzhao's boxing manual (1784),
[7] attributed the origins of Chinese boxing to Shaolin Monastery, (there is no mention of Bodhidharma until much later - c. 1900). At the same time, the mythical Zhang Sanfeng, blessed with sainthood by a Ming emperor, provided the ideal counterpoint to Shaolin boxing. After all, since Zhang himself could not be proven to have ever existed let alone anything he was claimed to have done, it could not hurt to claim he also invented a style of boxing.
Why does there appear to be such concern to associate Taijiquan with the Zhang Sanfeng legend between 1912 and 1921, over 60 years after the style of boxing practiced in Chenjiagou village had been given the name "Taijiquan" and exposed to the big city? The answer may lie in a combination of events which began with the earliest reference to "The Dharma" or Bodhidharma as the originator of Shaolin boxing in a widely popular novel,
The Travels of Lao Ts'an first published in
Illustrated Fiction Magazine between 1904-1907.
[23] This was soon followed by a book titled
Shaolin School Methods, which appeared as a series in a Shanghai newspaper in 1910.
[24] This book, of unknown origin but written in an anti-Manchu secret society tone, expanded on the Bodhidharma story and, in 1915, was altered further and published as
Secrets of Shaolin Boxing under the pseudonym, Master of the Study of Self Respect (probably an allusion to anti-Manchu and anti-imperialist feelings).
[25] According to Tang Hao, this book was so popular that nearly 30 printings had flooded the market by 1919, and it has influenced other authors ever since, beginning with Guo Shaoyu's
History of Chinese Physical Culture (1919), which was the first popular Chinese book on this subject.
[26] It is not difficult to see how Taijiquan masters may have felt hard pressed to compete for popularity against such a publicity blitz in an increasingly commercialized environment. Under these conditions, Zhang Sanfeng was a made-to-order counterpoint to Bodhidharma."
http://www.shindotrust.com/directory_essays/shinseido_essays/bodhidharma_myth.htm
"
Two persistent and popular myths
"The Chinese martial arts, or Wushu as they are called in China today, are a fascinating yet little understood and inadequately researched aspect of Chinese history. Now comprising Chinese boxing and various weapons techniques practised in China primarily as a form of exercise and sport, they are all too often wrongly associated outside of China with mystic, martial monks in their mountain monasteries, and called by the non too descriptive term ‘Kung Fu’. This misunderstanding has arisen as a result of two widely accepted, deeply ingrained, and hard to quash myths. The first one attributing the origins of Chinese boxing to the Indian Monk, Bodhidharma, who, according to tradition, is said to have resided in the famous Shaolin Monastery around 525 AD. The other myth attributes the origins of Taijiquan, or Chinese shadow boxing as it is sometimes called in the West, to the mythical Taoist hermit, Zhang Sanfeng, whose dates have never been confirmed, but who is variously said to have lived during the Song, Yuan, or Ming Dynasties, sometime between the tenth and fourteenth centuries AD. The groundless nature of these myths was exposed as early as the 1930s by the pioneer martial arts historian, Tang Hao (1897-1959), and his contemporary, Xu Jedong; however, their persistence to the present continues to be revealed in numerous books published on the subject in Chinese as well as other languages... (H)"
RavenDarkfellow said:
There you go buddy... enjoy some more "scholarly" readings.
As for me... I'm done with this thread... I'd rather be training anyway :jedi1:
jm
