Mystical systems
Bodhidharma
Direct answer
Bodhidharma is the monk from the west whom Chan and Zen Buddhism name as their first patriarch in China, placed about 500 CE and known mostly through later legend.
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At a glance
- Also called
- daruma, first patriarch of chan
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Zen, Zazen, Koan, Satori
Bodhidharma is the monk from the west whom Chan and Zen Buddhism name as their first patriarch in China, placed about 500 CE and known mostly through later legend.
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Who was Bodhidharma?
Zen tradition tells that Bodhidharma came to China from India, met Emperor Wu of Liang and told him that his temple building had earned no merit, then crossed the Yangtze and sat facing a wall for nine years at the Shaolin monastery. His pupil Huike is said to have cut off his own arm to prove his resolve. The stories present him as fierce, wordless and direct, the model of a Zen teacher.
Historians can confirm little of this. A foreign monk of that name was in northern China in the early sixth century, and a short text on practice, the Two Entrances and Four Practices, may preserve his teaching. The meeting with the emperor, the nine years and the arm appear only in sources written generations later.
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What sets Bodhidharma apart
Bodhidharma is a case of a legend that can be watched growing. In 547 he is a pious foreign monk admiring a pagoda. A century later he is an Indian with a named pupil. By the eleventh century he has an emperor to snub, a cave, nine years of sitting and a place as twenty-eighth in a line from the Buddha. Each addition answers a need of the Chan school of its day, which is why historians read his biography as a history of the school.
- Earliest record: an account of the monasteries of Luoyang, written in 547
- Origin given: the western regions in the first source; south India in a source of about 645
- Text linked to him: Two Entrances and Four Practices
- Named pupil: Huike, counted as the second patriarch
- In Japan: Daruma, the model for the round red wishing doll
Often mistaken for something else: The Buddha is the founder of Buddhism, a thousand years earlier in India; Bodhidharma is the monk to whom the Chan school traces its arrival in China.
The story behind Bodhidharma
The earliest mention is in a description of the monasteries of Luoyang written in 547, which calls him a monk from the western regions. A collection of monks' lives compiled about 645 makes him a south Indian. The legends grew during the Tang and Song dynasties, as the Chan school drew up its line of patriarchs. The tale that he taught the Shaolin monks their fighting arts rests on a manual of the seventeenth century. In Japan he is Daruma, and round red dolls are made in his image.
Why Bodhidharma matters
He stands at the head of the Zen lineage, so telling record from legend in his case shows how the school built its own history.
How to read Bodhidharma
Zen teachers use his stories as teaching cases; historians use his name for a thinly recorded monk and for the legend that grew around him.
Bodhidharma in practice: an example
A visitor to a Zen hall who sees a scowling bearded figure in an ink painting is looking at Bodhidharma as the tradition imagines him.
Where readings of Bodhidharma go wrong
The stories are teaching tales, and the one about the severed arm is not an example for anyone to follow.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- who was bodhidharma, bodhidharma zen, daruma, bodhidharma shaolin, first patriarch of chan
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Who was Bodhidharma?
He was a Buddhist monk from India or Central Asia who taught in northern China in the early sixth century. Chan and Zen Buddhism count him as the first patriarch of their line in China.
Did Bodhidharma really sit facing a wall for nine years?
The story appears only in later sources and cannot be confirmed. An early text linked to him speaks of wall contemplation, and the legend of nine years at Shaolin seems to have grown from that phrase.
Did Bodhidharma invent kung fu?
There is no early evidence for it. The claim that he taught the Shaolin monks exercises comes from a manual written in the seventeenth century, more than a thousand years after his time, and historians treat it as legend.
