Shaolin History - Fact or Myth?

[Scott R. Brown]

Ok, the source for the information I will present here is: “The Bodhidharma Anthology: the Earliest Records of Zen” by Jeffery L. Broughton.

These are a compilation of the 7 earliest known written texts on Ch’an in China.

The documents were found in a walled up cave complex in the Mo-kao Grottoes in North-west China near the Tun-huang oasis, in the early 1900’s. The Bodhidharma Anthology was found along with tens of thousands of other manuscripts of Chinese, Tibetan and other Central Asian and Indic languages,

Buddhist manuscripts were found stuffed to the ceiling in Cave Number 17. The cave was walled up around 1,000 A.D. for some unknown reason. There were approximately 300 texts relating to Ch’an, many were copies and fragments of other texts present. There were about 100 unique texts.

The Bodhidharma Anthology, by Broughton, is an English translation of the 7 earliest known written texts on Ch’an. Following his translations are detailed commentaries and appendices that discuss each text.

The information below is from these commentaries and appendices.

1) The traditional biography of Bodhidharma is generally taken from Record of the Patriarchal Hall (Tsu-t’ang chi).

This is probably compiled from the Biography section of the Bodhidharma Anthology written by a man named T’an-lin (Armless Lin) who was either a disciple of Bodhidharma or of Hui-k’o.

2) Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Lo-yang (Lo-yang chia-lan chi), written by Yang Hsuan-chih, in the middle 500’s A.D. probably just after 547, is a non-Buddhist source that mentions a Bodhidharma in Lo-yang around 527 when our Bodhidharma was supposed to be in Lo-yang. Yang was a local official and wanted a record of the former glory of Lo-yang’s Buddhist tradition. This Bodhidharma however, was from Iran. Lo-yang was the eastern end-of-the-line of the famous Silk Road. So, it would have been possible for Bodhidharma to have entered China via this route. Lo-yang had over a thousand temples and monasteries and many Buddhist masters from the West. This manuscript does not focus on Buddhist masters or teachings, but mainly on the Buddhist monasteries, temples and other Buddhist sites as these were noted for their magnificence and beauty as well as interesting stories concerning notable Buddhists.

Yang mentions a Bodhidharma twice, but just in passing. This Bodhidharma mentions that in all his 150 years of life he had never seen such beautiful Buddhist architecture. The monastery he was referring to was called Yung-ning Monastery which flourished between 516-526, so this places a Bodhidharma in Lo-yang at around the time tradition places Ch’an’s Bodhidharma.

3) Approximately 100 years later there is a biographical entry for Bodhidharma found in Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (Hsu kao-seng chuan), compiled by Tao-hsuan around 645. There are entries for both Bodhidharma and Hui-k’o. Most of the information however, probably comes from the short biography recorded by Tan-lin and Two Entrances, written by Tan-lin (and part of the Bodhidharma Anthology), and the previously mentioned Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Lo-yang. This text does have some information not found previously, specifically it is the origin of the story of Bodhidharma coming to China via a sea route from southern India. Tao-hsuan’s source for this information is presently unknown apparently.

Tao-hsuan is known as an assiduous researcher and edited his Biographies as new information was discovered over time. It is deduced that he had a number of other sources besides Tan-lin and Record of Buddhist Monasteries of Lo-yang.

So, there you have it. The earliest records in China of Bodhidharma put a Bodhidharma in Loyang around the time he is supposed to have been there. The first two sources are almost contemporary with his time there, within 20-50 years or so. Tan-lin was either a disciple of Bodhidharma or Hui-k’o. There is no direct mention of Shaolin in the texts, however.