Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and is regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. He is also popularly regarded as the founder of Shaolin kung fu.
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| Bodhidharma, Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Japanese artist Yoshitoshi, 1887 |
Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend and unreliable details. According to the principal Chinese sources, Bodhidharma came from the Western Regions, which typically refers to Central Asia, but can also include the Indian subcontinent, and is described as either a "Persian Central Asian" or a "South Indian [...] the third son of a great Indian king." Aside from the Chinese accounts, several popular traditions also exist regarding Bodhidharma's origins. Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as an ill-tempered, large-nosed, profusely-bearded, wide-eyed non-Chinese person. He is referred to as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" in Chan texts.
The Tibetan and Southeast traditions consistently regard Bodhidharma as South Indian, the former in particular characterising him as a dark-skinned Dravidian. Conversely, the Japanese tradition generally regards Bodhidharma as a red-haired Persian.
Bodhidharma painted by Miyamoto Musashi
Although the presence of a redhead in ancient China might seem dubious, in previous posts we have already accounted for red-haired people in ancient China and bordering countries.
Here we have talked of a postumous description of Genghis Khan depicting him as a redhead, and here we have seen Wikipedia’s censorship of this description.
This is a post about the European-looking mummies found in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, while here you can read that emperor Liu Yuan was described as having red hair and a long beard.
Some of you probably know this fresco, depicting a blue-eyed, red-haired Central Asian monk (Tocharian or Sogdian) teaching an East Asian monk.
The fresco comes from the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, a complex of Buddhist cave grottos dating from the 5th to 14th century between the cities of Turpan and Shanshan (Loulan) at the north-east of the Taklamakan Desert, in the Xinjiang region of western China (the same region where the Tarim mummies were found).
