page_title: Bodhidharma
section_title: Tanlin – preface to the Two Entrances and Four Acts
hierarchical_section_title: Bodhidharma / Biography / Principal sources / Tanlin – preface to the Two Entrances and Four Acts
caption_attribution_description: A dehua ware porcelain statuette of Bodhidharma, from the Ming Dynasty (1368&#8211;1644), dated to the first half of the 17th century.
context_page_description: 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 regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin kungfu. In Japan, he is known as Daruma. His name means "dharma of awakening" in Sanskrit.
  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 refers to Central Asia but may also include the Indian subcontinent, and was either a "Persian Central Asian" or a "South Indian [...] the third son of a great Indian king."
  Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as an ill-tempered, profusely-bearded, wide-eyed non-Chinese person. He is referred as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" in Chan texts.
  Aside from the Chinese accounts, several popular traditions also exist regarding Bodhidharma's origins.
context_section_description: The second account was written by Tanlin (曇林; 506–574). Tanlin's brief biography of the "Dharma Master" is found in his preface to the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices, a text traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma and the first text to identify him as South Indian:
  The Dharma Master was a South Indian of the Western Region. He was the third son of a great Indian king. His ambition lay in the Mahayana path, and so he put aside his white layman's robe for the black robe of a monk […] Lamenting the decline of the true teaching in the outlands, he subsequently crossed distant mountains and seas, traveling about propagating the teaching in Han and Wei.
  Tanlin's account was the first to mention that Bodhidharma attracted disciples, specifically mentioning Daoyu (道育) and Dazu Huike (慧可), the latter of whom would later figure very prominently in the Bodhidharma literature. Although Tanlin has traditionally been considered a disciple of Bodhidharma, it is more likely that he was a student of Huike.
caption: A Dehua ware porcelain statuette of Bodhidharma from the late Ming dynasty, 17th century
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