Yang gave the following account: At that time there was a monk of the Western Region named Bodhidharma, a Persian Central Asian.

The Tibetan translation is estimated to have been made in the late eighth or early ninth century, indicating that the original Chinese text was written at some point before that.

"[16]In the 7th-century historical work "Further Biographies of Eminent Monks" (續高僧傳 Xù gāosēng zhuàn), Daoxuan (道宣) possibly drew on Tanlin's preface as a basic source, but made several significant additions: Firstly, Daoxuan adds more detail concerning Bodhidharma's origins, writing that he was of "South Indian Brahman stock" (南天竺婆羅門種 nán tiānzhú póluómén zhŏng).

According to Daoxuan's chronology, Bodhidharma's death must have occurred prior to 534, the date of the Northern Wei's fall, because Dazu Huike subsequently leaves Luoyang for Ye.

Furthermore, citing the shore of the Luo River as the place of death might possibly suggest that Bodhidharma died in the mass executions at Heyin (河陰) in 528.

The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall includes Bodhidharma's encounter with Emperor Wu of Liang, which was first recorded around 758 in the appendix to a text by Shenhui (神會), a disciple of Huineng.

However, three years after the burial, in the Pamir Mountains, Song Yun (宋雲)—an official of one of the later Wei kingdoms—encountered Bodhidharma, who claimed to be returning to India and was carrying a single sandal.

According to the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall, Bodhidharma left the Liang court in 527 and relocated to Mount Song near Luoyang and the Shaolin Monastery, where he "faced a wall for nine years, not speaking for the entire time",[34] his date of death can have been no earlier than 536.

[8][note 1] This is consistent with the Southeast Asian traditions which also describe Bodhidharma as a former South Indian Tamil prince who had awakened his kundalini and renounced royal life to become a monk.

[39] According to Yanagida Seizan, the first "entrance of principle", was a subitist teaching which derives from the sudden enlightenment thought of Tao-sheng; while the four practices are a reworking of the "four foundations of mindfulness", which were popular in the late Six Dynasties period Buddhist meditation circles.

In the Two Entrances and Four Practices, the term "wall-gazing" is given as follows: Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who meditate on walls, the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason.

[note 6] Jeffrey Broughton points out that where Bodhidharma's teachings appear in Tibetan translation among the Dunhuang manuscripts, the Chinese phrase "in a coagulated state abides in wall-examining" (ning chu pi-kuan) is replaced in Tibetan with "rejects discrimination and abides in brightness" (rtogs pa spangs te | lham mer gnas na).

Jingjue's account also makes explicit mention of "sitting meditation" or zazen:[web 5] For all those who sat in meditation, Master Bodhi[dharma] also offered expositions of the main portions of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, which are collected in a volume of twelve or thirteen pages […] bearing the title of "Teaching of [Bodhi-]Dharma".

[47] The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, one of the Mahayana sutras, is a highly "difficult and obscure" text[48] whose basic thrust is to emphasize "the inner enlightenment that does away with all duality and is raised above all distinctions".

In some Buddha-lands ideas are indicated by looking steadily, in others by gestures, in still others by a frown, by the movement of the eyes, by laughing, by yawning, or by the clearing of the throat, or by recollection, or by trembling.

In one legend, Bodhidharma refused to resume teaching until his would-be student, Dazu Huike, who had kept vigil for weeks in the deep snow outside of the monastery, cut off his own left arm to demonstrate sincerity.

"[61] Bodhidharma passed on the symbolic robe and bowl of dharma succession to Dazu Huike and, some texts claim, a copy of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.

Vajrayana tradition links Bodhidharma with the 11th-century south Indian monk Dampa Sangye who travelled extensively to Tibet and China spreading tantric teachings.

[67] Three years after Bodhidharma's death, Ambassador Song Yun of northern Wei is said to have seen him walking while holding a shoe at the Pamir Mountains.

In the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices and the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks, Daoyu and Dazu Huike are the only explicitly identified disciples of Bodhidharma.

[71]According to McRae, it is not clear that the practitioners surrounding Bodhidharma and his disciple Huike considered themselves as belonging to a unified movement or group, such as a "Chan school," nor did they have any sense of sharing any continuity with the later tradition.

Hence any such attempt by modern biographers to reconstruct a definitive account of Bodhidharma's life is both doomed to failure and potentially, no different in intent from the hagiographical efforts of premodern writers.

"[8] Acharya Raghu, in his work 'Bodhidharma Retold', used a combination of multiple factors to identify Bodhidharma from the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India, specifically to the geography around Mt.

[91] The preface of this work says that Bodhidharma left behind the Yi Jin Jing, and further states that the monks obtained the fighting skills which made them gain some fame from this manual.

[2][b] The attribution of the Yijin Jing to Bodhidharma has been discredited early on,[92] and is also rejected by historians like Tang Hao, Xu Zhen, and Matsuda Ryuchi.

[94] According to Henning, the "story is clearly a twentieth-century invention," which "is confirmed by writings going back at least 250 years earlier, which mention both Bodhidharma and martial arts but make no connection between the two.

[95] In The Gateless Gate by Wumen Huikai: A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the meaning of the ancestral teacher's (i.e., Bodhidharma's) coming from the west?"

A 1989 South Korean film, Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?, derives its title from a kōan about Bodhidharma's legendary transmission of Chan Buddhism to China.

[102] The 2011 Indian Tamil science fiction martial arts film 7aum Arivu features a descendant of Bodhidharma as a main character, with its plot centering on the ancient monk's legendary skills and knowledge.

[38] There also exists a Dunhuang manuscript titled Treatise of Dhyana Master Bodhidharma (Tianzhu guo Putidamo chan shi lun 天竺國菩提達摩禪師論).