Indian martial art older than Chinese

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Southern Chinese Kung Fu
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I just saw someone’s user ID is: Vajramusti. This reminded me of the ancient Indian martial art style Dhammo (Bodhidharma) learned in his home, India, before he actually went to China and laid down the foundation of the famous Shaolin style around 520-530 AD. Most Chinese styles root their art back to Shaolin and most people refer to Shaolin as the oldest known martial art on the world, but before Shaolin, actually in India they were already practicing the vajramusti hand-to-hand combat techniques. This is what Bodhidharma taught to the Shaolin monks and that is how the Shaolin martial art was founded.

Anyone has more info on vajramusti? How long does it go back to history and what were the similarities between Shaolin and the ancient Indian martial art? Anyone still practices this ancient art today?

<- X-Warrior ->

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X-warrior, while that history impresses the tourists, it isn’t supported by literary, artistic or archeological records which point to well developed systems of CMA in 1500BC.

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i thought it was called kaliparayit or something like that.
it’s still practiced and if u run a search u’ll be able to find stuff on it.
shui chio, chinese fast wrestling was practiced in china long before shaolin kung fu.
and i’ve been led to understand that there were some folk & military arts that existed prior to shaolin as well.

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and not to be rude or anything , but you really cant take what those ppl say too seriously, if you follow them, they’ll have you believe they were the first civilization , the first relegion , the first everything under the sun.
even in the unlikey circumstance that they were…nobody cares , and it means nothing.
chinese martial arts has stood the test of time and has proven itself effective.
if indian martial arts sole claim to fame is “being carried over to china by damo” that doesn’t say much.

imo

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Shuai chao is indigenous and early Chinese wrestling -later further informed by Mongolian wrestling.

Mongolian wrestling later with
the westward march of the Mongols influenced/modified grappling
from Mongolia to Turkey via North India, Kazakhistan, Afghan, and Iran… introduction of hooking throws derived from closequarters horseback fighting-added to regular standup grappling..

The Boddhi dharma settled ina temple near Shaolin not at Shaolin proper…but provided the foundation of Chan. Other forms of Buddhism had already arrived in China. India has always had its indigenous martial arts…lots of different styles and actually used for warfare.
The coming of the British (with guns) and various British ordnances during British occupation began to change Indian martial arts- some to sport (wrestling)- others went underground or into brigandage such as the thugees.But the Brits incorporated some martial groups into their army-Sikhs, Gurkhas etc..
Kalari payattu is ancient and still extant. Some areas have very good stick and knife work. Archery in some areas as separated as Ladakh and manipur. Sikh swordplay- gatkha and chakram.
Gurkha kukhri work- the best knife fighting that there is.

Given the Boddhidharmas class background he was bound to have been exposed to martial training. But asa Buddhist- mind and spirit conquers the body. Chinese MA IMO did not begin with the Boddhidharma- but surely the introduction of breath control and perception clarity and control and yogic asanas are important contributions to Chinese and several other martial arts.
We dont know exactly what the early 18 hands of lohan was since there are different versions these days-but that may have roots in boddhidharama days.

Musti- is fist work. Kusthi is grappling. Vajramusti indeed was
Indian fist work with angle, lines and strike points (marma-s).

Indian Kusthi has declined because of the decline of rajas as sponsors. The great Gama (check google) was one of the greatest wrestlers ever.

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thanks for the response ,
and the corrections

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there is an artical in this months classical fighting arts about indian martial arts, i have not read, however may have some good info.

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Bohdidharmas’ big contribution to Buddhism was and is Chan/Zen.

Martial arts all over asia, south east asia, the sub-continent and beyond into the middle east and europe have all been in existance for longer than the 1500+ years that Shaolin temple has been around.

Because Buddhism came from India ultimately there is likely in some way an influence, but it is so far in the past and there is a mix and variety of Kungfu that passed through Shaolin that came from a great many traditions.

The Shaolin Kungfu that exists now as the official curriculum is only a shadow of what has been through that temple over the years.

The Shaolin Kungfu that has been disseminated from the temple that we see all over in family styles, village styles, district styles (sometimes multiples) is probably upwards of anywhere between 100 and 400 years old, although there is variation that has occured over time as all things change.

Military martial arts have been in China for millenia before Shaolin, Chinese Martial arts developed seperately from Indian Martial arts and Shaolin was a repository of Taoist as well as Buddhist, military, and medicinal martial arts.

Anyway, nowadays, it’s a fairly robust soup and it’s not uncommon to see mixes all over the place. It is hard to find any kwoon that has not had some exchange with other styles over the years.

It has to be flexible and to seek solely the sources is taking a step backwards in my opinion, believe me, the gold gets carried forward :smiley:

cheers

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Thanks all for the replies, I was curious about who had what information on this.

Ben Gash: I am not a tourist, I was reading this quite a few years ago in a book that delt with Shaolin history. The reason my curiosity was high on this subject is because most CMA instructors today tend to trace their roots back to Shaolin as their origin and merely a handful beyond it.

Starchaser107: You are correct, nowdays everyone claims to hold the ‘true linage’ of their art/knowledge. Just a year ago or so, a mummified human body was discovered frozen in the ice of the Swiss Alps and it had tiny acupuncture holes all over it’s body on known acupunture lines - healing stomic problems if I recall correctly. This actually dates acupunture tens of thousands of years back from any acupunture practice know in China, Asia or anywhere else on Earth, and challenges the origin of this healing method.

Varjamusti: your information seems to be the closest to what I remember reading about the Shaolin and Indian marial art relation. Thanks for the additional info - btw, how did you pick this name?

Bodhitree: do you have a link, or is this in a mag?

Kung Lek: yes, you are right. He also introduced breathing exercises though as well as basic phisycal training with the purpose of strengthening the body. Some say these excercises consisted from the varjamusti excercises that Bodhidharma learned back in India, he was teaching these to the monks to help them physicaly endure the long and tiring meditations.

Again, thanks all for the inputs, any more information is welcomed.

-X-

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He also introduced breathing exercises though as well as basic phisycal training with the purpose of strengthening the body. Some say these excercises consisted from the varjamusti excercises that Bodhidharma learned back in India, he was teaching these to the monks to help them physicaly endure the long and tiring meditations.

this is the popular belief.

It is said he contributed the Yi Jin Jing and the Xi Sui Jin.

However, these exercises are still around today and they are notably different than many of the yogic postures and transitions. These have also been around for a long time.

The real problem lies in whether or not there actually existed a bodhidharma or is his figure an embodiment of an ideal that was perpetuated in the practice of the new buddhism.

The monk Hui ke who is said to be the second patriarch of Chan (the guy who cut off his own arm to learn from bodhidharma) was likely a contributor as well, but martial arts didn’t flourish at the temple until a long time after bodhidharma.

I think what is of note is the augmentation exercises such as gongs and meditation and how that practice effects extrinsically and intrinsically in the practitioner of martial arts.

In effect, martial arts are made better through the extra practices which became almost supernatural in some retellings.

The whole series of events that led to martial arts reaching a new height at the temple in and around the Ming dynasty took place over 7 or 8 hundred years.

By that time, who knows how often history had been re-written by yet another chain of events and wars and political upheaval.

All I’m trying to get at is that Chinese martial arts from shaolin or otherwise can completely stand on their own as their own and as developed wholly in China.

Just like the difference in Chinese buddhism and Indian buddhism. In practice, they are very different and in tenets, thereveda (the older teaching still practiced in India and elsewhere) and mahayana are completed different in so many ways.

They share common underlying messages, but methods are opposed. Even though they work from the same “doctrine”.

Chan is even one more step removed because it is and isn’t buddhism at the same time. Chan is like a different method entirely. But not…hahahaha

anyway, don’t believe all the stories you’re told, a lot of them are historically inaccurate at best, and many of them are downright egrigious. lol

Inspiration isn’t necessarily the foundation, but it can lead to a foundation being started.

cheers

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I have no link, only in a mag, however it is on newstands now.

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The Bodhisattva Warriors is a great book to read regarding this issue. it details the development of the Buddhist Martial Arts in both India and China. Very Informative!

Also remember that there were other Temples/Institutions that contributed to the Martial Arts developments of China (Wudan, for example), and as many have said, the martial arts had been in China before the advent of the Shaolin Temple’s systems. The Shaolin Monks were spiritually inclined first and foremost, wishing to become enlightnened through dispelling illusions. Once taught the basic exercises by the Bodhidharma, they began to study the martial arts in depth. Their studies were not designed to allow them to become extremely competent fighters, but to help them achieve enlightement. It just happens to be that studying combat is one of the best ways to determine what is real and what isn’t as there are instant checks and balances involved. If you get hit, its real, which means something you did wasn’t “real”.

Chan was the core basis of their studies: physical, mental and, spiritual, not combat. I say was because I’m not sure if it is still present in the Modern Shaolin Temples. From what I have learned about the development of the Martial Arts in China from the latter half of the last century, I doubt it.

Keep in mind that every nation proabably has some form of aboriginal fighting arts. Some evolved differently than others. Look and the European countries, they almost completely abandoned hand to hand combat as their warfare technology advanced from swords to firearms. Europeans historically didn’t view the martial arts (hand to hand that is) as a method of spiritual and personal cultivation as the Asians did.

Just my 2 cents.

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when people tell me kung fu has started by shaolin, i just chuckle.
didnt the 3 kingdoms period have a lot of good martial artists? general kwan/gwan/guan (however you choose to spell it) people one of them? back then people jsut did what like 2/3 forms and that was a style?

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well, shaolin is certainly responsible for keeping alive a great deal of material pertaining to chinese martial arts. Particularly buddhist martial arts and even in some cases taoist or so called “internal” martial arts.

If not for the Shaolin, we likely wouldn’t have the spread of martial arts that we have today.

If not for shaolin, many of us on these boards wouldn’t even know what asian martial arts are.

If not for shaolin, the world wouldn’t likely know much about Chinese martial arts.

It’s true, it says so right here on my box of shreddies!

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I tell you. the oldest martial art in the world is club fa. I saw it on the the flinstone where they club people over the head. It probably dates back to the neanderthal. It is the oldest. I win!!!

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ahm… while fred flintstone was out clubbing, and hiding in caves some egyptian guy was developing a highly detailed martial art:p

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I thought clubbing and hiding in caves are the same thing???

Who was this egyptian GM?

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Originally posted by Starchaser107
ahm… while fred flintstone was out clubbing,

I didn’t know Fred could dance!

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don’t have time to chat about it or explaion ( bursting to pee) but agree totally on initial statement and think it’s goes back even further…as in to afganistan/ pakistan etc meets reussia culminates in china…will come back to explain when I have a chance…

cheers

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A couple of interesting things of this nature I have read.

In a Book called Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, there is a brief (five pages) discussion of the Aleut Indians and their medical beliefs and combat methods. The Aleuts, according to this book (which is based in 19th Century russian Ethnograpy done before the Russians killed all the Aleut men and turned their widows into sex slaves. I do not lie.), developed a medical worldview that was based on qi/prana/pneuma etc (call it life force medicine) and they affected cures by means of plicking points on the body. they also developed a method of combat based, according to tribal tradition, on watching wolves fight. It is basically a primitive tiger claw system that grabs at the tendons by the forearm and the armpit. Interesting stuff

According to Bernal Diaz de Castillo in his Verdadera historia de la Conquista de Mexico, the aztecs nobility fought in two groups, either eagles or jaguars. When the eagle knights went in to battle they screeched as eagles and zagged on the field like birds in flight. The jaguar knights painted themselves and growled and hissed as jaguars

I’ve always thought the Damo story was too clean and neat, but that it did speak of Indian influence (or influence from the West) at some point before the actual founding of Shaolin temple and its boxing. What is most interesting about Indian thought (and perhaps Indian martial arts) is that it is Western. It is the Eastern-most form of Western thought, but everything put forth in the Vedas (first) and then the Upanishads and all the rest of hindu literature is Western. The Pantheon is almost entirely capable of being described using the Indo-European division of gods into priest-warrior-farmer. The languages (and therefore the How of the Indian thought) are almost all indo-european. (the stuff in the south is different. greatly different). Why is this a big deal? because if the Indians have a religion and religious martial arts that are based in a way of thinking that is shared with the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, The Celts, and the Germans, two things happen. First Shaolin is, in a sense, not Chinese, but Western (I put a lot of emphasis on “in a sense”. Please, I am not trying to take racist credit for kung fu) Secondly, the West has a striking art that is, except for the greeks and romans, has gone unrecognized (archaeologically speaking. I’m not ignoring Queensbury rules boxing)

Also, that big ugly brassknuckles thing the Indians put on the fists were also worn by the Romans and called a “cestus”

Sorry for the Long long obscure post, but anthropology and archaeology are my passionate loves.