Kung-Fu and Karate Originated in India!

Browsing at the bookstore, I came across the book:

"The Bodhisattva Warriors : The Origin, Inner Philosophy, History and Symbolism of the Buddhist Martial Art within India and China". (The author, by the way, is Shifu
Nagaboshi Tomio, a.k.a Terence Dukes. He is "an ordained teacher and initiate of the Ryushinji Temple in Okinawa, Japan). This was very intriguing. Perhaps some of you have heard of the Buddhist martial arts in India, but I hadn't. I had thought that these had a purely far-Eastern origin.

I flip through the pages, and see Figure 105. Modern Indian Nata dancer (a Kathakali dancer). The movements of Chuan Fa are still clearly visible.

"The Tang Chinese equivalent for the title "Vajramukti", Chuan Fa (Japanese : Kempo) was a nominal approximation used by monks for that section of the Buddhist Vajramukti
art concerned with ritualized movement practices which contained the principles of health preservation, weaponless self-defense and meditative insight.

The term Chuan Fa was commonly used from the Tang dynasty onward [AD 618-907 according to an appendix] to represent in general those aspects of the Vajramukti practices which missionary monks imported from India. Much later it was exported to offshore islands such as Taiwan and the Ryukyus, where the title was pronounced "Kempo". "


A few pages earlier (sorry if this upsets anyone's notions) :

First, a little intro:
According to our author, "Vajramukti" is the name given to the art of unarmed combat. "Vajramukti was practiced in peacetime by means of regular training sessions and these utilized sequences of attack and defense technically termed in Sanskrit "nata"."

We must now look briefly at the historical development in India in order to appreciate the social environment into which the "nata" emerged. After this we will consider the nata further, for it was their sequences which were taken by monks into China and developed into a native form, which, in turn, gave rise to many of the Buddhist physical meditation arts.

(Brief overview of Buddhist monarchs)
Harsha, revitalized the Sanskrit language and Indian cultural arts. He sponsored sculptures, temples, art, drama and Buddhist nata in all their forms. It is only from this dynasty that the Hindu nata can be dated.

In ancient Hinduism, nata was acknowledged as a spiritual study and conferred a ruling deity, Nataraja, representing the awakening of wisdom through physical and mental concentration. However, after the Muslim invasion of India and its brutal destruction of Buddhist and Hindu culture and religion, the Ksatreya art of nata was dispersed and many of its teachers slain. Due to these invasions, subsequent traditions of nata which arose within Hindu India drew inspiration from sources such as the southern Indian (Dravidian) folk dance and developed very different orientations from its original form. These different sources resulted in the nata becoming a popular performance art of mime and dance, reflecting mainly the myths and
legends of the Hindu religious past, rather than the energetic, body-oriented form of the Ksatreya spiritual warrior training. It is only in these Dravidian areas of India that indigenous martial arts, under the name of Kalari exist nowadays.

When Buddhism came to influence India (circa 500 B.C.) the Deity Nataraja was converted to become one of the four protectors of Buddhism, and was renamed Nar(y)ayana Deva (Chinese : Na Lo Yen Tien). He is said to be a protector of the Eastern hemisphere of the mandala.

The Muslim invasions and subsequent slaughter of Buddhist monks and nuns caused many to flee into Southern India, China, and elsewhere. Because of this, much of what we know concerning nata within Indian Buddhism comes to us via Chinese tradition and Buddhist writing. Refugees carried with them living knowledge, not only of Buddhist spiritual teaching, but also of its cultural arts and skillful means of teaching.The Gupta and Pala Dynasty nata would have been among these, and doubtless continued to be developed by subsequent Buddhist masters.

Although modern Sanskritists usually represent the term nata as one describing the Indian classical art of representing events and characters in the Hindu scriptures by means of highly stylized dance, mime and acting, this is not the meaning of the term evidenced with the Buddhist sutras. The term nata in Mahayana Buddhism described "body nourishing movement sequences" of "a demanding nature" performed by one who was "vigorous and determined." It referred not to a spectator-oriented activity of entertainment or pleasure (as were the Hindu nata) but to the practice of warriors."

-a lot more later (for example, there seems to be other evidence that "nata" was kshatriya martial art). arun gupta

According to Shifu Nagaboshi Tomio, "nata" was martial art (mostly armed) practiced by Kshtriyas from Vedic times.

Other fascinating claims : Tiger Striking (Sanskrit: Vyaghraja) was a technique of unarmed combat.

"In addition to the Indian and North Chinese accounts there is a legend, preserved in both the Ryukyuan "Kempo Hishu", the "Itosuchi", and other Japanese manuscripts, that the technique of Vyaghraja in Chuan Fu developed from teachings contained in an account brought from India, via a Tibetan monastery, into China which recorded the hand-to-hand combat held between two deities. Their names are given phonetically as "Ka-shi-ma" and "Ka-chu-ri". The account is said to describe theri movements and practices and says they used these techniques to "control and restrain their followers". The manuscript is usually named in Japanese Ju Jitsu schools as the "Ta-ka-no-kabi". I was even told this story while sitting by a mountainside of the Motobu peninsula of Okinawa with an old Karate master.

Here we have a fascinating record of a living tradition passed down from generation to generation among people who don't really understand its constituents, but who nevertheless still retain accurate elements of an earlier Chinese tradition. The word "Taka no Kabi", literally means "the giving and receiving of the high(er) places" (Chinese: Kao Cha Li) actually represents the Sanskrit term "Devaloka dana
adana", meaning "The heavenly realm of those who give and those who receive" a meaning almost the same. The names Kashimi and Kachuri probably represent Chinese transliterations of the Sanskrit Buddhist term "Ksatre(ya) ksetra". This means "the place - or land - of the Ksatreya." It is both a synonym for the land of India and a place where warriors train and exercise control.

The whole name seems likely to represent a literal Sarvastivada source orignally called something like the "Devloka danadana Ksatreya ksetra", and which, if tradition is accurate, passed from the Vikramasila monastery of India, for it was to here the Tibetans mainly came to be taught Buddhist teachings. It may be a coincidence, but the area in India which contained the most Sarvastivada/Mahasanghika monasteries was named "Danakataka", a word which can be translated fancifully as the "gift of the closed hand". One furhter, as yet unnamed method of the Vajramukti was said to
have arrived in Southern China via Sri Lanka, but this awaits further research."