Bodhidharma Facing the Wall

CHINA; Ming dynasty

This is a rubbing of a stone that is now kept in the Stele Forest of Xi’an Beilin Museum. In the picture, Bodhidharma sits in profile meditating. He holds an alms bowl in one hand and sternly stares at the viewer with a single wide eye. The eyebrows, mustache, and hair are composed of sharp, detailed lines. The rounded lines of the robe mirror the shape of the alms bowl.
Born a prince in southern India, Bodhidharma renounced worldly life and became a wandering monk, traveling to Guangzhou, China during the Liang dynasty (502–557). Some records, however, date his arrival in China to the Liu Song dynasty (420–479). Informed of his arrival, Emperor Wu (reigned 502–549) of the Liang dynasty sent an envoy to invite Bodhidharma for a reception in Jianye (present day Nanjing). However, the conversation with the emperor was unsatisfactory and Bodhidharma traveled across the river to Shaolin Temple.
Soon after his arrival at Shaolin Temple, he retreated to a nearby cave and sat facing the wall meditating for nine years. Puzzled by his behavior, the monks of the temple called him the “Brahmin who faces the wall.” He later came to be revered as the First Patriarch of the Chan school. His teachings were inherited by Huike, the Second Patriarch.