Written by: Mathusan Mahalingam
How many of us knew about Bodhidharma before watching the movie? Probably very few if any. How many of us know who he is after watching the movie? All of us.
Bodhidharma, also known as Daruma, or Damu, has been credited with the founding of Martial Arts (China) and Zen (Japan). According to the movie, he was a Tamil Prince, who traveled from South-India to the east-Pacific region to prevent a disease from spreading to India. During his stay at the Shaolin Temple in China, he taught the warrior monks physical conditioning exercises which later evolved as kung-fu and martial arts in China, and as Karate in Japan (McFarland, 1987).
Bodhidharma is still a powerful symbol in China and Japan today. Many folllowers continue to worship him, and hold rituals after him. Every January 18, a Daruma Bonfire is held in Japan, where papier mache dolls off Bodhidharma are burned in a pyre (McFarland, 1987). Each year, thousands of people buy a Bodhidharma doll at the beginning of a year, with a goal/wish, and paint one eye on the doll. They keep the doll with them throughout the year, and when the wish comes true, they paint the other eye. At the end of the year on January 18, they return back to the temple, thank Daruma, burn the dolls, and purchase a new one for the upcoming year. The dolls are said to represent persistence, since no matter how many times you knock it over, it returns back to its original pose, and the dolls eyes are in the ‘zazen position’ a meditation that is suppose to clear the mind and increase concentration (McFarlane, 1987).
For those of you who watched the movie, you know this wasn’t just any movie. It was a movie that brought the community together through our history and identity. It evoked passion, and unity. This movie reminded us of the richness of our Tamil history, and the sophistication of our ancestors.
Media is a powerful tool, more powerful than any other tool in the world. It’s the only tool that truly reaches thousands of people at once, and makes people aware of things they never knew before. The power of media is unparalleled to any other medium. 7am Arivu taught us a great deal, to never forget our history, and to treat our ancestors knowledge as sacred, valuable and scientific.
Without the making of this movie, many us may never have known of Bodhidharma, going to show that media has the power to educate the masses in a medium they can quickly understand and grasp. While this movie made us aware of one part of our history, there are so much more that is still buried away. Filmmakers, journalists, artists and photographers have an important role in our community, a role that we must realize and encourage. They have the power to document, to educate and to empower our cultural practices, our traditions and histories. They have the power to raise awareness.
If you take a look at the many historical books that talk about Bodhidharma, there’s one thing that’s very difficult to ignore. If you look at the earlier reproductions, paintings and drawings of Bodhidharma, his facial features correspond with those facial features with South-Asians. However, as time progressed, Bodhidharma has been painted and drawn with Asian facial features, making him resemble a Chinese/Japanese ethnic background. In today’s popular imagination, his facial features have changed significantly from what he may really have looked like as a Thamizhan. If we don’t write and record our history, someone else will rewrite for us, and it won’t always be to reflect the truth.
Knowledge and information has been safeguarded within tight-communities in our community, making accessibility a problem. While some may think this safeguards information, the truth is information that is so tightly controlled, will eventually be lost with the holders of that information. Many companies have realized this today and have implemented knowledge sharing policies in their organizational structure so so that as employees leave, the knowledge is still retained by the company. We as a community need to work together to share our knowledge, our information, our histories, our traditions and our wisdom. Information and knowledge is wealth, and we need to cultivate and share our personal information and knowledge and make it part of our community’s collective knowledge and information.
7am Arivu may have taught us something important, but if we do nothing with it, then it would have been a waste.
Source:
McFarlane, N. (1987). “The Founder of Zen in Japanese Art and Popular Culture.” NY: Kodansha International Ltd.
