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The germs of both schools are to be found in the Upanishads but it seems probable that the ideas of Śankara were originally worked out among Buddhists rather than among Brahmans and were rightly described by their opponents as disguised Buddhism. As early as 520 A.D. Bodhidharma preached in China a doctrine which is practically the same as the Advaita.
Bodhidharma too came from the South and imported into China a form of Buddhism which has left no record in India. Revival of Hinduism In 320 a native Indian dynasty, the Guptas, came to the throne and inaugurated a revival of Hinduism, to which religion we must now turn. To speak of the revival of Hinduism does not mean that in the previous period it had been dead or torpid.
He became the instructor of men and devas; saved multitudes, and spoke the contents of more than five hundred books. Hence arose the Kiaumen or Exoteric branch of the system, and it was believed to hold the tradition of the words of the Buddha. Bodhidharma brought from the Western Heaven the seal of truth, and opened the Fountain of Dhyana in the east.
We may say this in Art, to take that one field alone, the most perfect, the fullest, the divinest, expression of Natural Magic "whereof this world holds record" was to come in the school of the Successors of Bodhidharma, directly the result of his 'Doctrine of the Heart.
The Buddha gave out so much, as the time permitted him; Nagarjuna, founding the Mahayana, so much further; Bodhidharma, now that with the move to China a new lease of life had come, gave out, or rather taught to his disciples, so much more again of the doctrine that in its fulness is and always has been the doctrine of the Lodge.
"Where all is emptiness," said Bodhidharma, "nothing can be called holy." A neat compliment, thinks good externalist Wuti, may improve things. "If nothing can be called holy," says he, "who is it then that replies to me?" holiness being a well-known characteristic of Bodhidharma himself. Who answered merely: "I do not know"; and went his ways.
He was a king's son from southern India; his name Bodhidharma; and one would like to know what the records of the Great Lodge have to say about him. For he stands in history as the founder of the Dhyana or Zen School, another form of the name of which is Dzyan; when one reads The Voice of the Silence, or the Stanzas in The Secret Doctrine, one might remember this.
"None," said Bodhidharma. "And why none?" "All this," said the Master, "is but the insignificant effect of an imperfect cause not complete in itself; it is but the shadow that follows the substance, and without real existence." "Then what," asked Wuti, "is real merit?"
A Messenger was sent out into the Chinese world from the School of Bodhidarma in 575: Chih-i, the founder of the Tientai School which was the spiritual force underlying the glory of the T'ang age; but he was a Messenger from the Dzyan School of Bodhidharma, not its Head.
Religious feeling often ran high in southern India. Buddhists, Jains and Hindus engaged in violent disputes, and persecution was more frequent than in the north. It is easy to suppose that Bodhidharma being the head of some heretical sect had to fly and followed the example of many monks in going to China.
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