According to the legend, the Kerala, a region of the South West coast of India, was buried under the ocean. It was taken out of the ocean by Parasurama (Rama-with-the-axe) who threw his axe into the ocean. Pasurama is the 6th human avatar of Vishnu, the supreme divinity ensuring cosmic order. Kalaripayat was transmitted to men by Parasurama who had learnt it from Shiva.
Shiva is said to be the first teacher of all martial arts in India, whose number could amount to 64.
With his son Subramanya, he handed Kalaripayat over to Augustia Muni, a Hindu ascetic who thus became the founder of martial arts in the South of the country.
Another legend tells the story of Shiva transmitting with Shakti the Northern style (Vadakkan) to two disciples who spread it in Kerala while the Southern style (Thekkan) was created by Maharishi Agsthya, a great Hindu wise man.
The Kalari temple is often dedicated to Goddess Kali, who embodies the female qualities of courage, uprightness and grandeur without fear, but also war, blood and vengeance.
This aspect became incarnated through the women of Kerala in one of the scarce matriarchal societies in India. Nowadays, young women of Kerala practise Kalaripayat.
Nobody can say if the myth on the spread of Kalaripayat is a true story or not. Some people consider this story to be true. It takes place in South India in Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu (a small kingdom of the Pallavi dynasty) in the 6th Century AD. The Ta Mo Prince was given Kalaripayat lessons during his traditional Buddhist education. At adulthood he refused royal privileges and became a wandering monk. During his trip in Kerala, he met the greatest Kalaripayat Kshatryas masters in order to prepare his trip in China aimed at spreading Buddhism.
He arrived in China in 522 AC in Kuang (today Canton). Emperor Liang Nuti, who belonged to the 6th dynasty, granted him an audience. Bodhidharma -the name under which Prince Ta mo went down in history- suggested a new conception of Buddhism to the emperor: the fundamental teaching of big vacuity, according to which the only conceivable merit can be found in the immediate and mystique knowledge of nothingness. Temples, golden statues, pious images, rituals, gifts, everything that Buddhism represents in China is nothing compared to the search for illumination, that can only be attained through meditation.
This was a reappraisal of the moral, philosophical and religious system of China, so the Emperor sent Bodhidharma to a monastery called the Shaolin Temple to get rid of him.
When Bodhidharma arrived there, he was furious to see the perversion of the teaching of Buddha. He withdrew in a cave at the foot of the mountains and meditated there against a rock during 9 months while listening to the calls of ants. After 3 years of wakefulness, he put himself to sleep and dreamt about the women he had loved. When he woke up, as he was furious with himself for his weakness, he scratched his eyelids out and buried them. His eyelids gave birth to a bush whose leaves had the properties of keeping eyes open. This is the mythical origin of the culture of tea. Tea enabled him to go on meditating for 6 years. He started to understand the language of ants and discovered the truth. Meditation in India –Dhyâna- means “to grasp, to comprehend the sky”.
Bodhidharma taught Kalaripayat to Shaolin monks in order for them to be able to prolong their meditation, including the 108 vital spots. Hitting any of these spots can generate acute pain or palsy and even death.
Ta mo thought that meditation with appropriate motions and breathing was 100 times more efficient than static meditation. Static religious life, active physical training, meditation and the practise of martial arts became the complementary features of Zen Buddhism. The basis of Kalaripayat and the martial techniques led to Shaolin boxing, which could be considered as the basis of the philosophy of Asian martial arts.
The Shaolin temple became more famous for its martial techniques than for its religious practices. The monks developed Kung-Fu and Karate after Bodhidharma’s death.