Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th/6th century and is traditionally credited as the leading patriarch and transmitter of Zen(Chinese: Chán, Sanskrit: Dhyāna) to China. He was the third son of a Tamil king of the Pallava Dynasty. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Shaolinquan. However, martial arts historians have shown this legend stems from a 17th centuryqigong manual known as the Yijin Jing.
Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend, but some accounts state that he was from a Brahmin family in southern India and possibly of royal lineage. However Broughton (1999:2) notes that Bodhidharma's royal pedigree implies that he was of theKshatriya warrior caste. Mahajan (1972:705–707) argued that the Pallava dynasty was a Tamilian dynasty and Zvelebil (1987) proposed that Bodhidharma was born a prince of the Pallava dynasty in their capital of Kanchipuram Scholars have concluded his place of birth to beKanchipuram in Tamil Nadu, India.
After becoming a Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma traveled to China. The accounts differ on the date of his arrival, with one early account claiming that he arrived during the Liú Sòng Dynasty (420–479) and later accounts dating his arrival to the Liáng Dynasty (502–557). Bodhidharma was primarily active in the lands of the Northern Wèi Dynasty(386–534). Modern scholarship dates him to about the early 5th century.
Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian. He is described as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" in Chinese texts.
The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (952) identifies Bodhidharma as the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends all the way back to the Buddha himself. D.T. Suzuki contends that Chán's growth in popularity during the 7th and 8th centuries attracted criticism that it had "no authorized records of its direct transmission from the founder of Buddhism" and that Chán historians made Bodhidharma the 28th patriarch of Buddhism in response to such attacks.
click to see more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma
A new research has suggested that students who have a much more drastic increase in heartbeat during exams are more likely to achieve better results.
It found that on average the most successful pupils' heartbeat reached a level that was 23.9 times a minute faster than normal, reports the Daily Mail.
And those who performed at the bottom end of the class were found to have a minimal increase in heartbeat - only around 3.9 times their normal rate.
However, there was no evidence to suggest that pupils who said they were nervous had a much quicker heartbeat than normal.
The finding led AQA exam board, which conducted their study at a leading sixth-form college, to suggest that the increase was caused by a heightened alertness rather than a nervous anxiety.
But some anxiety, called 'good stress', seemed to be pivotal to students being able to channel their thoughts and focus on the task in hand.
"This increase in heart rate is a sign that arousal encourages them (the students) to be more alert," one of the leaders of the research, Suzanne Chamberlain, told the Sunday Times.
"It encourages them to work to the best of their ability, it sets the scene for better performance. But we can't say [for sure] it is the direct cause," she said.
The students were fitted with heart monitors in the hours before the exam, and then - of course - during the examination period.
For the highest performers, who achieved an average mark of 78 percent, their heart rate increased from 79.8 beats a minute to 103.7 while sitting the exam.
And the pulses of those who did not fare as well - they scored an average of 53 per cent - their rate only went up slightly, from 78.5 to 82.4.
The study, however, does not recommend that those taking exams use stimulants to boost their heart rate.
The study is due to appear in the Educational Research journal.
