Bodhidharma is said by the Shaolin monks to have introduced the sect of Chan (Zen) Buddhism to them at Shaolin Temple in Henan, China during the 6th century. Bodhidharma was also given the opportunity to teach what the monks called “18 Hands of the Lohan”.

When Bodhidharma instituted the practices that evolved into Shaolin Kungfu, his primary concern was to make the monks physically strong enough to withstand both the isolated lifestyle and the deceptively demanding training that meditation would require. In fact, it is one of the oldest Shaolin axioms that "one who engages in combat has already lost the battle."

Bodhidharma (c. early fifth century CE) was the Buddhist monk traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chán to China. Very little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend, but most accounts agree that he was either a South Indian or Persian monk who journeyed to southern China and subsequently relocated northwards. 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 about the early fifth century.

There are two known extant accounts written by contemporaries of Bodhidharma.

The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang, was compiled in 547 by Yáng Xuànzhī, a writer and translator of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts into the Chinese language.

At that time there was a monk of the Western Region named Bodhidharma, a Persian Central Asian. He traveled from the wild borderlands to China. Seeing the golden disks reflecting in the sun, the rays of light illuminating the surface of the clouds, the jewel-bells on the stupa blowing in the wind, the echoes reverberating beyond the heavens, he sang its praises. He exclaimed: "Truly this is the work of spirits." He said: "I am 150 years old, and I have passed through numerous countries. There is virtually no country I have not visited. But even in India there is nothing comparable to the pure beauty of this monastery. Even the distant Buddha realms lack this." He chanted homage and placed his palms together in salutation for days on end.

The second account was written by Tanlin (506–574). Tanlin's brief biography of the "Dharma Master" is found in his preface to the Two Entrances and Four Acts, a text traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma, and is the first text to identify Bodhidharma as South Indian:

The Dharma Master was a South Indian of the Western Region. He was the third son of a great Indian king. His ambition lay in the Mahayana path, and so he put aside his white layman's robe for the black robe of a monk. Lamenting the decline of the true teaching in the outlands, he subsequently crossed distant mountains and seas, traveling about propagating the teaching in Han and Wei.

Life in Shaolin Temple
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 China Tours inclusive of visiting the Shaolin Temple, Mount Songshan