To Blog or Not to Blog is the Question

Tea, one of the most loved beverages in India, first originated in China and found its way to England and came to India during its colonisation by the English. The Indians, as is their wont ,decided to add spices like cardamom , black pepper, cloves, ginger and of course some milk from the holy cow and to satiate their sweet tooth lots of sugar and finally came up with a concoction called Chai, which is now available in every coffee house in the US.

But what made it even more interesting is tea’s religious origins, yes religious. I guess this has not yet reached the religious elite else I see the holy Chai being offered to the gazallion Godheads all over the country.

So here goes the legend of the origin of Tea. After Buddha’s death somewhere around 450 B.C. and the efforts during the 2nd century BC of King Ashoka , the Constantine of Buddhism , Buddhism spread to most of Asia including China. A Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma, born around 400 AD in Southern Indian state of Kerala, the Venice of India, on the insistence of his Guru , decided to go over to China to overlook the progress of Buddhism and to correct them just in case the Chinese digressed from the core concepts. Bodhidharma was a big martial arts fighter too . Did that make his Guru send him to China is a matter of speculation

Anyway so our Bodhidharma makes his way to China and sees that the Chinese have become book-worms and are trying to achieve good karma by doing favorable actions, which should be anathema to a Buddhist. So he starts using the cane method to correct them and the Chinese surprisingly listen. So our Bodhidharma then introduces an Indian meditation technique called ‘dhyaan’ , which the Chinese could not pronounce correctly and deformed it to Chu’an ,which the Japanese pick up trying to imitate their bigger neighbors and deformed it again to Zen , which now the Americans have picked up and thank God the deformation buck stops here. Anyway our Bodhidharma also introduces martial arts he learnt in India to these monks for their self-protection and strictly forbade them from hurting anyone needlessly. Now you know why the martial arts teachers tell you that it is for self-defense and not for hurting someone else. Anyway so the Chinese call it Kung-fu , not sure if the Chinese deformed the name, but thanks to the Chinese for keeping the knowledge of martial arts alive, which has almost become defunct in India.

OK ok we are coming to the origin of tea. Hold on. So the Chinese Emperor Wu, who has done many bad(read fun) things early in his life and now reforming himself in his old age through the building of monasteries and supporting monks , invites our Bodhidharma to the palace to get his esteemed opinion on how much merit did all this endow him.

So our Bodhidharma replied ” Nothing”
Wu, stunned at this answer asked “What is the teaching of Buddhism?”
Our Bodhidharma replied “Vast emptiness”
Wu , now showing no respect to our Bodhidharma asked him “Who do you think you are? ”
Our Bodhidharma replied “I dont know”.

Obviously, our Bodhidharma was rather unceremoniously thrown out of the court . Dont know if Emperor Wu ,now returned to his old behavior, which atleast gave him pleasure or continued doing good things, which gave him nothing.

Anyway so now our frustrated Bodhidharma, having further denied entry to a shaolin temple, decided to do some deep meditation in a cave for some nine years staring at a wall ,sitting inches away from it. Well ,disgusted that he was falling asleep he cut off his eyelids (dont try this at home) and threw them away. Lo and behold from his eyelids sprung some bushes, which were nothing but our tea plants. And hence drinking tea has become a religious rite in China and Japan.

Well some more legends , his best student and successor Huiko decided to cut his arm while our Bodhidharma was doing meditation in the cave, to prove his credentials and also to show his devotion to him. OK now that is taking it too far and also my post is becoming too big . So ciao.