Editing Bodhidharma (section)

=== Biography as a hagiographic process ===
According to John McRae, Bodhidharma has been the subject of a [[Hagiography|hagiographic process]] which served the needs of Chan Buddhism. According to him, it is not possible to write an accurate biography of Bodhidharma:

{{blockquote|It is ultimately impossible to reconstruct any original or accurate biography of the man whose life serves as the original trace of his hagiography – where "trace" is a term from Jacques Derrida meaning the beginningless beginning of a phenomenon, the imagined, but always intellectually unattainable, origin. Hence any such attempt by modern biographers to reconstruct a definitive account of Bodhidharma's life is both doomed to failure and potentially, no different in intent from the hagiographical efforts of premodern writers.{{sfn|McRae|2003|p=24}}}}

McRae's standpoint accords with Yanagida's standpoint: "Yanagida ascribes great historical value to the witness of the disciple Tanlin, but at the same time, acknowledges the presence of 'many puzzles in the biography of Bodhidharma'". Given the present state of the sources, he considers it impossible to compile a reliable account of Bodhidharma's life.{{sfn|Dumoulin|Heisig|Knitter|2005|p=89}}

Several scholars have suggested that the composed image of Bodhidharma depended on the combination of supposed historical information on various historical figures over several centuries.{{sfn|McRae|2003|p=25}} Bodhidharma as a historical person may even never have actually existed.{{sfn|Chaline|2003|pp=26–27}}