Around the sixth century, a monk and philosopher named Bodhidharma was active across the Buddhist world, his life recorded with enough uncertainty that even his origins remain a matter of competing accounts. His death is placed at Shaolin Monastery around 540, and that endpoint is among the clearest fixed points the historical record offers.

The circumstances of Bodhidharma's birth are genuinely unresolved. Different sources propose Kanchipuram, the Western Regions, or Iran as his place of origin, and the dates given for his birth range from 440 to 483. He held citizenship of Northern Wei, and the Library of Congress Name Authority records his period of activity as the sixth century. As both a Zen master and a philosopher, he is associated with at least one attributed text: the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices, which carries his name in the tradition.

The geographic uncertainty surrounding Bodhidharma's origins reflects how thoroughly his life became layered with tradition over the centuries. What the available facts do confirm is that he was a monk whose activity fell within the sixth century and whose death occurred at Shaolin Monastery. The attribution of the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices to his name remains the most direct connection scholars and practitioners draw between the historical figure and a surviving body of teaching.