...as donated from another Karate site.
The system of martial arts we know today as karate is believed to have originated centuries ago from India. The Buddhist scripture Lotus Sutra, provides written evidence of bare-handed fighting arts indigenous to India prior to any evidence of Ch’uan-fa.
Tradition suggests that the progenitor of karate was introduced at the Shaolin Temple in the Honan Province of northern China in 520 A.D. by an Indian monk named Bodhidharma. According to legend, Bodhidharma traveled from India and entered the temple to teach the Shaolin monks Zen philosophy, but early in his instruction he found the monks to be inattentive and physically unfit. As a result, he introduced physical training known as ‘shih pa lo han sho’ or the 'eighteen hands of Lo-Han', reputed as the basis of Shaolin ch'uan fa.
From the Honan Province, ch'uan fa spread throughout China, and was introduced to Okinawa centuries later. The date of introduction to Okinawa is unknown. Historians indicate some form of fighting art may have been introduced sometime between 600 and 1100 AD. as many contacts were made between the Chinese and Okinawan people. Other historians suggest that ch'uan fa may have been introduced considerably later following the formalization of trade relations between the two countries.
Formalization occurred in 1393 AD. This was accompanied by an imperial gift from China in the form of 36 families of skilled artisans and merchants who migrated from Fukien Province of China to Okinawa. These families established a community known as Kumermura near the city of Naha. It is believed by some researchers that some members of these families introduced ch'uan fa to Okinawa. Although other researchers suggest the 36 families of Kumermura were not educated in the martial arts.
However, a martial arts text known as the Bubishi, accompanied the Kumermura families. The Bubishi is interpreted as a textbook of the White Crane style that was originally taught at the southern Shaolin temple at Chiu Lung Mountain near the city of Foochow in the Pu T'ien District of the Fukien Province. The originator of the White Crane Fist style (Hakutsuru Ken) is believed to be Fang Chi Liang, a woman who resided in Yong Chun.
Okinawa tode was probably a relatively innocuous system of exercise and self-defense during its early evolution on Okinawa, possibly much like it is practiced in the United States today. However, following two historical events, it probably developed many virulent techniques. In 1480 AD., Okinawan King, Sho Shin, issued an edict prohibiting the private ownership of arms on Okinawa, due to his belief in non-violent Buddist doctrine. By this time, empty hand and weapons techniques, known as tode and kobudo, were probably blended into one fighting art. Because of the edict, many Okinawan martial arts began to be practiced in secrecy, and the kobudo martial arts began using many farming implements as weapons.
The most significant event which affected the development of karate as a virulent form, was the invasion of Okinawa by Lord Shimazu of the Satsuma Clan of southern Japan in 1609 AD. Following the occupation of Okinawa, the Satsuma Clan issued a number of ordinances including the ban on all weapons and the practice of martial arts by the Okinawan people.
This resulted in the three leading tode schools in Shuri, Naha, and Tomari, Okinawa to go underground. The Okinawan martial arts societies held a series of secret conferences in 1629 that resulted in their banding together as a united front against the occupational forces.
The result was a new fighting style called te , also known as Okinawa te, which is translated as 'hand'. Since it became necessary to defend themselves against the well-trained and well-armed Japanese samurai, Okinawa te evolved into highly effective and pragmatic system.
Until feudalism was abolished on Japan, written history about karate went unrecorded. Kata probably was developed prior to the abolishment of feudalism to preserve the Okinawa te techniques. Kata was designed to look like dances, but actually consisted of a living dictionary of disguised martial arts techniques that could be passed on to generation after generation. But because written documentation was nonexistent during this period, much of the information on Okinawan martial arts and its development comes from oral history and conjecture.
Feudalism was abolished on Japan in 1870, which followed the prohibition of wearing a sword in 1875. The end of the seclusion of karate may have occurred sometime after 1875 when Satsuma's 'unofficial' occupation of Okinawa ended and the Ryukyu Islands became officially part of the Japanese empire. But most historians believe that the secrecy did not relax until after 1900, when the first public karate demonstrations were given on Okinawa and later on mainland Japan. Gichin Funakoshi, a Okinawan school teacher and master of Shorin-Ryu karate, is credited with the first recorded public demonstration on Okinawa in 1902. In 1903, Yasutsune Itosu, introduced karate into the physical education system in the Okinawan schools. Itosu is also credited with the development of the Pinan katas.
The prime mover to the introduction of karate into the public schools on Okinawa was the innovation of Nishimura Mitsuya. It was Mitsuya's vision that karate would build moral strength in teachers and students alike. To implement this program, Mitsuya called on his top student, Yabu Kentsu. According to Yabu Kentsu, "karate is a way of life, it builds character unlike that which is built through sport. One does not practice karate for fun or for prize".
Several Okinawan karate instructors are known to have traveled and taught in Japan as early as 1904, but full-scale interest in the art on Japan did not occur until several years later after Master Funakoshi's demonstration at the Butokuden.
In 1917, Gichin Funakoshi traveled to Kyoto to demonstrate Okinawan karate to the center of Japanese martial arts. In 1922, at the age of 53, Funakoshi was invited back at the request of Japanese officials for another demonstration of Okinawan martial arts. Following this second demonstration, karate was formally accepted on mainland Japan. Sport karate was later created in 1933 by some Japanese students, against the strong objections of Funakoshi. In 1936 Funakoshi established a permanent dojo in Tokyo known as the Shotokan. Funakoshi's training philosophy was that kata, Makiwara training, and kotekitae (body hardening) was all that was necessary in preparation of self defense. This is a similar philosophy of Seiyo Shorin-Ryu
Bodhidharma Matsumura Itosu Funakoshi