Varma kalai History
This manuscript is from "Varma Odimurivu Saari" which is still in palm
leafs. It is protected by some trditional families in the south India.The above
manuscript says that Varma kalai was introduced by Lord Siva.This is
the only proof about the birth of Varma kalai.
Lord Siva taught Varmam to his wife Parvathi(Sakthi) , later Parvathi taught
Varmam to their son Lord Murugan. Lord Murugan then taught Siddha Agasthiyar.
Agasthiyar later gave a written form that reached the massest reached the masses
The art of Varma Kalai have been in existence on the India for
thousands of years practiced by ancient Dravidians of Tamil Nadu. It is
traditionally practiced by Nadars and Devars. Varma Kalai
is one of the deadliest form of martial art in history.
The tamil word “Varma" means "Vital points"
and "Kalai” means "Art", hence it is
translated as the “the art of vital points”.
The art of
Varma Kalai originally evolved from the Tamil science of Siddha
medicine into a martial art and is called the art of healing and killing. It was
developed by gurus and experts of siddha during the Pandyan dynasty and
nourished and promoted by the Cholas. Legend has it that during the development
period of Varma Kalai,
experiments were done on slaves and captured warriors to discover the weakness
in the human body. Thousands of captive warriors and slaves gave their lives on
the process of discovering all vital points of the human body for the purpose of
gaining the rich knowledge contained in art of Varma Kalai.The
Pandyas, along with Chola and Chera, were the three ancient kingdoms which ruled
the Tamil country until the end of the 15th century.
The Pandyan kingdom of southern India was founded around 500 BC and was
considered by historians as the richest kingdom in the world. Pandyas were
fierce warriors. The early Pandyan dynasty was revived under Kadungon in the
early 6th century, but again went into decline with the rise of the Cholas in
the 9th century and were in constant conflict with them. The Pandyas revived
again during the late 13th century by alliying themselves with the Sinhalese and
the Cheras and expanded the empire into Telugu country and conquered the
northern half of Sri Lanka. The Pandyan Kingdom finally became extinct after the
establishment of the Madurai Sultanate in the 16th century.
At the turn of the 6th century A.D., martial arts spread from Southern India to
China by a Tamil prince turned monk named Daruma Bodhidarma, the third prince of
King Sugandha in Kanchipuram province, the then capital of the Southern Indian
kingdom of Pallava. Bodhidharma had his childhood in Kanchipuram and became one
of the most brilliant students of the Vedas, Siddha medicine, meditation and
philosophy and as a prince he was taught by different masters and experts the
deadly art of Varma Kalai along with other arts. Bodhidharma
later played a pioneer role in the root and history of formalized Martial Arts.
Daruma Bodhidharma became the 28th patriarch and founder of Chan or Zen doctrine
and went to China to spread Buddism according to the wishes of his master
Prajnatara. Bodhidharma settled in the Shaolin Temple of Henan province but
found that the chinese monks under him were frail and weak. He formulated a
physical fitness and martial arts training guideline for the monks from his
knowledge of Yoga, Varma Kalai, Vajramushti. His teaching to
monks later evolved into different chinese martial arts which can be seen to
contain the advance component of dim mak (or dim hsueh) containing the same 108
varma points which originated from his knowledge of
Varma Kalai. Thereafter, different variations and specialization of
martial arts took place from China and spread to Korea & Japan having a
continued deep influence of pressure point knowledge originating from art of
Varma Kalai. Varma Kalai is also known by following names:
Varma Kalai, Varmak Kalai, Varma adi, Marma Adi, Varma Sastra, Varma
Vidya, Marma Vidya, Marma kalai, Varma Kalari, Kalari Varma etc
The art of Varma kalai travelled from India to China through
Bodhidharma and later to other areas, but the complete authentic knowledge
remained back in India which slowly decreased in existence due to lack of
patronization and use due to end of the war eras and introduction of firearms
and advanced warface weapons. The deadly unarmed art of Varma Kalai
remained in the minds of some Great Assans and some written in some palm leaf
manuscripts kept in secret. Gradually some of those palm were revealed to public
over the years, but still most remain secret. The ancient tradion of
transmission of knowledge of
Varma Kalai went underground and was only passed through family
lineage and rarely to very dedicated desciples, and this number became very few
due to use in war decreased. Over the years, the knowledge being passed to some
criminals and miscreants made the Assans even more protective of this deadly
ancient wisdom and the transmission of knwoledge has decreased so much its going
from obscurity to extinction. Some experts fear that some of the only few living
masters maybe the last generation of the authentic masters of Varma
Kalai.are the quality, patience and character required to maintain,
preserve and handle such an Art.
Today this extremely powerful art is losing much of its heritage and is slowly
fading away due to lack of transmission of knowledge and deceasing of authentic
masters. Another reason for decreasing the study and practice of Varma
Kalai is that is is a highly comprehensive and knowledge rich martial
art and takes considerable amount of time to learn the healing and combat aspect
which has stymied the popularity of this martial art with the youth who choose
to study less time-consuming martial arts.
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