I recently watched the trailer of 7aam arivu directed by murugadoss & surya is the hero ... from the trailer i guess present day surya is the bodhidharma in his previous birth ....
in one flashback scene, in one scene he ll in a monk wardrobe & long beard .... in another flashback scene, he ll like a prince practicing warfare ( like kalari fight ) near mahabalipuram ... from this i guess, his character must be bodhi dharma ( pallava prince ) who went to china and founded th shaolin kung fu .....
is there any authentic proof that bodhi dharma is a pallava prince ??
Zen school of Buddhism is in existence, even today in Japan.
'Zen' is spelt as 'ChEn' in China, Where Bhodhi Dharma landed in China first, and preached 'Dhyana Buddhisn'
Dhyana was pronounced as ;ChEn' in Chinese. There are mahy portaits of Bhodhi Dharma. Dr. Suzuki is the most widely known authority on Buddhisism Further Quite a few Englishmen have lived in Zen monastries. Zen school pay lot of attention on martial arts. Judo and KaLarippaaychal oin KeraLa , Karnataka and Tamilnadu have very great similarity, accepted by Japanese authorities on cultural history
Wiki covers all that I have said. But an unauthenticated doubt has been expressed, which I hope be challenged by Zeb schools in Japan.