THIS IS NOT TOO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. IT IS JUST A FUN, IMAGINARY SCENARIO.
suspend reality and pretend this is possible:
scientists find bodhidharma's skeleton (preserved by some luck and natural forces or something such as being encased in amber somehow or whatever, we're pretending so who cares) and carbon dated it too find it definitely came from the right time period, and then found a little stone tablet with him that specifically says: "when i came to china i learned taoism, with which i completed my enlightenment. i then combined this teaching with buddhism and began too teach, starting with huike. then i taught my taoist-buddhist art too the shaolin monks." and on the back of the tablet is a map.
they carbon date the stone and it's from the same period, and then they follow the map and find a cave where bodhidharma stored his writings in great detail, all of these carbon date perfectly as well and they talk about his history and teaching methods and how he involved taoist ideas in his teachings and these things are unanimously agreed upon by scientists, archaeologists and historians and there is corroborative evidence that it is definitely his writings. and this leads too discovering his family lineage in india and there they find records of who he was and his departure date for india and so on, thus totally confirming that bodhidharma did in fact come from india, establish chan, and that there are a great deal of taoist elements in it put there by it's very founder.
obviously this little story is totally ridiculous, but if it were some how true, what would this mean for zen? what would it mean for you personally?
