Its founder, Bodhidharma, is a widely familiar figure, although most people's impression of him tends to be confined to the legend of his crossing of the Yangtze on a single reed, or to novels of derring-do recounting his exploits as patriarch of the Shaolin school of martial arts, or else to Japanese tumbler dolls modeled in his image.
說起它的始祖﹘﹘菩提達摩，更是無人不知，但大家對祂的印象，多止於「一葦渡江」的傳說、武俠小說中少林武學的祖師，或者日本人以其像塑成的不倒翁。