From the standpoint of historical scholarship, there are no writings that can be established with certainty as the authentic, personally composed work of Bodhidharma. What survives instead is a small body of texts and records that later tradition associates with his name, together with biographical accounts written decades or centuries after his lifetime. These materials preserve an image of Bodhidharma and a memory of his teaching style, but they do not function as verbatim transcripts or reliably authenticated documents.

Among the writings traditionally attributed to him, the most prominent is the short treatise known as *Two Entrances and Four Practices* (*Er ru si xing lun*). This text outlines an “entrance by principle,” emphasizing direct insight into mind or emptiness, and an “entrance by practice,” expressed through four forms of disciplined conduct. Scholars often regard it as part of the earliest layer of Bodhidharma-related literature and as reflecting early Chan concerns, yet its authorship remains uncertain. Other short pieces and variant versions connected with this material appear in later collections and manuscript finds, but they too are of doubtful or composite origin.

In addition to these doctrinal texts, there are historical and hagiographical records that seek to place Bodhidharma within a lineage. Early notices appear in works such as Daoxuan’s *Further Biographies of Eminent Monks*, which offers an extended biography describing his arrival in China and characteristic manner of teaching. Later Chan “transmission of the lamp” compilations elaborate this portrait, embedding him in a chain of masters and disciples and attributing dialogues and sermons to him. These sources are valuable for understanding how the tradition remembered and honored him, yet they were composed long after his death and are shaped by sectarian and devotional aims.

Taken together, these writings and records suggest that what has been preserved is less the literal voice of Bodhidharma and more the early Chan community’s idealized remembrance of a teacher who pointed directly to the mind and stressed meditative realization over reliance on scripture. The spiritual seeker who approaches these texts is therefore invited to read them not as historical stenography, but as windows into how his followers understood and transmitted the essence of his message. The absence of securely authentic documents does not erase his influence; rather, it highlights how his figure became a symbol for a way of practice that privileges direct experience over written word.