Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

immunity from all types of weapons. Hanuman has since become
the patron saint of Indian and Pakistani wrestlers.
776 B.C. According to tradition, the first Panhellenic Games are played
at Olympia, a shrine to the god Zeus standing on a plain west
of Corinth.
About 770 B.C. Swords appear in China. These early Chinese weapons were
generally made of hammered bronze; although the Chinese
worked terrestrial iron from about 1000 B.C., they used it
mainly for tipping plows until the fourth century B.C.
708 B.C. According to a victor’s list made up by Sextus Julius Africanus
after A.D. 217, wrestling is made part of the Olympic Games.
However, the date is questionable, as the oldest statue at
Olympia to honor a wrestler is only dated to 628 B.C.
About 700 B.C. A Chinese text written in the sixth century B.C. ranks wrestling
as a military skill on a par with archery and chariot racing.
688 B.C. According to a victor’s list drawn up by Sextus Julius Africanus
after A.D. 217, boxing with ox-hide hand-wrappings is added to
the Olympic Games. As the first Olympic statue to honor a
boxer was only erected in 544 B.C., this dating is unreliable.
648 B.C. According to the victor’s list produced by Sextus Julius
Africanus after A.D. 217, pankration (literally, “total fighting”
in the sense of “no holds barred”) is introduced into the Panhellenic
Games, A giant named Lygdamis of Syracuse being its
first known champion. Unfortunately the latter attribution is
not certain, as the oldest statue honoring an Olympic pankrationist
was only dated 536 B.C.
632 B.C. According to a Chinese text written during the fourth century
B.C., the Prince of Chin dreams of wrestling.
About 550 B.C. Reflexed compound bows appear in Central Asia. (A reflexed
bow is one that, when unstrung, reverses its curve; a Cupid
bow is an example.)
544 B.C. According to tradition, the Buddha achieves Nirvana while sitting
under a tree in Bodhgaya, India. The Buddha’s power was
not entirely spiritual, either, as according to subsequent stories,
he was a champion wrestler, archer, runner, swimmer, and
mathematician who won his first wife in a duel.
About 540 B.C. An Olympic wrestling champion named Milo of Kroton (a Hellenic
city in southern Italy) reportedly develops his famous
strength by carrying a heifer the length of a stadium every day
for four years, a feat that has in modern times been claimed as
the progenitor of progressive weight training.
About 511 B.C. According to tradition, a crippled general from Shandong
province called the Honorable Sun, or Sun Zi, writes The Art
of War, as a way of passing his knowledge on to others.
479 B.C. The Chinese philosopher known as Kong Zi dies in Shandong
province. Although his philosophy, known as Confucianism,
was ignored in its time (the fourth-century philosopher Meng
Zi was actually the first famous Confucianist), it subsequently
became the cornerstone of the imperial Chinese bureaucracy.
And, because the government viewpoint was not popular with
everyone, rival philosophies such as Daoism (Taoism) and Legalism
developed to compete with it.
Chronological History of the Martial Arts 789