Sadhguru Writes: The Oldest Martial Arts In The World

Sadhguru: Kalaripayattu is probably the oldest martial art form on the planet. It was essentially taught by Agastya Muni to start with because martial arts is not just about kicking and punching. It is about learning to use the body in every possible way. So it not only involves exercise and agility, it also includes an understanding of the energy system. There is Kalari chikitsa and Kalari marma, which involves knowing the secrets of the body and healing the body quickly to keep it in a regenerative mode. Maybe in today’s world there are very few Kalari practitioners who dedicate enough time and focus, but if you go deep enough you will naturally move towards yoga because anything that came from Agastya cannot be any other way than being spiritual. He opened up every possible way of exploration.

There are many unexplored dimensions of the body. There are karate masters who can kill you just with a little touch. Killing somebody with a touch is not a big deal. Making them come awake with a touch is a big thing.

If we were only striving for the spiritual advancement of people, it would be very easy. I don’t even see it as a great challenge. But we want to open up the mystical dimension of human life. This needs a different level of focus and dedication. To know life beyond the limitations set by nature, it needs a certain kind of people. 99.99% of humanity goes without ever exploring even their body. But if you explore this, the body can do tremendous things, just sitting here. This is the way of yoga. Kalari is just a more active form of that.

Kalari Evolved To Deal With Wildlife

Martial arts essentially evolved from southern India. Agastya Muni was short and diminutive, but he travelled endlessly. He evolved martial arts mainly to fight wildlife. Tigers roamed this land in great abundance – now we can count them, we have a little over a thousand tigers, but there was a time when hundreds of thousands of them existed along with various other potentially dangerous wildlife. Agastya Muni evolved Kalari as a system to fight wildlife – if a tiger comes, how you should handle it.

You will see, Kalari still retains that format. This is not just about fighting with men. He taught martial arts to a few people just to manage wildlife when they travelled, and it still lives.

Kalari To Karate

When people crossed the Himalayas, they faced wild men who were looking to attack travellers. What they had learned to handle wildlife, they began to use it on wild men. Once they started using it on people there was a distinct transformation in martial arts. From a crouching martial art to a “standing up” martial art is what you will see from India to China and further into South-East Asia.

When you fight men, you fight to kill. With wildlife, it’s not like that. Once you make it clear that you are a very difficult kind of “food”, they will go away. Because of this, martial arts naturally evolved from a fantastic form of fending off wildlife to something that can kill. You will see this transformation from Kalari to Karate.

Later on, in India also they started fighting with men but they did not transform the art so much. Instead, they picked up weapons. If you look at it, Kalari may not be as efficient as Karate because in Karate they are standing on two legs. In Kalari, you are trying to look at something lower down because we did not see it as a tool to fight other men, it was only used to fight wildlife.

Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and author. 

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