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HISTORY
It is often assumed that the martial arts originated in the Orient. It is also assumed by many that the mental disciplines and spiritual enlightenment generally associated with the martial arts find their origins in eastern traditions, philosophies and religions. However, an increasing body of evidence suggests that neither is the case.
The genesis of oriental martial arts is generally considered to be the introduction of systemized physical development techniques to Chinese monks by Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, in the sixth century A.D. - although fighting arts can be documented in India and Korea in the first century B.C., and claims can be made for temple boxing in China back to about 1,000 B.C. However, western martial arts go back much farther than that.
The Roman Empire conquered the known world using systematic training and fighting techniques for both group and individual combat. In fact, the word martial means "of or relating to Mars" - the Roman god of war. Before the Romans, the Greeks had developed physical training and personal combat to an art form, known as Pankration. Pankration was the martial training of the Greek armies and was taken to India with the legions of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC where it became the accepted ancestor of the oriental martial arts.
Going back even farther, we find evidence of wrestling and stick fighting in Egypt in 2,500 B.C., and carved Babylonian tablets show systematic physical training and combat techniques in 3,000 B.C. - fully 3,500 years before Bodhidharma introduced "martial" training into China.
But as advanced as the Greeks and Romans were, there was a group that eclipsed even them - the Celts.
When the Greeks were just advancing out of the Bronze Age, and learning to work with iron, the Celts had long since mastered it and were producing intricate pieces of art, as well as superior implements of war. And while Roman legions continued to march to war in thick-soled, hob-nailed sandals, Celtic warriors raced into battle in intricately decorated scythe-wheeled chariots. In 387 B.C., the Celts conquered and sacked Rome. In 279 B.C., the Celts invaded Greece and destroyed Delphi. When Alexander the Great asked a Celtic chieftain what it was the Celts feared, the chieftain replied, "Only this - that the sky should fall upon our heads," (Rolleston, 1990).
Their superior martial skills allowed the Celts to spread across what is present day Europe, establishing a cultural continuity across 1/3 of the European the continent, from Spain and Portugal to Ireland and the British Isles across Europe, north to Denmark and south to Italy, the Balkans as far as the Ukraine and Asia Minor, and possibly even into parts of Northern Africa. The primary Continental-Celtic areas were Galatia in central Turkey, Galicians in the Iberian peninsula and Gauls in modern France. It is believed, and was held as fact by the Norse (Vikings), that the Irish Celts were the first visitors to North America, arriving ten centuries before Columbus. Recently, an archeological excavation in Urumchi, nothern China revealed the some 3,000+ year old remains of tall people with light colored hair and European features, wearing clothing woven in multi-colored, cross-hatch patterns closely resembling the modern tartan designs of Irish and Scottish clans (Wayland-Barber, 1999). It seems Celtic (or Proto-Celtic) tribes may have been in China 1,500 years before Bodhidharma!
The Celts were comprised of about 150 major tribes, held together loosely by a common language and culture. Prizing the independence and worth of the individual, as well as the self-determination of the tuath (Gaeilge for village, tribe or collective people), the Celts were never interested in creating an empire. Instead, they worked on inter-dependence according to a religious, philosophical and legal framework developed, preserved and enforced by their druidic heirarchy.
Although polytheistic prior to their conversion to Christianity by Saints Patrick and Columba in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the Celts held a number of beliefs that made that conversion fairly seamless. To the Celts, the spiritual world was as real as the physical world. They did not distinguish between past, present and future; physical,mental and spiritual; or life before death and life after death. Their goal, and expectation, was perfect physical/mental/spiritual integration, and their belief in life after death was so complete that it was possible for one Celt to borrow money from another in this life on the promise to pay it back in the next. To the Celts, everything was real, and everything had its purpose.
Celtic law, philosophy and esoteric disciplines are not as widely known as other western or oriental systems, due to the secrecy with which they were guarded. Druidic law prohibited the written recording of laws, philosophy, history or special knowledge, as it was felt that someone could essentially change them by later writing them differently - a lesson we are learning from revisionist "historians" today. Instead, everything was commited to memory by the druidic orders, whose members spent the first 25 years of their lives studying and developing their mental abilities so as to enable them to preserve and administer those cultural systems over hundreds of years without compromising their meaning or integrity. Indeed, mental development was an essential part of the Celtic life-system, as, recognizing the inseparable nature of the physical/mental/spiritual trinity, no person, whether man, woman, craftsman, artisan, warrior, Druid or king could fully manifest their potential without it.
However, details of the most ancient and powerful system - that of the Irish Celts, can be found in what remains of ancient Irish manuscripts, as well as an oral tradition which still exists in parts of Ireland and western Scotland. These contain within them the seeds and roots of Celtc philosophy, the essence of Celtic spirituality, and information and insruction in the attitudes and techniques for successful living.
References
Berresford-Ellis, Peter "Celt and Greek : Celts in the Hellenic World", Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc. 1996.
Cunliffe, B. "The World of the Celts", London (Penguin) 1997.
Cunliffe, B. "The Ancient Celts", London (Penguin) 1997.
Hope, M. "The Ancient Wisdom of the Celts", Thorsons Pub, Lon, 1987.
James, Simon: "The World of the Celts", Thames & Hudson, 1993.
Rolleston, T.W.: "Celtic Myths and Legends" Dover Publications, 1990.
Wayland-Barber, Elizabeth. "The Mummies of Urumchi", W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.
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