Darkzone
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2013
- Messages
- 2,323
Wrong on all accounts.
Mongolians and there wrestling is only observable in history in the 1100 AD and before that there are only a lot of speculations, while greek wrestling was already developed and systemised before 700 BC and was already in Baktria (Afghanistan and parts of India and Iran) in ~320 BC. Bactria was ruled until 149 BC by greek kings and they hellenised this region in language, games and arts. It is likely from there that wrestling spread among the people to even mongolia previously or via the conquest of Sogdiana (220 BC). And through the establishing of the Silk Road ~110 BC that this martial knowledge spread to China. But China had already extensive contacts with India before 110 BC and while Yavanarajya was only from 180 BC the greek influences spread up to the river Indus over one century before. Alexandria Eschate ( in Tajikistan ) was built in 329 BC and remained hellenistic until it was conquered by the Han dynasty ( sorry but i cannot remember the emperors name ) in 30 BC.
There is always a state preceding the following state, but there are no known Indo-European unarmed martial arts form before the greeks. Indo-Europeans were quite influential in warfare like with the spread of the war chariots, but there are no known martial games or stylised martial forms. And if your statement would have been true, then Romans wouldn't addapt the greek's unarmed martial arts and would had their own instead. And they would travel to Iberia to participate in wrestling matches instead of going to Olympia. Or at least they would travel to other cities besides the greek ones to participate in unarmed martial events and learn this skills there, but this did not occur. So yes even the romans contradict your thesis.
We have only one source for the unarmed martial arts and it is well documented and precedes everything else by at least 700-1000 years and that is the greek unarmed martial arts. Ergo.: Therefore we have to assume that the greek unarmed martial arts are THE PRIMARY SOURCE.
It is more complicated than this. You need also the effectiveness in this arts ( system ) and therefore you need a tradition of transmission (places and teachers) of this knowledge and appropriate training and evaluation of its effectiveness by a form of contests.
Mongols in this regard fall apart since they were quite divided, lived in very small family structures, nomadic and constant inner warfare (robbing each other) between the families right up until Temujin (Genghis Khan) united them (was not the first, but was the effective one).
Therefore the mongols could not develop a effectiv system, but an already present rudimental one could have been transmitted from fathers to sons. An evolution like with the mongolian Bow is not plausible for such a complicated thing.
I recommend to read the history of Temujin how he lived before he became the Khan.
Yes and therefore the martial arts change over time and evolve in different directions and by this they spread like the tree of life with each individual branches.
Yes that is correct. Since you show interest in Indo-Europeans: do you know the youtube channel Survive the Jive or Fortress of Lugh?What's possibly unique to East Asia is the "internal" MA - though even there, there are hints of an equivalent to "qi/ki" (East Asia) with "prana" in India, and possibly even "pneuma" in Europe. At any rate, the common thread there is breathing exercises that condition the body's fascia, plus a very different (from normal) method of moving the body and delivering force that repurposes some of the autonomic systems in the body that balance against gravity. That would be the thing that could make the East Asian monk archetype special, but it's so recondite and obscure that nobody really knows much about it, least of all makers of RPG game rules, tv shows, or even East Asian kungfu movies
Last edited:
