Kung Fu Season 3 Episode 13

TaMo: In reference to the character Tamo
I remember this episode well, as I was in the midst of a kung fu craze in the 70's, and having absorbed as much cultural history of the ShaoLin monastery as I could at the time, I was aware of multiple cultural references in this particular episode. Not knowing what was in the minds of the writers at the time, my conception was that Tamo was a reference to the patron saint of kung fu, especially Shao Lin kung fu, BhodiDarma, or, as was commonly translated to the Chinese, P'o Ti Ta Mo, and just Ta Mo for short. BhodiDarma, or Ta Mo, brought Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism to China, specifically Shao Lin, from India by way of Tibet. This episode also made reference to the historic razing of one of the Shao Lin temples, as well as the narrow escape of some of the monks who fathered the famous eight styles or eight animals of kung fu.