Buddhism in the Classic Chinese Novel Journey to the West: Teaching Two Episodes
Roberta E. Adams

The Pilgrim Characters
Monkey: Sun Wukong (Sun Wu-k’ung)

Note: Names are given in pinyin (Jenner translation) and Wade-Giles (Waley/Yu translations), plus any alternate names used in translations. Note that in Chinese practice, the family name comes first, then the personal name, as in Chen Xuanzang, where Chen is the family name.

Monkey is born not from monkey parents but from a magic stone; the stone monkey becomes animate. After three or four hundred happy years ruling the monkeys as the Handsome Monkey King in the Cave Heaven of Water Curtain on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, Monkey realizes his own mortality and leaves to wander the world, seeking a way to get off the wheel of reincarnation and to erase his name from the Book of the Dead, the goal of Buddhism. He learns human speech and manners and studies for many years with aDaoist master, the Immortal Patriarch Subhuti, who gives him the religious name Sun Wukong, Monkey Awakened to Emptiness. Under Subhuti, he learns the Dao, cloud-soaring, and seventy-two earthly transformations. Banished for his lack of restraint in showing off his supernatural abilities to the other students, he returns home and saves the Monkey kingdom from an evil demon. Because of his constant mischief-making, the Immortals make Monkey the Protector of the Horses in Heaven, in hope that they can watch over him there. However, when he realizes his new role is much like a stable boy, he returns home and proclaims himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. He is allowed to keep this meaningless title and given a job in Heaven overseeing the Peach Orchard. After Monkey creates Havoc in Heaven by eating the peaches of immortality, drinking to excess, and causing great mischief, the Buddha imprisons him under a mountain for five hundred years until Guanyin converts him to Buddhism and asks him to accompany the monk on the journey.

Accoutrements: In need of a weapon suitable to his powers, Monkey asks for help from Ao Guang, Dragon of the Eastern Sea, from whom he obtains the As-You-WillGold-BandedCudgel, weighing 13,500 pounds, the iron pillar that had anchored the Milky Way in place at its creation. Monkey can change this cudgel to any size, usually carrying it in his ear in the form of a needle. Through persistence and coercion, he obtains from the dragon’s three brothers a pair of lotus-root cloud walking shoes, a phoenix-winged purple gold helmet, and a suit of golden chain mail. Soon after he meets Tripitaka, he kills a tiger and thereafter wears the skin as a kilt. After Guanyin provides Tripitaka with a gold headband and a spell for tightening it as a way of controlling Monkey, his headband becomes part of him. (See “Buddhism in the Classic Chinese Novel Journey to the West: Teaching Two Episodes” LINK for more on the gold headband.) Graphic images of Monkey generally show him in his tiger skin and headband, wielding his magic cudgel. When he becomes frustrated at the arduousness of the task after his battle with the White Dragon (Ch. 15), he appeals to Guanyin, who provides him with three life-saving hairs that he can turn into anything he needs to save himself from disaster; he frequently turns them into mini-Monkeys, thus multiplying his powers.

Characteristics/Symbolism: Monkey is born from stone and therefore springs from inanimate nature and from the supernatural, rather than from animate monkey parents. Thus his birth frees him from attachments and fears. In addition to his supernatural powers and his martial skills, Monkey is rebellious, independent, penetrating in mind and vision, wily, confident to the point of arrogance, fearless, obstinate, energetic, quick-tempered, and quick to be offended. He is also whimsical, childlike, optimistic, creative, resourceful, spiritually detached, tolerant of the weaknesses of others, loyal, persistent, and totally loveable (to the reader, if not always to Tripitaka). With a hatred of evil and a scorn for authority, Monkey is the original superhero. Truly concerned about human morality, he always finds himself on the side of good and the weak. Often identified as “Monkey mind,” he is xin, the human mind/heart. Creating havoc in Heaven, he is “the heart running rampant” and Tripitaka, in using the gold headband to control him, tames “the wayward heart” (Shi, 8 ). Tripitaka tries to overcome that restless, unfocused, impetuous aspect of the human will and intelligence (often described in the text as “the monkey of the mind and the horse of the will”). Tripitaka and Monkey are two parts of a whole, incapable of reaching their goal without the unity of the two selves.

Note:Though Guanyin told Monkey always to identify themselves and their mission, in their first encounters Monkey fails to do so, resulting in conflict with those she has appointed to help them on the journey. The White Dragon Horse, Pig, and Friar Sand must all be won over by Monkey (by the force of his will) before they learn Tripitaka’s identity and join the pilgrimage.

 

Works Cited:

Shi, Changyu. Introduction to Journey to the West. Wu Cheng’en. Trans. W. J. F. Jenner. 4 vols. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2001.

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