Journey to the West, or The Monkey King, is a late Ming, fictitious creation based on the journey of the historical figure Xuanzang (602-664CE) to India during the Tang dynasty (618-907CE). At the time, Xuanzang was a monk at Jingtu Temple in the capital of Chang'an. Disheartened by social corruption and the poor quality of translations of Buddhist scriptures, Xuanzang took it upon himself to travel to India to learn the doctrine directly and eventually provide superior replacements for the flawed Chinese canon. With the Emperor's blessing and the help of other Buddhists, Xuanzang made the treacherous journey across the barren deserts and steppes of central and western China. His journey lasted 17 years, from 629-647CE, during which he faced numerous hardships, visited important religious sites in India and studied at the ancient Indian university at Nalanda.
Popular stories of Xuanzang's travels cropped up during the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368CE). Finally, at the end of the Ming (1368-1644CE), novelist and poet Wu Cheng'en (~1500-58CE) combined all these legends, adding to them his own allegorical, literary and political sensibilities to form a summa of the legends about Xuanzang's journey. Like the other great novels of the late Ming and high Qing, Wu's work was a daring linguistic project, taking up the vernacular instead of the classical language to tell his story. For centuries, in fact, the authorship of the text was in doubt because its author elected to remain anonymous in order to avoid censure for having written in dialect. Journey to the West, like Dream of the Red Chamber, is a work not only read for its surface narratives but for the political and religious meanings that subtend it.
Wu's story contains 100 chapters that recount the perilous journeyings of Tripitaka (Xuanzang) and his four spectacular companions/gaurdians (Monkey, Piggie, Sandy and Dragon) in the episodic manner of Arthurian legend. Assaulted by ghosts, goblins, beasts, often trials programmatically arranged by the gods, the pilgrims are in constant danger but always miraculously pull through. In the end, Tripitaka makes it to India and receives the Buddhist scriptures from the living Buddha atop Vulture Peak.
Readings:
Journey to the West (see ANGEL)
Questions:
(1) How do you see the Monkey King functioning in the story?
(2) Where are there passages where soci0-religious criticisms may be being made?
(3) How is the tale an allegory for the human soul?
Secondary references:
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