An analysis of historical, transcultural, and transmedia adaptation, Transforming Monkey: Adaptation and Representation of a Chinese Epic examines the ever-changing image of Sun Wukong (aka Monkey, or the Monkey King), in literature and popular culture both in China and the United States. A protean protagonist of the sixteenth century novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), the Monkey King’s image has been adapted in distinctive ways for the representation of various social entities, including China as a newly founded nation state, the younger generation of Chinese during the postsocialist period, and the representation of the Chinese and Chinese American as a social “other” in American popular culture. The juxtaposition of various manifestations of the same character in the book present the adaptation history of Monkey as a masquerade, enabling readers to observe not only the masks, but also the mask-wearers, as well as underlying factors such as literary and political history, state ideologies, market economies, issues of race and ethnicity, and politics of representation and cross-cultural translation Transforming Monkey demonstrates the social and political impact of adaptations through the hands of its users while charting the changes to the image of Sun Wukong in modern history and his participation in the construction and representation of Chinese identity. The first manuscript focusing on the transformations of the Monkey King image and the meanings this image carries, Transforming Monkey argues for the importance of adaptations as an indivisible part of the classical work, and as a revealing window to examine history, culture, and the world.
The Six-Eared Macaque (Liu’er mihou, 六耳獼猴) (fig. 1) is one of the most interesting villains that Sun Wukong faces in Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592). He is an example of the evil twin archetype from world mythology. But unlike modern media which sometimes differentiates evil twins with goatees,—think of Evil Spock from the Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror“—this malicious spirit is an exact duplicate of Monkey with the same features, voice, clothing, and fighting abilities. He’s so similar in fact that no one in the cosmos, save the Buddha, can differentiate him from Wukong. But who is he really and where did he come from?
In this article, I suggest that the Six-Eared Macaque is a negative manifestation of Sun Wukong’s mind, a concept which is based on Buddhist theories of mind and nonduality (Sk: advaya; Ch: bu’er, 不二). In addition, I describe his character arc and appearance, discuss his possible origin within the book as a former sworn brother of the Monkey King, explain the significance of the six ears to Buddhism, and detail references to him in a 17th-century sequel to Journey to the West. Finally, I describe the character’s influence on the upcoming Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong (August 20th, 2024).
In chapter 56, Monkey magically disguises himself as a 16-year-old monk and comes to the rescue of Tripitaka, who had been captured by mountain bandits demanding money for safe passage. The bandits let the priest go under the pretense that his young disciple has money. However, Wukong murders the two bandit chiefs with his magic staff, causing the remaining thirty or so men to flee in terror. That night, the pilgrims find lodging with an old couple. But they soon discover that the couple’s son is one of the bandits routed by Monkey earlier in the evening. The son returns home with his gang late at night and, upon learning of the monks, hatches a plan to attack them in their sleep. But the old man alerts the pilgrims to the danger and allows them to escape out a back gate. The bandits take chase, catching up to them at sunrise, only to meet their death at Wukong’s hands. Monkey finds the old couple’s son and beheads him as punishment for disrespecting his parents. All of this killing horrifies Tripitaka, who recites the tight-fillet spell (jin gu zhou, 緊箍咒) and banishes Wukong from the group.
In chapter 57, Wukong travels to Guanyin’s island paradise to complain about Tripitaka casting him out from the pilgrimage. He asks the goddess if he can be released from monkhood and return to his old life, but she instead uses her eyes of wisdom to foresee a future event in which Monkey will need to rescue his master. Meanwhile, Tripitaka asks his remaining disciples to find him food and drink. However, in their absence, Wukong attacks the priest, knocking him unconscious with the staff and stealing the group’s belongings containing the travel rescript (tongguan wendie, 通關文牒). [1] Sha Wujing is sent to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit to retrieve their things, but Monkey refuses to return the rescript as he wishes to win all of the merit and fame by finishing the quest on his own. Wujing points out that the Buddha will only give the holy texts to the chosen scripture seeker. Wukong, however, shows that he’s prepared for this outcome by parading doppelgangers of Tripitaka, Zhu Bajie, Sha, and the white dragon horse. Wujing kills his double (which is revealed to be a transformed monkey spirit) and attempts to attack Monkey but is forced to retreat. He flees to Guanyin only to attack Wukong once more when he finds him sitting next to the goddess. Guanyin stays his hand and explains that Monkey has been with her the entire time. She then sends them both back to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit to investigate the double.
In chapter 58, upon seeing the impostor, Wukong rushes forward to attack the double, who defends himself with his his own magic staff. The two battle their way through the sky to Guanyin’s island paradise in order to determine who is the real Monkey. But when she attempts to weed out the impostor by reciting the tight-fillet spell, both Wukong’s drop to the floor in pain. In the face of failure, Guanyin sends them up to the celestial realm in the hopes that the deities who fought Monkey centuries ago will be able to tell one from the other. Both of them fight their way into heaven and gain an audience with the Jade Emperor, but not even the imp-reflecting mirror (zhao yao jing, 照妖鏡) [2] can tell them apart. The two then battle their way back to earth, and when Tripitaka’s use of the tight-fillet spell fails, they fight down to the underworld. There, the judges are unable to find the impostor in their ledgers, but “Investigative Hearing” (Diting, 諦聽), the omniscient celestial mount of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, finally solves the riddle. However, the creature is reluctant to reveal the false Wukong for fear he will use his powers to disrupt the underworld. The bodhisattva therefore sends them to the Western Paradise in India to stand before the Buddha, who instantly recognizes the impostor. The Enlightened One gives Guanyin a short lecture on four spiritual primates that fall outside of the ten categories of mortal and immortal life in the cosmos: 1) The Stone Monkey of Numinous Wisdom (Lingming shihou, 靈明石猴, i.e. Sun Wukong); 2) The Red-Buttocked Horse Monkey (Chikao mahou, 赤尻馬猴); 3) The Connected Arms Gibbon (Tongbi yuanhou, 通臂猿猴); and 4) The Six-Eared Macaque (Liu’er mihou, 六耳獼猴). When the Buddha identifies the doppelganger as the fourth kind, the fake Monkey attempts to flee in the form of a bee but is trapped under the Enlightened One’s alms bowl. In the end, Wukong kills the macaque with his staff.
2. His Appearance
Chapter 58 describes Six Ears as Sun’s exact twin:
His looks were exactly the same as those of the Great Sage: he, too, had a golden headband clamped to his blondish-brown hair, a pair of fiery eyes with golden irises, a monk’s robe on his body, a tiger kilt tied around his waist, a gold-banded iron staff in one of his hands, and a pair of deerskin boots on his feet. He, too, had
A hairy face with the Thunder Lord’s beak, [3] Empty cheeks unlike those of Saturn; [4] Two forked ears on a big, broad head, And fangs that have grown outward (based on Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 104).
His magic staff, the “Acquiescent Iron Pole Arm” (Suixin tie ganbing, 隨心鐵桿兵), [5] also mirrors Monkey’s weapon. “Acquiescent” or “to fulfill one’s desires” (suixin, 隨心) is a play on the “as-you-will” (ruyi, 如意) of Sun’s “As-You-Will Gold-Banded Staff” (Ruyi jingu bang, 如意金箍棒).
3. Origin
3.1. Background in the novel
Lam (2005) suggests that the Six-Eared Macaque is actually Monkey’s sworn brother, the Macaque King (Mihou wang, 獼猴王) (fig. 2), from his younger days as a demon (p. 168). [6] He explains:
The latter’s other agnomen, “the Great Sage Informing Wind” (Tongfeng dasheng, 通風大聖 …) [7] suggests further that its ears are as good as the six-eared macaque’s in information gathering. Despite all these archaic or anachronistic traces, however, Monkey never comes to recognize the six-eared macaque as his old sworn brother as is the case with the Bull Demon King” (Lam, 2005, p. 168).
[Note (08-05-23): For the sake of discourse, I have altered the wording in this section from “Lam (2005) reveals” to “…suggests” to show that I’m open to opposing views.
It has recently come to my attention that some people disagree with Lam’s (2005) statement from above. One anonymous person on Tumblr even questioned my credibility because they believed that I—not realizing that this is not my idea—was confusing two different characters. But I replied by saying:
It’s okay to disagree with someone. I don’t always agree with scholars who write about Journey to the West and its characters. But that doesn’t make them untrustworthy. The most important thing to do in such situations is to present your own views and support them with evidence.
Admittedly, this person subsequently contacted me in private to ask questions about the subject. So my respect goes out to them.
Another person (who shall remain nameless) has repeatedly said on social media that Lam’s (2005) statement is “just a theory” and that the Macaque King is never explicitly stated in the book to be Six Ears. In addition, they claim the idea that Macaque and Sun Wukong were sworn brothers is not widely accepted in China. Instead, the Chinese supposedly view them as biological brothers. But I have three problems with this critique. One, saying that something is just a theory does not address the point raised by Lam (2005). As noted above, anyone who disagrees needs to provide a counterargument with cited evidence. Two, just because something isn’t openly stated doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection between two or more concepts. See, for instance, the unspoken relationship between the supply cart in chapter 46 and Daoist internal alchemy. And three, the views of modern readers carry no weight when we are talking about an allegory-laden novel that was published over 430 years ago. This is especially true since framing Six Ears and the Monkey King as brothers is incorrect (see section 3.3 below for how these two are connected). Therefore, the only thing that matters in this case is evidence gleaned from the book.
But to the person’s credit, they (along with others on social media) provide a reason for why they don’t accept Lam (2005): Six Ears can’t be the Macaque King because the latter is a woman. This idea is always mentioned in passing but never actually supported with evidence. However, I show in this article that the concept is based on a discrepancy in the Anthony C. Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) translation. My conclusion reads:
Journey to the West uses the term Mihou wang (獼猴王) three times to refer to the same character. Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) translates this twice as “Macaque King” (ch. 3 & 4) but later changes it to “Female Monkey King” (ch. 41). Despite the original Chinese referring to the character as the “fifth brother” (wuge, 五哥), Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) appears to represent them as a woman based solely on the association of mihou (獼猴) with female monkeys. However, not even Journey to the West follows this association, for out of 13 mentions of the term, over 61% refer directly to Liu’er mihou (六耳獼猴), Sun Wukong’s six-eared doppelganger. In addition, mihou (獼猴) and mi (獼) are even used in the novel to refer to monkeys as a whole.
The term mihou (獼猴) is just one of several transcriptions for a non-Chinese word used in China for millennia to mean “macaque” or “monkey.” Dynastic sources show that the association with female monkeys is a misunderstanding based on changes in dialect, along with differences in transcription. Said changes include muhou (沐猴, “bathing monkey”), muhou (母猴, “mother monkey”), and of course mihou (獼猴). Therefore, the word can be applied to either male or female monkeys.
The last point is exemplified in Buddhist literature. A 3rd-century CE Chinese version of the Dasaratha Jataka, which retells the Hindu epic Ramayana (5th-century BCE), references the great battle between the monkey king brothers Sugriva and Vali and calls the former Mihou (獼猴). A 3rd-century Chinese version of the Mahakapi Jataka, which tells of the Buddha’s past life as a monkey king, also refers to him as Mihou wang (獼猴王). And a 5th-century variant of the same story refers to the Enlightened One as the Shan mihou (善獼猴), or “Good Macaque.”
[Note (09-27-23): Even Sun Wukong’s precursor, Hou xingzhe (猴行者, the “Monkey Pilgrim”) from the 13th-century JTTW, is called Mihou wang (獼猴王). Chapter two refers to him as Huaguo shan ziyun dong bawan siqian tongtou tie’e Mihou wang (花果山紫雲洞八萬四千銅頭鐵額獼猴王, the “Bronze-Headed, Iron-Browed King of the Eighty-Four Thousand Monkeys of the Purple Cloud Grotto on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits”) (Wivell, 1994, p. 1182).]
Therefore, this is not a valid counterargument.
I know of one other objection appearing on social media: Sun Wukong wouldn’t have killed Six Ears if he had recognized him as his sworn brother. But people who claim this forget that Macaque is capable of transformations due to his connection to the Monkey King (again see section 3.3. below). This fact is revealed at the end of his character arc in chapter 58: “The macaque’s hair stood on end, for he supposed that he would not be able to escape. Shaking his body quickly, he changed at once into a bee, flying straight up” (Wu & Yu, vol. 3, p. 116). Thus, he could have taken on a different form in the past. Someone might counter that Sun would have seen through this magic disguise with his “Fiery Eyes and Golden Irises” (Huoyan jinjing, 火眼金睛). [8] But the fraternal brotherhood with the Macaque King and the other Demon Kings is formed in chapter three, while Monkey isn’t punished to the eight trigrams furnace, which gives him this power, until chapter seven (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, pp. 138-139 and 189). Remember also that even with his holy vision, Sun can’t see through Six Ears’ disguise during their struggle across the cosmos. Therefore, I don’t consider this to be a valid counterargument either.
It appears that most of this hubbub can be traced to “Shadowpeach,” a nickname for a popular slash romance between the Lego Monkie Kid versions of Six Ears (Shadow) and Sun Wukong (Peach). Somehow this is validated if the Macaque King and Six Ears are two different people. I’m not exactly sure why. But trying to discredit me or a source just to support a popular headcanon seems extremely immature to me.
[Note 10-01-23: I wanted to highlight that I’ve seen a more compelling argument than those listed above. Simply put, it doesn’t make any narrative sense for Six Ears to be the Macaque King. The latter is introduced in chapter three, while the former is introduced in chapter 56. And beyond Lam’s (2005) suggestion, there is nothing else concretely connecting the two. On the other hand, the Bull Demon King (Niumo wang, 牛魔王) is the only sworn brother who openly reappears under the same name to play a part later in the novel (ch. 60-61).
So, I will leave it up to the reader to accept whether or not Six Ears and the Macaque King are the same character.]]
3.2. Significance of the Six Ears
Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) suggests that the macaque’s six ears come from the Buddhist saying “The dharma is not to be transmitted to the sixth ear [i.e., the third pair or person]” (fa bu zhuan liu er, 法不傳六耳) (p. 387 n. 7). He continues: “This idiom is already used in chapter 2 when Monkey assured Patriarch Subodhi that he could receive the oral transmission of the secret formula for realized immortality because ‘there is no third party [sixth ear] present'” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 387 n. 7). This phrase refers to a closely guarded secret that must be kept at all cost, something that can only be passed from a qualified teacher to an initiated disciple.
In this case, the Six-Eared Macaque is the third set of ears, for the Buddha states:
[E]ven if this monkey stands in one place, he can possess the knowledge of events a thousand li [(310.7 mi/500 km] away and whatever a man may say in that distance (based on Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 115).
Who knows how long this creature listens in on Monkey’s life before he makes an appearance. Perhaps he hears Subodhi’s secret teachings. This might explain why the impostor has similar abilities to our hero.
[Note: See the 08-18-23 and 12-20-23 updates below for more information.]
As the embodiment of the “sixth ear,” the Six-Eared Macaque also represents heterodoxy (waidao, 外道; pangmen, 旁們, lit: “side door”), for someone eavesdropping on esoteric secrets without full initiation into a tradition would have an incomplete understanding. And any supernatural gifts derived from subsequent practice, though powerful as they may be, would just be pale imitations of that achieved by true disciples. This concept is featured in chapter 46 when three animal spirits-turned-Daoist priests challenge Wukong to contests of torture, but each dies because their magic is not as strong as Monkey’s. The novel stresses this is because their training was only partially completed under a teacher. [9] Wukong is more powerful because he completed his training under Subodhi.
3.3. The Ramayana vs. Buddhist Philosophy
Hoong (2004) claims that the concept of two identical apes fighting each other “evolved from the well-known episode of the Ramayana where Rama was unable to distinguish between [Vali] and the monkey king Sugriva … when the twin brothers were fighting hand to hand” (p. 36 n. 32). This is an enticing suggestion, and indeed the episode is paraphrased in a collection of Buddhist jataka tales translated into Chinese in the third-century, [10] showing that the story existed in China for centuries prior to the publication of the standard 1592 edition of Journey to the West. However, I should point out that the tale doesn’t mention the pugilistic primates being identical. In fact, they’re not even brothers. It simply reads,
The following day the monkey fought with his uncle. The [human] king bent the bow and took out arrows … Though far off, the uncle shuddered with horror. He was mighty afraid. He wandered about [a while] and ran away (Mair, 1989, p. 677).
That’s not to say the author-compiler of Journey to the West wasn’t influenced by the tale and independently came upon the idea of twin monkeys. It’s just that I think there are other avenues open to research.
Fig. 3 – The Great Sage and his impostor battle in the Western Paradise (larger version). Artist unknown.
In Chapter 58, the Buddha gives his congregation a sermon on nonduality (Sk: advaya; Ch: bu’er, 不二), discussing existence and nonexistence, form and formlessness, and emptiness and nonemptiness. Just as the battle between Monkey and his double erupts on Spirit Vulture Mountain (fig. 3), the Enlightened One tells his congregation: “You are all of one mind, but take a look at two Minds in competition and strife arriving here” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 113). “One mind” (Sk: ekacitta; Ch: yixin, 一心) is a high-level philosophy and core tenet of many Buddhist schools that refers to a tranquil, immovable mind that encompasses nonduality (Buswell & Lopez, 2014, pp. 1031-1032; Huang, 2005, p. 68). “Two minds” (erxin, 二心) refers to the dichotomy of the “true mind” (zhenxin, 眞/真心), “the original, simple, pure, natural mind of all creatures, [or] the Buddha-mind” and the “illusionary mind” (wangxin, 妄心), “which results in complexity and confusion” (Soothill and Hodous, 1937/2006, pp. 24-25). A poem in chapter 58 specifically associates two minds with confusion. The first two lines read: “If one has two minds, disasters he’ll breed; / He’ll guess and conjecture both far and near” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 113).
It’s important to remember that Wukong is an embodiment of the “Mind Monkey” (xinyuan, 心猿), a Buddho-Daoist concept denoting the disquieted thoughts that keep man trapped in Samsara. [11] As his double, the Six-Eared Macaque is also a Mind Monkey. Therefore, I suggest that the battle between these twin primates is an allegory for the struggle between the true and illusionary minds within our hero. After all, Wukong is the true Monkey, while his double, the fake Monkey, lives under the fantasy that he can take the Great Sage’s place and finish the quest on his own. Furthermore, given chapter 58’s emphasis on nonduality, I argue Monkey killing the Six-Eared Macaque in the end represents the blossoming of one mind/true mind by extinguishing the illusionary mind. This fits with Sun’s (2018) suggestion that the killing “is an action of eliminating the monster in him [Wukong], indicating that he is getting closer to achieving Buddhahood at this point in the journey” (p. 25). [12]
4. Appearance in other literature
The Six-Eared Macaque is mentioned by name twice and referenced once in A Supplement to the Journey to the West(Xiyoubu, 西遊補, c. 1640), a 16-chapter sequel and addendum to the original novel taking place between the end of chapter 61 and the beginning of chapter 62. In the story, Monkey is trapped in a dream world where he wanders from one disjointed adventure to the next searching for a magic weapon needed to clear the pilgrims’ path to India. In chapter ten, he attempts to leave a magic tower of mirrors and becomes hopelessly entangled in a net of sentient red threads that adapt to any transformation he uses to escape. An elderly man claiming to be Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, comes to his rescue by snapping the threads for him. But upon hearing the man’s name, Monkey lashes out at him with his weapon, exclaiming: “You rascally six-eared ape! Have you come to trick me again? Take a look at my cudgel!” (Dong, Lin, & Schulz, 2000, p. 87). But after the old man vanishes in a flash, Wukong realizes that he was saved by his very own spirit.
In chapter 12, a blind court singer plays a tune recounting events from the original novel for the enjoyment of Tripitaka and a foreign king. A section of the song goes: “A pair of Sage Monkeys deceived Guanyin” (Dong, Lin, & Schulz, 2000, p. 104). [13]
In chapter 15, after giving up the quest and becoming a commander for the foreign king, Tripitaka starts amassing an army. Sun Wukong is listed among the generals, but because Monkey is investigating his master’s change of heart, he instead presents himself as his brother, the Six-Eared Macaque:
The name “Great General Sun Wukong” was called. The Tang Priest blanched and gazed below his platform. It happened that Monkey had mixed amongst the army for the past three days in the form of a six-eared monkey soldier. When he heard the three words “Sun Wukong” he leaped out of formation and knelt on the ground, saying, “Little General Sun Wukong is transporting supplies and couldn’t be present. I’m his brother Sun Wuhuan [孫悟幻, “Monkey Awakened to Fantasy”] , and I wish to take his place in battle. In this I dare disobey the Commander’s order.”
The Tang Priest said, “Sun Wuhuan, what is your origin? Tell me quickly, and I’ll spare your life.”
Hopping and dancing, Monkey said:
In the old days I was a monster, Who took the name of Monkey. After the Great Sage left the Tang Priest, I became his close relation by way of marriage. There’s no need to ask my name, I’m the Six-eared Monkey, Great General Sun Wuhuan.
The Tang Priest said, “The six-eared ape used to be Monkey’s enemy. Now he’s forgotten the old grudge and become generous. He must be a good man.” He ordered [the minor general] White Banner to give Sun Wuhuan a suit of the iron armor of the vanguard and appointed him “Vanguard General to Destroy Entrenchment” (Dong, Lin, & Schulz, 2000, p. 122).
Black Myth: Wukong (Hei shenhua: Wukong, 黑神話：悟空, August 20th, 2024) is an upcoming action RPG by the independent Chinese developer Game Science (Youxi Kexue, 遊戲科學). A trailer with 13 minutes of gameplay was released August 20th of 2020 and (as of 11-4-20) has garnered over 6.7 million views on YouTube alone (video 1). It opens on an aged, furry and squint-faced, long-nailed monk (likely Wukong) sitting in a rundown temple and recalling assorted legends about Monkey. One says the hero became a Buddha and stayed on Spirit Mountain; another that he died on the journey and a different figure was given buddhahood in his place; and another still that Wukong is just a fictional character from a story. The monk then tells the viewer, “But you must not have heard the story I’m going to tell,” thus alluding to the unofficial or “black myth” (hei shenhua, 黑神話).
The trailer features a gorgeous, immersive world in which Wukong travels by foot, wing, and cloud battling underlings and demonic bosses. Monkey is shown capable of freezing enemies in place, making soldiers with his hair, and hardening his body to avoid damage, as well as transforming into a cicada (for covert travel and reconnaissance) and a large golden ape (for boss battles). See here for a great explanation of the cultural and literary references in the game.
Video 1 – The 13 minute game play trailer for Black Myth: Wukong.
Interestingly, some characters in the game hint at a second Wukong. For example, a low-level demon boss says, “Hmm…another monkey?” upon meeting Wukong. Later, an earth god sees him and proclaims, “Similar!”, thus alluding to the other Monkey. This mystery comes to a head at the end of the trailer when Wukong goes to strike another character, and his weapon is blocked by a staff with little effort. The camera pans upwards along the shaft, passed glowing Chinese characters for the “‘As-you-will’ Gold-Banded Staff” (Ruyi jingu bang, 如意金箍棒), revealing the Great Sage Equaling Heaven in his golden armor. This implies the “real” Sun Wukong has arrived and the gamer has been playing as a “fake” Monkey the entire time. But who is this figure?
I suggest this fake Monkey is the Six-Eared Macaque. As noted above, this impostor wishes to win all the glory by completing the quest on his own. His exact words read:
I struck the Tang Monk [with my staff] and I took the luggage not because I didn’t want to go to the West, nor because I loved to live in this place [Flower-Fruit Mountain]. I’m studying the rescript at the moment precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else’s. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 100).
This would explain why the fake Monkey is traveling alone and why the real Wukong stops him at the end of the trailer.
6. Conclusion
The Six-Eared Macaque is a supernatural primate who wishes to take Wukong’s place in order to win all the glory by finishing the quest on his own. He is possibly Monkey’s former sworn brother, the Macaque King, who took the title “Great Sage Informing Wind.” His six ears are likely based on the Buddhist phrase “The dharma is not to be transmitted to the sixth ear,” denoting a great secret that must only be passed to an initiated disciple. His ability to eavesdrop on such secrets from a thousand miles away identifies him as a practitioner of heterodoxy. Being a copy of Monkey, the macaque also symbolizes the “Mind Monkey,” thereby marking their battle as an allegory for the internal struggle between the true and illusionary minds. The spirit’s death at the end represents the blossoming of One Mind.
The Six-Eared Macaque is referenced several times in the sequel A Supplement to the Journey to the West (1640). In chapter ten, Monkey is freed from a magical trap by his very own spirit, who presents himself as Sun Wukong, causing our hero to mistakenly assume his doppelganger has returned. In chapter 12, a court singer alludes to Guanyin’s failure to distinguish the true Great Sage from the fake one. Finally, in chapter 15, Wukong presents himself as the macaque in order to infiltrate Tripitaka’s army.
The spirit is likely the main character of the upcoming action RPG Black Myth: Wukong (2024). The trailer shows this Monkey fighting all manner of underlings and bosses along his solo quest. But the “real” Wukong appears at the end to cross staves, thus showing the gamer is playing as the impostor.
Update: 12-22-22
A friend recently asked me an interesting question: “Do you think that the Six-Eared Macaque has Sun Wukong’s fire eyes and golden pupils [huoyan jinjing, 火眼金睛]?” My initial thought was “no” since he was never subjected to Laozi’s furnace, but then I remembered that chapter 58 reads:
His looks were exactly the same as those of the Great Sage: he, too, had a golden headband clamped to his blondish-brown hair, a pair of fiery eyes with golden irises (emphasis added), a monk’s robe on his body, a tiger kilt tied around his waist, a gold-banded iron staff in one of his hands, and a pair of deerskin boots on his feet (based on Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 104).
The original article above already establishes that Six Ears is a manifestation of Monkey’s mind. It’s only natural then that he too would have the same appearance and carry the same scars. But this raises the question: When did the two split? As pointed out above, one scholar suggests that Six Ears was once Sun’s sworn brother, the Macaque King (Mihou wang, 獼猴王). If true, this would suggest that they split prior to Monkey’s turn in the furnace. This makes sense as an early split would allow Six Ears to gain the same magic powers at a similar pace.
But an early split carries with it a certain implication: Six Ears would have experienced the tortuous heat and smoke of Laozi’s furnace while physically separated from Sun Wukong. It would be like the two were connected by an invisible link, similar to entangled particles in Quantum physics (fig. 4).
Can you imagine it? The sheer terror of your super ears hearing that your counterpart is about to be shoved into a celestial furnace, and then the feeling of torturous heat and smoke assaulting your body and eyes (fig. 5). Perhaps Six Ears would try rushing to heaven to stop this but is overcome by the pain affecting him…for 49 days (or 49 years depending on his location). [14]
Fig. 11 (top) – An artist’s interpretation of Quantum entanglement (larger version). Image found here. Fig. 12 (bottom) – A stunt performer running around on fire. I imagine something similar would happen to Six Ears once Monkey is pushed into Laozi’s furnace (larger version). Image found here.
And it just occurred to me while writing that Six Ears would have also been subject to imprisonment under Five Elements Mountain (Wuxing shan, 五行山). I’ll let you decide if he is weighed down by an invisible, metaphysical mountain or a physical object (see the paragraph above figure 2 here for one possibility).
The Quantum physics-like entanglement shared by the twin monkeys also explains why Six Ears has a golden headband (refer back to the quote above). They are after all two sides to the same person. Most importantly, the novel establishes that the tight-fillet spell also causes the doppelganger pain (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 106, for example).
Update: 01-06-23
Both Six Ears and (at least some of) the monkeys on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit are depicted as cannibals. This happens in chapter 57:
When that Pilgrim [a magically disguised Six Ears] saw that the Sha Monk had been forced to flee, he did not give chase. He went back to his cave instead and told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 101).
It just occurred to me that since Six Ears is an aspect of Sun Wukong’s mind, the other two celestial primates could be as well. All three being aspects of Sun’s mind would thus explain why they “are not classified in the ten categories [of life], nor are they contained in the names between Heaven and Earth” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 115). They aren’t classified because they were never born. They are simply personifications of Sun’s base and noble qualities. How and when they would have splintered from his psyche is the big question.
I doubt I’m the first person to think of this. I’m interested to hear what my readers think.
Update: 06-29-23
Above, I showed how the mentions of “one mind” and “two minds” (and the corresponding “true and illusionary minds”) prove that Six Ears is an aspect of Sun Wukong’s mind, a personification of our hero’s baser qualities if you will. But I want to remind the reader that other features of chapter 58 support this fact:
The Bodhisattva Guanyin and her “eyes of wisdom” (huiyan, 慧眼) can’t tell them apart:
The various deities and the Bodhisattva stared at the two for a long time, but none could tell them apart (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 106).
Pressing his palms together, our Buddha said, “Guanyin, the Honored One, can you tell which is the true Pilgrim and which is the false one?” “They came to your disciple’s humble region the other day,” replied the Bodhisattva, “but I truly could not distinguish between them …” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 114).
Asking Moksa and Goodly Wealth [a.k.a. Red Boy] to approach her, the Bodhisattva whispered to them this instruction: “Each of you take hold of one of them firmly, and let me start reciting in secret the Tight-Fillet Spell. The one whose head hurts is the real monkey; the one who has no pain is specious.” Indeed, the two disciples took hold of the two Pilgrims as the Bodhisattva recited in silence the magic words. At once the two of them gripped their heads and rolled on the ground, both screaming, “Don’t recite! Don’t recite!” The Bodhisattva stopped her recital … (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 106).
Both the Jade Emperor and the imp-reflecting mirror can’t tell them apart:
Issuing a decree at once to summon Devariija Li, the Pagoda-Bearer, the Jade Emperor commanded: “Let us look at those two fellows through the imp-reflecting mirror, so that the false may perish and the true endure.” The devariija took out the mirror immediately and asked the Jade Emperor to watch with the various celestial deities. What appeared in the mirror were two reflections of Sun Wukong: there was not the slightest difference between their golden fillets, their clothing, and even their hair. Since the Jade Emperor found it impossible to distinguish them, he ordered them chased out of the hall (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, pp. 107-108).
Only omniscient beings like Investigative Hearing and the Buddha can tell the two apart:
[T]he Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha said, “Wait a moment! Wait a moment! Let me ask Investigative Hearing to listen for you.” That Investigative Hearing, you see, happens to be a beast that usually lies beneath the desk of Ksitigarbha. When he crouches on the ground, he can in an instant perceive the true and the false, the virtuous and the wicked among all short-haired creatures, scaly creatures, hairy creatures, winged creatures, and crawling creatures, and among all the celestial immortals, the earthly immortals, the divine immortals, the human immortals, and the spirit immortals resident in all the cave Heavens and blessed lands in the various shrines, rivers, and mountains of the Four Great Continents. In obedience, therefore, to the command of Ksitigarbha, the beast prostrated himself in the courtyard of the Hall of Darkness, and in a little while, he raised his head to say to his master, “I have the name of the fiend …” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 112).
Smiling, Tathagata said, “Though all of you [Guanyin] possess vast dharma power and are able to observe the events of the whole universe, you cannot know all the things therein, nor do you have the knowledge of all the species” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 114).
In short, the twin monkeys are so hard to tell apart simply because they are representations of the true and illusionary minds within the same person.
Update: 08-18-23
Six Ears displays one of several powers possessed by Buddhist sages. Volume five, part 51 of the Saṃyutta Nikāya (Sk: संयुक्त निकाया; Ch: Xiang ying bu, 相應部, c. 250 BCE) explains:
When the four bases for spiritual power have been developed and cultivated in this way, a bhikkhu, with the divine ear element, which is purified and surpasses the human, hears both kinds of sounds, the divine and human, those that are far as well as near (Bodhi, 2000, p. 1727).
The end of chapter 58 sees the Buddha trap Six Ears under his alms bowl:
The [Six-Eared] macaque’s hair stood on end, for he supposed that he would not be able to escape. Shaking his body quickly, he changed at once into a bee, flying straight up. Tathagata threw up into the air a golden almsbowl [jin boyu, 金缽盂], which caught the bee and brought it down [figs. 13 & 14]. Not perceiving that, the congregation thought the macaque had escaped. With a smile, Tathagata said, “Be silent, all of you. The monster-spirit hasn’t escaped. He’s underneath this alms bowl of mine” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 116).
This is similar to how the Buddha captures Red Boy (Honghai’er, 紅孩兒; a.k.a. Ainu’er, 愛奴兒) in the early-Ming Journey to the West zaju play (Xiyou ji zaju, 西遊記雜劇), which predates the standard 1592 edition of the novel. It’s important to note that the play casts him as the son of the yakshini Hariti instead of Princess Iron Fan. [15]
This is based on a common story cycle from Buddhist canon in which the Enlightened one hides the demoness’ youngest son in his alms bowl in an attempt to stop her from eating human children. For instance, the Samyuktavastu (Ch: Genbenshuo yiqie youbu binaye zashi, 根本說一切有部毘奈耶雜事; T24, no. 1451) states that he hides the boy under the bowl like Six Ears:
The next day at first light, the Buddha having taken his robe and his bowl, entered into the city in order to seek his food. Having begged following the order of the houses, he came back to the place where he lived and took his meal; after which he went to the residence of the yaksini Hariti [Helidi, 訶利底]. At that moment, the yaksini had gone out and was not at her home but the smallest of her sons, Priyankara [Ai’er, 愛兒] remained at the house. The Bhagavat concealed him under his almsbowl [bo, 鉢] and because of his power (as a) Tathagatha the older brothers could not see their youngest brother and the youngest brother could not see the older ones (Rowan, 2002, p. 142). [16]
(Yes, the name Ai’er likely influenced Red Boy’s name Ainu’er from the early-Ming zaju play)
The Scripture on the Storehouse of Sundry Treasures (Za baozang jing, 雜寶藏經; T4, no. 203, mid-5th-century CE) says that he hides the boy at the bottom. This version is not long, so I will transcribe it in full:
Hariti [Ch: Guizimu, 鬼子母; lit: “Mother of Ghosts”] was the wife of the demon king Pancika. She had ten thousand sons who all had the strength of fine athletes. The youngest one was called Pingala [Binjialuo, 嬪伽羅]. This demon mother was inhuman and cruel. She killed people’s sons to eat them. People suffered because of her. They appealed to the World-honored One. The World-honored One then took her son Pingala and put him at the bottom of his bowl [bo, 鉢]. Hariti looked everywhere in the world for him for seven days, but she did not find him. She was sorrowful and sad. When she heard others say, “It is said that the Buddha, the World-honored One, is omniscient,” she went to the Buddha and asked him where her son was.
The Buddha then answered, “You have ten thousand sons. You have lost only one son. Why do you search for him, suffering and sad? People in the world may have one son, or they may have several sons, but you kill them.’’ Hariti said to the Buddha, “If I can find Pingala now, I shall never kill anyone’s son any more.” So the Buddha let Hariti see Pingala in his bowl. She exerted her supernatural strength, but she could not pull him out. She implored the Buddha, and the Buddha said, “If you can accept the three refuges and the five precepts now, and never in your life kill any more, I shall return your son.” Hariti did as the Buddha told her to, and she accepted the three refuges and the five precepts. After she had accepted them, he returned her son.
The Buddha said, “Keep the precepts well! In the time of Buddha Kasyapa you were the seventh, the youngest daughter of King Jieni. You performed acts of great merit, but because you did not keep the precepts you have received the body of a demon” (based on Tanyao, Kikkaya, & Liu, 1994, pp. 220-221).
Hariti’s inability to free the child was later exaggerated in a detail from a mid-Qing dynasty hell scroll. It depicts a host of demons using a makeshift wooden pulley to no avail (figs. 15 & 16).
The immovable quality of the Buddha’s alms bowl (or anything inside like Six Ears and Red Boy) is likely related to a story told by the pilgrim Faxian (法顯, 337 – c. 422 CE):
Buddha’s alms-bowl [bo, 缽] is in this country [of Peshawar]. Formerly, a king of Yuezhi raised a large force and invaded this country, wishing to carry the [Buddha’s] bowl away. Having subdued the kingdom, as he and his captains were sincere believers in the Law of Buddha, and wished to carry off the bowl, they proceeded to present their offerings on a great scale. When they had done so to the Three Treasures, he made a large elephant be grandly caparisoned, and placed the bowl upon it. But the elephant knelt down on the ground, and was unable to go forward. Again he caused a four-wheeled wagon to be prepared in which the bowl was put to be conveyed away. Eight elephants were then yoked to it, and dragged it with their united strength; but neither were they able to go forward. The king knew that the time for an association between himself and the bowl had not yet arrived, and was sad and deeply ashamed of himself. Forthwith he built a tope at the place and a monastery, and left a guard to watch (the bowl), making all sorts of contributions (based on Faxian & Legge, 1886/1965, pp. 34-35).
The Buddha using his alms bowl to trap spirits like Six Ears finds a parallel in Babylonian Demon Bowls (fig. 17). Bohak (1996) explains:
Those bowls which are found in situ often are positioned face-down, and in some cases two bowls are found glued together with pitch, the space enclosed between them containing such items as inscribed egg-shells or human skull fragments. From their positioning, and from the images of bound demons which adorn numerous bowls, it would seem that these were demon traps, meant to lure, trap, and disable any malevolent demons, preventing them from hurting humans or causing damage to property. It seems that such traps often were placed in room corners, since the meeting of walls and floor created cracks through which the demons could sneak in — a fact which is also verified in contemporary literary sources.
Fig. 17 – A circa 400 to 800 CE demon bowl written with Babylonian Aramaic (larger version). Image found here. See this page for several examples.
Update: 12-20-23
This awesome tweet by Xing Wu Chinese Folklore (@x1ngwu) reminded me that the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing, 山海經, c. 4th-century to 1st-century BCE) has a monkey figure with four ears:
19. CHANGYOU 長右 [fig. 18] Four hundred fifty li to the southeast stands Mount Changyou, which lacks plants and trees, though it contains many rivers. There is a beast here whose form resembles a Yu-Ape with four ears. It is called the Changyou. It makes a sound like a person singing. If seen by people, it is an omen of a great flood in the districts of the commandery (Strassberg, 2002, p. 91).
Beyond the “sixth ear” (liu’er, 六耳) concept from section 3.2, the Changyou (or something similar) could have definitely influenced Six Ear’s image as a supernatural primate with many ears.
Fig. 18 – The Changyou print posted by Xing Wu Chinese Folklore (larger version). From an unknown version of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Update: 08-22-2024
Now that Black Myth: Wukong has been released, I see that my prediction about the player being Six Ears was not correct. According to the Wikipedia article, the player is the most recent of several random monkey-warriors from Flower-Fruit mountain that have been sent out to retrieve the six essences (or something like that) of the original Sun Wukong, who forewent Buddhahood at the end of the journey and was later killed in battle against Erlang.
I can’t say that I’m a fan of this storyline.
Notes:
1) The travel rescript is like an imperial passport that needs to be stamped by each kingdom to guarantee legal passage along the quest to India. It contains an introductory letter from the Tang emperor and the stamps of all the kingdoms already visited.
2) The imp-reflecting mirror is used in chapter six to see through Monkey’s various magical disguises during his battle with Erlang (Wu, & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, pp. 179 and 184).
3) This is comparing a monkey’s prognathic face with the beak of the Chinese thunder god, who is commonly portrayed as a bird man.
4. Saturn (Tuxing, 土星; lit: “Earth Star”) is mentioned here because the stellar deity is known for having a thickly-bearded face (see figure one on this article). The reference is saying that Sun Wukong’s sunken cheeks are hairless.
5) Yu (Wu, & Yu, 2012) translates the name as “acquiescent staff of iron” (vol. 3, p. 105). My thanks to Irwen Wong for suggesting the alternative translation.
6) Wukong takes his six sworn brothers in chapter three shortly after establishing his monkey tribe as a military power. The other brothers include the Bull Monster King, the Dragon Monster King, the Garuda Monster King, the Giant Lynx King, and the Orangutan King (Wu, & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, pp. 138-139).
7) Yu (Wu, & Yu, 2012) translates the name as “Telltale Great Sage” (vol. 1, p. 157).
8) For example, Monkey sees through the White Bone Spirit‘s disguises in chapter 27 (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 2, pp. 19-20).
9) For example, after he successfully meets a goat spirit’s challenge to boil in oil, Wukong discovers the liquid is somehow cool to the touch during the animal’s turn. Monkey then summons a dragon king who tells him:
[T]his cursed beast did go through quite an austere process of self-cultivation, to the point where he was able to cast off his original shell. He has acquired the true magic of the Five Thunders, while the rest of the magic powers he has are all those developed by heterodoxy, none fit to lead him to the true way of the immortals (Wu, & Yu, 2012, vol. 2, p. 313).
10) The Dasaratha Jataka is story no. 46 in The Collection of Sutras on the Six Paramitas (Liudu jijing, 六度集經, third-century) (CBETA, 2016), a compilation of karmic merit tales (Sk: avadana) translated into Chinese by the Sogdian Buddhist monk Kang Senghui (康僧會, d. 280). See Mair, 1989, pp. 676-678 for a full English translation.
11) Examples of the term’s use include titles for chapters seven (“From the Eight Trigrams Brazier the Great Sage escapes; / Beneath the Five Phases Mountain, Mind Monkey is still”) and fourteen (“Mind Monkey returns to the Right; / The Six Robbers vanish from sight”).
12) Alternatively, Sun (2018) suggests: “[H]e kills the six-eared macaque because the latter has copied him too closely, the best demon among the ones that Monkey has conquered” (p. 25).
13) I changed the Wade-Giles to Pinyin. All other quotes from this source will be thus changed.
14) The novel establishes that “one day in heaven is equal to one year on Earth” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, pp. 150 and 167).
15) I plan to write an article on this at a later date. I don’t want to take up too much space here.
16) The full English version is based on the Chinese to French translation in Peri, 1917, pp. 3-14.
Sources:
Bodhi, B. (2000). The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya; Translated from the Pāli by Bhikkhu Bodhi (Vols. 1-2). Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (Ed.). (2016). T03n0152_005 六度集經 第5卷 [The Collection of Sutras on the Six Paramitas, scroll no. 5]. Retrieved from http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T03n0152_005.
Dong, Y., Lin, S. F., & Schulz, L. J. (2000). The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan.
Faxian, & Legge, J. (1965). A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fâ-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline. New York: Dover Publications. (Original work published 1886)
Huang, Y. (2005). Integrating Chinese Buddhism: A Study of Yongming Yanshou’s Guanxin Xuanshu. Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing.
Lam, H. L. (2005). Cannibalizing the Heart: The Politics of Allegory and The Journey to the West. In E. Ziolkowski (Ed.). Literature, Religion, and East/West Comparison (pp. 162-178). Newark: University of Delaware Press.
Rowan, J. G. (2002). Danger and Devotion: Hariti, Mother of Demons in the Stories and Stones of Gandhara: A History and Catalogue of Images [Master’s thesis, University of Oregon] CORE. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36687517.pdf
Soothill, W. E., & Hodous, L. (2006). A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms: With Sanskrit and English Equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali Index. London: Routledge. (Original work published 1937)
Strassberg, R. (2002). A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. University of California Press.
Note: My blog is not monetized, so I am not making any money from this post. My hope is that the PDF will make this legendary story more accessible to a wider audience. If you enjoyed the digital version, please, please, please support the official release.
Last updated: 04-06-2026
Here I present PDFs comprising the complete four volume 2012 revised edition of The Journey to the West(Xiyouji, 西遊記)translated by Anthony C. Yu (October 6, 1938 – May 12, 2015). This is considered THE most accurate translation of the tale available. I hope those who read and enjoy the digital version will support the official release.
Yu was Carl Darling Buck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and Professor Emeritus of Religion and Literature in the Chicago Divinity School. I shared a long email correspondence with Prof. Yu, during which we became friends. He was always quick to answer my many questions. His translation remains a treasure trove of explanatory notes and sources.
1. Book blurb
Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West, initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time […] With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible (source).
It recently occurred to me that Sun Wukong from Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592) (hereafter, JTTW) and Wu Song (武松) from the Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan, 水滸傳, c. 1400) (hereafter, WM) share a number of similarities. Each is a reformed supernatural spirit, a tiger-slayer, a Buddhist monk nicknamed “Pilgrim”, and a monastic martial artist, and each wears a moralistic headband and wields a weapon made from the same fanciful metal. Since the WM predates the publication of JTTW by nearly two hundred years, one might be tempted to speculate that the latter influenced the former. However, both story cycles first appeared during the Song dynasty, with various iterations from the Yuan to the Ming (see Ge, 2001). In this article I show the parallels are due to the respective narratives drawing on similar religious, folkloric, and historical source material. I feel such a comparison is important as it presents a fuller picture of the cultural landscape in which the Monkey King developed.
I. Reformed supernatural spirits
Chapters one through seven of JTTW present Sun Wukong as a celestial stone-born monkey who studies under a Buddho-Daoist master and achieves great magic powers, which he uses to rebel against heaven. After being defeated by the Buddha, Monkey is imprisoned under Five Elements Mountain for five hundred years. In chapter fourteen, the repentant immortal is later released to protect the monk Tripitaka on his journey to retrieve scriptures from India.
Fig. 1 – A modern action figure of Sun Wukong’s imprisonment under a section of Five Elements Mountain (larger version).
Chapter one of the WM tells how one hundred and eight spirits were quelled by a Daoist sage during the Tang dynasty and imprisoned in a bottomless pit under a great stone slab. Four or five hundred years later during the Song dynasty, a haughty government official orders the slab dug up and removed to sate his curiosity, allowing the spirits to escape in a plume of miasmic black fumes and later be reborn on earth. Wu Song, whose main story appears in chapters 23 to 32, is one of these extraordinary men and women who come to use their martial, intellectual, or magical skills to rebel against the corrupt Song government. A heaven-sent stone slab in chapter 71 is later discovered to list the names of each bandit with the corresponding name of their previous incarnation, which make up the “Thirty-Six Heavenly Stars” (Tiangang sanshiliu xing, 天罡三十六星) and the “Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Stars” (Disha qishier xing, 地煞七十二星). Wu Song is listed as the “Heavenly Harm Star” (Tianshang xing, 天傷星), the fourteenth of the Thirty-Six Heavenly Stars.
So we see both are formerly evil spirits who were conquered by a religious figure and imprisoned under stone for centuries. After being released, each rebellious figure becomes a force for good.
Monkey’s punishment can be traced to Tang and Song dynasty tales about the sage king Yu the Great imprisoning a simian water demon under a mountain. To my knowledge, the first recorded mention of this punishment appears in an early Ming zaju play in which Guanyin traps Sun Wukong under Flower Fruit Mountain. Wang (1992) suggests the stone slab from the WM was likely influenced by the Taishan stone (taishan shi, 泰山石) (fig. 2), a class of “evil-warding stones” (shigandang, 石敢當) often placed outside of homes and temples or at the intersection of roads as protection from malevolent forces (pp. 71-72 and 254). The Taishan stone represents Mount Tai and its deity. The landmass is considered the heaviest thing imaginable in Chinese culture. This means the evil would be completely immobilized by the great weight.
Fig. 2 – A modern Japanese example of a Taishan stone (larger version). They often read “Taishan stone takes upon itself” (Taishan shi gandang, 泰山石敢當), denoting its duty of protection (Wang, 1992, p. 71). Original image from Wikipedia.
Additionally, the pit containing the spirits can be traced to a Song-era Daoist ritual in which an exorcist draws the character for “well” (jing, 井/丼) on the ground, thereby dividing the ritual space into nine sections, representing the Nine Palaces (jiugong, 九宮), [1] and creating an earth prison. The Compilation of Rituals of the Way (Daofa huiyuan, 道法會元) reads:
[U]se the Sword mudrā to draw the character for “well” on the ground. Transform it into a black prison, ten-thousand zhang deep, and ten thousand li wide. [2] Black vapors burst out of it. Inside the prison, visualize how cangues and locks, as well as tools and machinery are laid out. Then recite the Spell for Fast Arrest [cu zhuo zhou, 促捉咒] (Meulenbeld, 2007, p. 142).
The black vapors should remind readers of that released upon the spirits’ escape from their centuries-long imprisonment.
Fig. 3 – The Chinese character for mountain (shan, 山) (larger version). Fig. 4 – The Mountain mudra (shanzi jue, 山字訣) (larger version). Photo by the author. Fig. 5 – The double-handed Mount Tai mudra (Taishan jue, 泰山訣) (larger version). Original picture from here.
Another version of the ritual sees the spirits being coaxed or forced inside of a liquid-filled jar placed in the center of the well diagram. Afterwards, the opening is sealed with paper and the exorcist performs a mudra representing the immense pressing weight of a mountain (just like the aforementioned Taishan stone). [3] Meulenbeld (2007) writes:
The spirits captured within the grid of the Nine Palaces were kept inside their prison by symbolically pressing them down underneath a mountain. The symbolism here lies in the fact that the mountain was represented by a posture of the hand forming the character for mountain (“Mountain Mudrā” 山字訣 with the thumb, index-finger, and little finger all pointing upward [fig. 3 and 4]. Oftentimes the specific “mudrā of Mt. Tai” 泰山訣 [fig. 5], was used, representing the heaviest of all mountains. Moreover, many present-day exorcist talismans contain a character composed of a “demon” 鬼 underneath a “mountain” 山, namely the character wei 嵬 (p. 145, n. 92).
This means the respective punishments of Sun Wukong and Wu Song (and his brethren) are for all intents and purposes the same: they are imprisoned under mountains. The Taishan stone and the Mountain mudra are no doubt based on the same belief that mountains can immobilize evil spirits. Most importantly, the mudra likely influenced the concept of the Buddha transforming his hand into Five Elements Mountain in chapter 7 of JTTW. The fictional mountain is then a cognate of Mount Tai.
Fig. 6 – A paper fu talisman marked with an image of the Five Thunders(Wu Lei, 五雷) (larger version).
Lastly, the idea that evil spirits can be reformed and their powers put to good use—i.e. Sun Wukong protecting Tripitaka and Wu Song standing against a corrupt government—is tied to the Song-era “Thunder Ritual” (Leifa, 雷法). Meulenbeld (2007) explains stories from the Tang to the Song present the characteristics of the thunder god, Sire Thunder (Lei Gong, 雷公), becoming increasingly demonic, changing from a muscular deity to a number of animals and finally a Garuda-like bird monster. Likewise, while he was a respected force of nature in the past, Sire Thunder becomes an impulsive agent of heaven, one capable of being challenged and even captured by a brave individual or ritual master. The subjugation of this demonic god allows his captors to appropriate his heavenly power for their own purposes. The deity and his four brothers, comprising the “Five Thunders” (Wu Lei, 五雷) (fig. 6), can be summoned on command via talismans and charms and made to bring rain, heal sicknesses, or conquer demons. [4] Such ritual accouterments are just a small part of a much larger subsequent Thunder Ritual liturgy that is, according to one Song dynasty source, capable of “control[ing] the demons and spirits of the Sixfold Heavens, [expelling] evil and avert[ing] disaster” (Meulenbeld, 2007, p. 67).
II. Tiger-Slayers
JTTW, ch. 14 – Sun Wukong’s first act of protecting Tripitaka upon his release is effortlessly killing a tiger with a single stroke of his staff. This happens the day after a huntsman had come to the monk’s defense by fighting a tiger for hours before dispatching it with a trident. The difference in power between the immortal and human heroes leads the monk to exclaim, “For the strong, there’s always someone stronger!” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 310).
WM, ch. 23 – Wu Song gets drunk on a trip home to see his elder brother, and after ignoring warnings not to take a mountain shortcut, the hero is set upon by a ferocious man-eating tiger. In the process of initially defending himself, Wu snaps his walking staff on a nearby tree, forcing him to resort to brute strength. He manages to wrestle the big cat’s face into the dirt and rains down sixty or seventy fist blows before it stops moving (fig. 7). He then finishes off the beast with the remains of his staff.
Fig. 7 – “Wu Song Beats the Tiger” (Wu Song da hu, 武松打虎) by Wang Kewei (王可偉) (larger version).
I can’t help but imagine the episode from JTTW is a sly nod to that from the WM. Tripitaka’s statement could be a way of propping up the Monkey King as the most powerful hero, one who can dispatch tigers with no effort at all.
The ability to kill a tiger was considered the sign of a powerful warrior in Chinese folklore. For example, A New Account of the Tales of the World (Shishuo xinyu, 世說新語, 5th-century), a collection of historical and fictional anecdotes, tells the story of how the Western Jin general Zhou Chu (周處, 236–297) was originally a wayward youth considered the worst of Yixing‘s “Three Scourges”—a tiger, a dragon, and himself. Wanting to prove his strength, Zhou is said to have easily killed the tiger but disappeared for three days and nights fighting the dragon. The youth later returned to find the people celebrating his apparent death. This caused Zhou to mend his ways and eventually become a great general (Knechtges & Chang, 2010, pp. 2274-2275).
III. Buddhist monks with matching religious nicknames
JTTW, ch. 14 – Sun Wukong takes the tonsure as a Buddhist monk upon his release. [5] His master Tripitaka then gives him the religious nickname “Pilgrim Sun” (Sun xingzhe, 孫行者), and the character is often simply referred to as “Pilgrim” (xingzhe, 行者; literally: “traveler”) throughout the narrative.
WM, ch. 31 – Wu Song kills a thug and his Song government official friend for framing the hero for theft and attempting to have him murdered en route to a prison camp. As a result, he is forced to dress as a Buddhist monk, taking a slain priest’s religious garb and ordination certificate (jiedie, 戒牒) and calling himself “Pilgrim Wu” (Wu xingzhe, 武行者).
The term Pilgrim refers to a “postulant”, a lay Buddhist acolyte who has yet to be ordained but lives as an untonsured monk, one expected to follow the Five Precepts (Pali: Pañcasīla; Ch: Wujie, 五戒) against killing, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct, and drinking alcohol (Robert & David, 2013, pp. 1011-1012). Ch’en (1956) writes that such trainees were historically required to complete a long period of intense religious study and pass a rigorous examination before being awarded the aforementioned ordination certificate (fig. 8), thereby becoming a full-fledged monk. This certification system was originally initiated during the Tang to weed out those wanting to evade the draft and taxes, as well as bandits like Wu Song who sought refuge from the law. However, during the Song, the government sold these documents like war bonds in order to help pay for their ongoing struggle against the barbarians of northern China. Therefore, ordination certificates were often exuberantly expensive, [6] meaning those who had the training but could not afford the document were doomed to live as a postulant. This contrasts with the thousands upon thousands of people who bought their way into the Buddha’s fold simply for the draft and tax exemption. They forwent the training altogether and were monks only on paper. This continued practice naturally resulted in a major decline in the quality of monks during the Song.
Fig. 8 – A present day monk showing his ordination certificate (jiedie, 戒牒) (larger version). Original image found here.
Having read the above, we can say Sun Wukong is called Pilgrim because he assists a Buddhist priest but lacks the religious education and ordination certificate. While Wu Song has the document (taken from a dead priest), he lacks the required education. It should be remembered that Wu is a bandit-turned-monk. At the same time, both characters typify the “itinerant monk”, the second meaning of Pilgrim (xingzhe, 行者), as both are on a journey: Sun is traveling to India and Wu is traveling the road—albeit secretly to meet with fellow outlaws. But I would like to suggest that the titles may have also been meant as a jab at the violent, untrained riffraff passing for monks during the Song (more on this below). After all, the earliest references to our characters with these titles come from this period.
“Pilgrim Wu” appears in scholar-painterGong Shengyu‘s (龔聖予, 1222–1307) In Praise of the Thirty-Six [men] of Song Jiang (Song Jiang sanshiliu zan, 宋江三十六贊), a collection of poems eulogizing each of the thirty-six bandits then associated with the early WM story cycle.
Pilgrim Wu Song: You resisted women, obeyed the Five Precepts, among Wine, Women, Wealth and Force, you were inclined to kill people (Børdahl, 2013, p. 29).
Gong claims the poems were based on “stories of the streets and tales of the lanes” (jie tan xiang yu, 街談巷語), popular narratives performed by storytellers at local venues. Given that such early tales no longer exist, its impossible to say whether or not Wu Song was always a monk or a bandit-turned-impostor monk like his counterpart from the published edition of the WM (Børdahl, 2013, pp. 28-29). Either way, this suggests Wu’s predilection for killing was a prominent aspect of his story cycle by at least the 13-century.
Sun Wukong first appears as the “Monkey Pilgrim” (Hou xingzhe, 猴行者) in The Story of How Tripitaka of the Great Tang Procures the Scriptures (Da Tang Sanzang qujing shihua, 大唐三藏取經詩話), a seventeen chapter storytelling prompt dated to the late 13th-century. Like Wu Song, Monkey is also depicted as comfortable with killing.For example, in chapter five, he turns an evil sorcerer’s wife into grass so that she will be eaten by a young monk who had been transformed by her husband into a donkey. After both parties are changed back to normal, Monkey threatens to “mow down all the grass of [his] house” (i.e. kill his wife and anyone else he loves) if the man ever misuses his magic again. [7] Later in chapter six, Monkey brutally tortures and then kills a white tiger demon who tries to eat his master (Wivell, 1994, pp. 1181-1207)
Fig. 9 – The “Pilgrim” Wu Song (right) and the “Flower Monk” Lu Zhishen (left) from a recent WM television series (larger version).
Additionally, two early WM-related tales titled “Pilgrim Wu” (Wu xingzhe, 武行者) and the “Flower [Tattooed] Monk” (Hua heshang, 花和尚) are listed under the “staff” (ganbang, 桿棒) category of popular stories in The Drunken Man’s Talk (Zuiweng tanlu, 醉翁談錄), a circa 13th-century collection of short stories, anecdotes, and poetry. [8] So-called staff tales were character-driven narratives about heroes, in this case Wu Song and his fellow outlaw-turned-monkLu Zhishen (fig. 9), righting injustices using staves. [9] I should note that The Story describes the Monkey Pilgrim wielding two such weapons in his adventures.
Sun and Wu’s association with killing and staff fighting were likely influenced by historical warrior monks and bandit monks. Shahar (2008) explains warrior monks were seasoned fighters who lived in subsidiary shrines away from the devout community and protected monasteries in times of trouble. These “monks” regularly drank wine and ate meat, associating the latter with physical strength and fighting ability, and even worshiped wrathful deities like Vajrapani, who is described in scripture as killing in the name of Buddha. Their weapon of choice was a wooden staff, which was originally chosen for being non-lethal. However, a metal staff like the one wielded by Sun Wukong in JTTW was sometimes used by warrior monks for its killing capacity in times of war. The most famous monastic staff method belongs to the Shaolin Monastery (Shaolin si, 少林寺) (video 1). After the Shaolin warrior monks helped the Ming dynasty government repelJapanese pirate incursions from the Chinese coast during the 1550s, their staff method was touted in military encyclopedias and civilian weapons manuals. [10]
Video 1 – A demonstration of Shaolin Wind Devil Staff (Fengmo gun, 風魔棍).
Bandit monks are outlaws like Wu Song who dressed as monks to avoid problems with the law. [11] Lorge (2012) comments that the characteristics of bandit monks were nearly indistinguishable from that of warrior monks.
[I]t is easy to see how bandit-monks are virtually the same as warrior-monks. These men drank wine, at meat, and had sex with women—practices alien to true Buddhist monks. A number of Buddhist authorities were deeply troubled by the presence of monks who directly violated Buddhist precepts. We do not know whether there was a sharp break between ordained and trained monks who carefully followed monastic rules in their search for enlightenment and men who simply claimed to be monks, wore monastic robes, shaved their heads, but otherwise did not follow monastic rules (p. 174).
He goes on to explain that the Shaolin monastery, for example, became heavily militarized after a nasty defeat in 1356 during the Red Turban Rebellion and so may have replenished its ranks using formerly deactivated soldiers at the turn of the Ming dynasty. Such violence-prone men would naturally turn towards a life of crime. Therefore, these bandits “would have been easy enough to recruit and send out as warrior-monks to fight against [other] bandits” (Lorge, 2012, p. 175).
So we see there existed a class of staff-bearing pseudo-monks who regularly took life and drank alcohol. Serving as mainly monastic bodyguards, these fighters lacked the devotion to the precepts and, especially, the religious education to be considered real monks. Therefore, Sun and Wu’s characterization as such warriors may further explain why they are called Pilgrim.
IV. Monastic martial artists
I want to preface this section by stating upfront that it overlaps to some degree with the previous one. But while the former explored Sun and Wu’s connection to staff-wielding warrior monks by way of their characterization in late Song oral literature, this one will discuss the connection between their images as monastic martial artists and the historical practice of boxing by warrior monks.
While the Great Sage is primarily known for his skill with the staff, he displays a mastery of unarmed combat twice in JTTW. Chapter 51, for example, describes Sun and a demonic opponent fighting with a long list of punches, kicks, grapples, and throws.
Hitching up his clothes and walking forward, the fiend assumed a boxing posture; his two fists upraised looked truly like two iron sledge hammers. Our Great Sage also loosened his legs at once and moved his body to attack; right before the cave entrance, he began to box with the demon king. This was quite a fight! Aha!
Opening wide the “Four Levels Posture”; The double-kicking feet fly up. They pound the ribs and chests; They stab at galls and hearts. “The Immortal pointing the Way”; “Lao Zi Riding the Crane”; “A Hungry Tiger Pouncing on the Prey” is most hurtful; “A Dragon Playing with Water” is quite vicious. The demon king uses a “Serpent Turning Around”; The Great Sage employs a “Deer Letting Loose its Horns.” The dragon plunges to Earth with heels upturned; The wrist twists around to seize Heaven’s bag. A green lion’s open-mouthed lunge; A carp’s snapped-back flip. Sprinkling flowers over the head; Tying a rope around the waist; A fan moving with the wind; The rain driving down the flowers. The monster-spirit then uses the “Guanyin Palm,” And pilgrim counters with the “Arhat Feet.” The “Long-Range Fist,” stretching, is more slack, of course. How could it compare with the “Close-Range Fist’s” sharp jabs? The two of them fought for many rounds— None was the stronger, for they are evenly matched (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, pp. 12-13)
I show in this article that many of the named techniques are real and are still practiced to this day. Furthermore, the poem’s bias for close-range fighting over long-range “is typical of late Ming and early Qing military literature”, as noted by Shahar (2008, p. 117). He continues, “Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century military experts allude to various short-range styles including ‘Cotton Zhang’s Close-Range Fist’ (Mian Zhang duanda [綿張短打]), ‘Ren Family Close-Range Fist’ (Renjia duanda [任家短打]), and ‘Liu [Family] Close-Range Fist’ (Liu duanda [劉短打])” (Shahar, 2008, p. 117). This shows the author-compiler of JTTW consulted real martial arts material to make this fight more authentic.
Having donned the monk persona, Pilgrim Wu stops by an inn while on a journey to meet with fellow outlaws in chapter 32. The monk’s great tolerance for wine (fig. 13) and request for meat surprises the inn keeper, whom Wu slaps to the ground upon seeing the man serve better wine and even chicken to a different patron. The patron and his friends attack the monk but are soundly beaten by his superior strength and fighting ability. [12]
Wu’s characterization as a meat-eating, alcohol-drinking monk with a thirst for combat is obviously tied to the warrior and bandit monks discussed earlier.
Fig. 15 – A modern depiction of Pilgrim Wu holding a jar of wine and brandishing a saber (larger version). By Leewiart user Du_YH. Original image found here.
While it precedes Wu becoming a monk, the best example of his martial prowess appears in chapter 29:
But Jiang was scornful of his foe [Wu Song], thinking that he was drunk, and he closed in rapidly. Quicker than it takes to tell, Wu Song flourished his two fists at Jiang’s face, then turned and started away. Enraged, Jiang raced after him. Wu Song lashed out backwards with his left foot and kicked him in the groin. As Jiang clasped his injured section and doubled over in pain, Wu Song whirled around and swung his right foot in a flying kick to the forehead that slammed the big man over on his back. Wu Song planted one foot on his chest and, with keg-like fists, began pommeling Jiang’s head.
This maneuver we just described—the flourish of fists and turning away, the backward left kick, the whirling around and the forward right kick—is called “the Jade-Circle Steps with Duck and Drake Feet” [Yuhuan bu, yuanyang jiao, 玉環步, 鴛鴦腳]. It was one of Wu Song’s most skillful moves. A remarkable trick! (Shi, Luo, & Shapiro, 2015, p. 332).
Wu’s style is possibly another name for “Piercing Foot” (Chuojiao, 戳腳), a northern Chinese martial art known for its dynamic kicking skills. Modern folklore traces the style to the Song dynasty due to its association with WM heroes. [13]
While JTTW never openly describes Sun Wukong training in martial arts, it does imply that he learns armed and unarmed combat as a young monk studying under the Buddho-Daoist Sage Subodhi. Monkey learning boxing in a religious institution is actually a faithful depiction of one aspect of monastic life during the Ming. Shahar (2008) shows Shaolin warrior monks took up unarmed combat during the late Ming-period, when boxing saw an explosion in popularity in Chinese culture (as demonstrated by the named techniques recorded in JTTW and the WM). Textual evidence suggests the first styles practiced by Shaolin were Drunken Eight Immortals Boxing (Zui baxian quan, 醉八仙拳), popularized by Jackie Chan in The Drunken Master (1978), and Lost Track Boxing (Mizong quan, 迷蹤拳), the fighting style of the national hero Huo Yuanjia popularized by Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury (1972). The monks may have adopted boxing as a form of calisthenic exercise. To this they later added Daoyin (導引), a regimen of yoga-like Daoist breathing and stretching exercises designed to absorb qi (氣) energy and circulate it throughout the body. Therefore, the monks elevated their boxing practice from mere fighting to a form of spiritual cultivation. This synthesis of martial and spiritual practices simultaneously took place in wider Ming culture, leading to the creation of so-called “internal” (Neijia, 内家) martial arts like Taiji and Xingyi boxing. [14]
Fig. 10 – A modern drawing of the monk Sengchou showing off his newfound powers by jumping above the rafters of the Shaolin monastery (larger version). Original image found here.
That’s not to say Shaolin monks did not practice unarmed martial arts prior to the 17th-century. It’s just boxing was only a form of entertainment practiced by a few and not part of the official training regimen. For example, the Tang-era anthology Complete Records from Court and Commonality (Chaoye qian zai, 朝野僉載, c. 8th-century), contains the story of the famed dhyana master and Shaolin monk Sengchou (僧稠, 480–560) beseeching a religious statue of Vajrapani to bless him with martial strength so that the other monks, who enjoy sparring in their free time, will stop bullying him. After six straight days of prayer, the deity appears before him and offers the young novice a bowl of sinews to eat. Sengchou initially refuses due to the prohibition against eating meat, but he ultimately finishes the meal for fear Vajrapani will smite him with his vajra club. Like the radioactive spider bite that changes Peter Parker into Spider-Man, the sinews transform the monk, blessing him with a god-like physique and miraculous powers, such as the ability to walk on walls, leap great heights (fig. 10), and lift thousands of pounds. Most importantly, it drastically improves his fighting skills, so much so, in fact, that his former tormentors come to grovel in his presence (Shahar, 2008, pp. 35-37).
From whom might have Sengchou’s religious brothers learned their unarmed martial arts centuries prior to it becoming an official part of Shaolin’s training regimen? The simplest answer is someone like Wu Song who learned boxing as a bandit or soldier and later joined the sangha. Readers may recall such violence-prone men may have been tapped as warrior monks to protect the monastery in times of trouble. They could have easily passed their fighting skills to the next generation of warrior monks.
A good example of a soldier-turned-monk is the brutish former general Huiming (惠明) from the Platform Sutra (Liuzu tanjing, 六祖壇經, written from the 8th to 13th-c.). The text tells how the disciples of Hongren (弘忍, 601–674), the fifth Chan patriarch, were enraged when their master passed the mantle onto the illiterate postulant laborer Huineng (惠能, 638–713). Hundreds of monks are said to have pursued the fleeing Pilgrim south intent on forcefully taking the patriarchal symbols of the begging bowl and robe for themselves. Huiming persevered and managed to corner Huineng on a mountain. He attempted to wrestle the treasures away, but, by a miracle, he could not lift them. Realizing Huineng was the rightful heir, the monk became his disciple (Huineng & Cleary, 1998, pp. 11-12). Jealousy and anger are obviously qualities unbecoming of a real monk. In fact, the only thing that separates Huiming’s actions of hounding and attempted strong arm robbery from a bandit is his monkhood.
So we see Sun Wukong typifies a next generation warrior monk who learns boxing inside a religious institution. Wu Song typifies the soldier or bandit who learns boxing outside the monastery and later becomes a monastic fighter, one who passes on their skills to younger monks.
V. Moralistic headbands
JTTW, ch. 14 – The Monkey King is tricked into wearing a brocade hat under the pretense of gaining the ability to recite scripture without rote memorization. However, the hat houses a golden fillet (jinguquan, 金箍圈) that soon takes root and painfully tightens around the immortal’s head when the correct spell is chanted (fig. 11). This allows the feeble monk Tripitaka to control the celestial monkey’s unruly nature.
WM, ch. 31 – When Wu Song disguises himself as a monk, he wears the garments of a priest who had previously been killed by bandits. The habit includes a metal “Precepts fillet” (jiegu, 戒箍) that he wears over his long hair (fig. 12).
Fig. 11 – (Top left) Sun Wukong’s golden fillet from the 1986 JTTW television series (larger version). Fig. 12 – (Top right) Wu Song’s Precepts fillet from a recent WM television series (larger version). Fig. 13 – (Bottom left) A late 11th to early 12th-century copper alloy statue of the wrathful deity Hevajra (larger version). He is portrayed with the same Esoteric Buddhist ritual attire as his followers, including the headband, arm cuffs, a bone (skull) rosary, bracelets, a girdle, anklets, and a tiger skin sarong. Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Fig. 14 – (Bottom center) A detail of the Monkey Pilgrim’s fillet featured in an 11th-century mural from Eastern Thousand Buddha Cave number two in Gansu Province, China (larger version). It has been slightly enhanced for clarity. A fuller version of the image can be seen here. Fig. 15 – (Bottom right) A military monk from a modern Beijing Opera production (larger version). From Bonds, 2008, p. 178.
I explain in this article that the heroes’ fillets share a common origin in an ancient Indo-Tibetan Esoteric Buddhist ritual headband, one representing the Buddha Akshobhya and thereby moral self-restraint. It was one of several ritual items worn while worshiping wrathful protector deities like Heruka. Such deities were often depicted wearing the same attire as their followers, leading to the band becoming a symbol of powerful Buddhist spirits (fig. 13). The Hevajra Tantra (Ch: Dabei kongzhi jingang dajiao wang yigui jing, 大悲空智金剛大教王儀軌經), the original 8th-century Indian Buddhist text mentioning the ritual items, was translated into Tibetan and Chinese during the 11th-century. Interestingly, the earliest example of Monkey wearing the circlet (likely symbolizing the taming of the monkey of the mind) hails from this time (fig. 14). But Wu’s association with the headband was likely influenced by the Precepts fillet worn by the warrior monks of Chinese Opera(fig. 15). These heroes wear the band to show that they have taken a vow of abstinence (Bonds, 2008, pp. 177-178 and 328).
VI. Bin steel weapons
JTTW, ch. 3 – Sun Wukong comes into possession of a magic staff (fig. 16) taken from the Dragon King’s underwater treasury. A poem in chapter 75 describes the weapon being hand-forged from Bin steel (bintie, 鑌鐵) by the high Daoist god Laozi.
WM, ch. 31 – Apart from wearing the fallen monk’s religious clothing, Wu Song also takes possession of his Buddhist sabers made from “snowflake pattern” Bin steel (huaxue bintie jiedao, 雪花鑌鐵戒刀) (fig. 17). [15]
Fig. 16 – A modern action figure of Sun Wukong holding his magic Bin steel staff (larger version). Fig. 17 – A modern painting of Wu Song wielding his Bin steel sabers (larger version). Artist unknown.
Sun’s staff and Wu’s sabers are not the first bin steel weapons to appear in Chinese literature. A bladed pole arm example is the Bin steel great sword(bintie da podao, 鑌鐵大潑刀) wielded by a bandit from the Old incidents in Xuanhe period of the Great Song Dynasty (Da Song Xuanhe Yishi, 大宋宣和遺事, mid-13th-century), a storytelling prompt containing WM material predating the published novel. [16] Another pole arm is the Bin steel spear (bintie qiang, 鑌鐵槍) wielded by a general from The Three Sui Quash the Demons’ Revolt (San sui pingyao zhuan, 三遂平妖傳, c. late 16th-century), which also takes place in the Song-era (Luo, n.d.).
I explain in this article that Bin steel is a real world metal akin to Damascus that was imported to China from Persia starting from the 6th-century, and the secret of its manufacture eventually reached the Middle Kingdom by the 12th-century. The metal was considered an exceptionally fine steel and was often used to make strong, durable, and sharp knives and swords, some worth more than silver. One general is described as boasting that rebels would “have to nick (chi, 齒) his sword of bin iron” if they wished to rise up (Wagner, 2008, p. 269). This is a simultaneous declaration of his unbreakable resolve and a statement praising the seemingly indestructible metal. Therefore, JTTW and the WM portray the finest of heroes wielding the finest of steel weapons.
VII. Conclusion
As shown, the parallels between Sun Wukong and Wu Song are the result of JTTW and the WM borrowing from the same cultural source material. Monkey’s imprisonment under Five Elements mountain and Wu’s time as an evil spirit trapped in a well beneath stone was influenced by the Daoist belief that mountains—be they sympathetically represented by stone or hand mudras—could immobilize malevolent forces. Likewise, our heroes’ portrayal as reformed demons can be tied to the Daoist “Thunder Ritual”, which aims to conquer evil and repurpose its power for good. Sun and Wu’s image as tiger-slayers was influenced by stories of tiger-killing strongmen from Chinese folklore. Their religious nickname “Pilgrim” and characterization as monastic martial artists can be tied to uneducated pseudo-monks and holy warriors skilled in both staff fighting and boxing from Chinese history. Their religious fillets were inspired by an Esoteric Buddhist ritual headband worn as a reminder of moral self-restraint. And the metal comprising Sun and Wu’s weapons can be traced to a real world steel prized in ancient China for its durability.
This was a fun piece to write because it shows the Great Sage obviously didn’t develop in a vacuum. It’s interesting to me that much of Sun and Wu’s influences hail from the Song dynasty. These include the Daoist rituals for trapping and reforming spirits, the Pilgrim nickname and characterization as staff-wielding warrior monks, and the translation of the tantric text mentioning the moralistic headband and Monkey’s earliest known depiction wearing it.
Update: 10-04-20
I have written a follow up article explaining the parallels between Monkey and the historical Buddha.
I’ve written an article that shows the weight of Sun Wukong’s magic staff (一萬三千五百斤) is an embellishment on the weight of a stone block (三五百斤) lifted by Wu Song in ch. 27 of the WM.
I’m thinking about writing a piece on characters from world myth trapped under mountains. Here’s the list I have so far:
Sun Wukong (various Journey to the West iterations) – Mt. Huaguo by Guanyin or Five Elements Mountain by the Buddha
108 stars (Water Margin) – Imprisoned in an earth prison under a stone slab by a Daoist master. As mentioned above, Jing Wang (1992) suggests the stone slab was likely influenced by the Taishan stone (泰山石).
The parameters may later be expanded to include “earth prisons” in general, which would open the door to Lucifer.
Update: 03-11-22
I recently archived the Precious Scroll of Erlang (Erlang baojuan, 二郎寳卷, 1562), a baojuan that venerates and records the various deeds of the immortal demi-god. This work states that the Monkey King was “pressed under the base of Mt. Tai” (yazai, taishan gen, 壓在太山根) (PDF page 46) (fig. 18). This supports my suggestion above that Five Elements Mountain is a cognate for Mt. Tai.
Fig. 18 – The Mt. Tai sentence is indicated in red (larger version).
Update: 06-18-22
I’ve written an article that lists a number of surprising parallels shared by Monkey and the Greco-Roman hero Heracles (see section 2).
1) The nine palaces are a cosmic geographical concept in which stars are mapped according to the five Chinese cardinal directions(N, S, E, W, and center) and the four intermediate directions. Thus, they represent the universe as a whole.
2) A zhang (丈) is ten Chinese feet, so 10,000 zhang would be 100,000 feet. A li (里) is one-third of a Western mile. More importantly, in Chinese culture, the number 10,000 represents an infinitely large concept. Therefore, by squaring the number, the well prison is described as an unfathomably large and inescapable place. I would like to thank the Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula (his website) for suggesting this note as it helps better visualize the prison. He was kind enough to read an earlier draft of this article.
3) See Meulenbeld, 2007, pp. 143-145 for more information about the jar ritual. It likely influenced media that influenced Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball fame to create the Mafuba (魔封波; Ch: mofengbo), or “Demon Containment Wave” ritual. Padula (2016) describes the etymology and background of the Mafuba (pp. 122 to 126). He graciously provided me with a digital copy of his book.
4) See chapter two.
5) This is not openly stated in chapter 14 but is implied in chapter 27. See this article for more information.
6) Ch’en (1956) gives examples. During the Song, the official selling prices for the certificates ranged from one hundred thirty to eight hundred strings of cash. To put these prices in perspective, he notes the lowest cost would pay for the equivalent of seventy-five bolts of silk or one hundred twenty-five bushels of rice (pp. 316-317).
7) Wivell, 1994, p. 1187. The full episode appears on pages 1186-1187.
8) Ge, 2001, p. 38. The eight types of stories appearing in The Drunken Man’s Talk are: “lingguai [靈怪] (spirits and demons), yanfen [煙粉] (rouge and powder), chuanqi [傳奇] (marvels), gong’an [公案] (court cases), podao [朴刀] (broadsword), ganbang [桿棒] (staff), shenxian [神仙] (immortals), and yaoshu [妖術] (sorcery)” (Ge, 2001, p. 209, n. 6).
9) Huang, 2018, p. 61 and n. 8. It’s interesting to note that the monk Lu Zhishen is said to wield an impossibly heavy metal staff like Sun Wukong. See this article for more details.
10) See chapters three and four.
11) Lorge (2012) cites a Tang-era story about an 8th-century prince who discovers an abandoned wardrobe while hunting in the forest. It is found to contain a young woman who had been kidnapped the previous night by bandits but was subsequently whisked away by two monks among the group. The prince replaces her with a wild bear that later mauls the bandit monks to death when the wardrobe is reopened (pp. 106-107). The monks were likely impostors like Wu Song.
12) Wu Song is famed in Chinese folklore for his martial arts ability. This led to the creation of a wushu form known as “Wu Song Breaks Manacles” (Wu Song tuo kao, 武松脫拷), which mimics a person fighting with their hands clasped as if shackled, forcing them to rely on doubled fist and elbow strikes and lots of kicking. The form is based on an episode from chapter 30 of the WM when the hero is attacked by assassins while being led in shackles to a prison camp. Wu Song is forced to defend himself in such a manner before breaking his restraints.
13) See, for example, Chlumsky, 2005, p. 72. The author also repeats folklore further tying the style to the Song dynasty heroes Yue Fei and his teacher Zhou Tong.
14) See chapters five and six.
15) I think it’s interesting that each weapon is presented as having somelevel of sentience. Called the “As-you-wish” Gold-Banded Cudgel (Ruyi jingu bang, 如意金箍棒), Sun’s staff grows or shrinks according to his whim. Wu’s peerless blades are said to “often groan in the night” (Shi, Luo, & Shapiro, 2015, p. 350),suggesting a magic longing for combat. The sentience of each weapon is based on different sources, however. I note in this article that the compliance of Monkey’s weapon is based on the Ruyi (如意) scepter, a symbol of religious and secular authority that was at some point associated with the similarly named wish-fulfilling cintamanijewel (ruyi zhu, 如意珠) from Buddhist mythology. The vocal ability of Wu Song’s blades may be based on the Chinese belief that swords have a soul. Two prime examples are the famed treasure swords Longyuan (龍淵, a.k.a. Longquan, 龍泉) and Tai’e (泰阿/太阿) made by the legendary swordsmith Ou Yezi (歐冶子) during the Spring and Autumn period. Yuan poet Jia Penglai (賈蓬萊, c. mid-14th-ccentury) described them as mated lovers who pine for each other when separated and even leap from the scabbard to seek out their beloved (Lee & Wiles, 2015, pp. 161-163).
16) See Luo (n.d.). The original source says “po bintie dadao” (潑鑌鐵大刀). This is likely a transcription error. I have corrected it above.
Sources
Bonds, A. B. (2008). Beijing opera costumes: The visual communication of character and culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Børdahl, V. (2013). Wu Song fights the tiger: The interaction of oral and written traditions in the Chinese novel, drama and storytelling. Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS Press.
Ch’en, K. (1956). The sale of monk certificates during the Sung dynasty: A factor in the decline of Buddhism in China. The Harvard Theological Review 49(4), pp. 307-327.
Chen, P., & Petersen, V. (2016). The development of Chinese martial arts fiction. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Chlumsky, N. (2015). Inside kungfu: Chinese martial arts encyclopedia. [n.p.]: Lulu.com.
Meulenbeld, M. R. E. (2007). Civilized demons: Ming thunder gods from ritual to literature (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database (UMI No: 3247802).
Robert, E. B. J., & David, S. L. J. (2013). The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press.
Shahar, M. (2008). The Shaolin monastery: History, religion, and the Chinese martial arts. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Shi, N., Luo, G., & Shapiro, S. (2015). Outlaws of the marsh. California: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Wagner, D. (2008). Science and civilisation in China: volume 5, chemistry and chemical technology, part 11, ferrous metallurgy. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Wang, J. (1992). The story of stone: Intertextuality, ancient Chinese stone lore, and the stone symbolism in Dream of the red chamber, Water margin, and the journey to the west. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press.
Wivell, C.S. (1994). The story of how the monk Tripitaka of the great country of T’ang brought back the sūtras. In V. Mair (Ed.). The Columbia anthology of traditional Chinese literature (pp 1181-1207). New York: Columbia University Press.
Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The journey to the West: Vol. 1-4. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
The brief Tang-era tale “A Supplement to Jiang Zong’s Biography of a White Ape” (Bu Jiang Zong Baiyuan Zhuan, 補江總白猿傳, c. late 7th-century) tells how the beautiful young wife of General Ouyang He (歐陽紇, 538–570) is kidnapped by a seemingly invisible force while he is engaged in conquering minority groups of the south lands. The general and his men scour the surrounding area for hundreds of miles before discovering a mountain where she and other women are being kept by a magic white ape (baiyuan, 白猿) (fig. 1). The captives caution that his soldiers are no match for the powerful primate, and so the ladies devise a plan to get him drunk and incapacitate him long enough for a killing blow to be dealt. With their help, the general manages to fall the beast with a well-placed sword strike below the navel, his only weak spot. Before dying, the ape reveals the general’s wife is pregnant and begs him not to kill the child. Ouyang subsequently returns to the north with his wife, the other women, and the monster’s priceless treasures. The tale ends with the birth of an unnamed son a year later.
Fig. 1 – A modern drawing of the white ape and General Ouyang He’s wife by Japanese artist Natsuki Sumeragi(皇名月) (larger version). Original image found here. The silken ropes around his wrists refer to those intertwined with hemp and triple-tied to ensure that he can’t break free in the story.
I. Historical background
Chen (1998) explains the original Biography of a White Ape story, purportedly supplemented by the above tale, [1] never existed. The Supplement is actually a standalone piece anonymously published to slander the historical scholar Ouyang Xun (歐陽詢, 557–641), who was known for his legendary monkey-like ugliness and almost supernatural intellect. The tale implies that he was the unnatural offspring of the general’s wife and the magic white ape (p. 76-79).
These mischievous simian spirits are known for kidnapping young maidens in tales from the Han to the Song (fig. 2). The mythical creature is based on the Gibbon (fig. 3), a small, long-armed, arboreal ape present in East and Southeast Asia(see Gulik, 1967).
Fig. 2 – A Han-era stone tomb rubbing showing a sword-wielding hero striking at a fleeing white ape (center). A woman can be seen held captive in a teardrop-shaped cave (left). The hero is followed by an assistant beating a gong (right) (larger version). From Wu, 1987, p. 88. Fig. 3 – A woodblock print of a “white ape” or Gibbon from a Ming version of the Shanhai Jing (larger version).
II. Parallels with Sun Wukong
The story’s unnamed primate antagonist shares many surprising similarities with Sun Wukong. Both:
Are supernatural primates possessed of human speech.
Are one thousand-year-old practitioners of longevity arts.
Are masters of Daoist magic with the ability to fly and change their appearance.
Are warriors capable of single-handedly defeating an army.
Have a fondness for armed martial arts.
Have an iron-hard, nigh-invulnerable body immune to most efforts to harm them.
Have eyes that flash like lightning.
Live in verdant mountain paradises (like Flower Fruit Mountain).
Reside in caves with stone furniture (like the Water Curtain Cave).
The character and his home appear to be an early model for the Monkey King, his abilities, and Flower Fruit Mountain.
III. Translation
Chen (1998) provides a complete translation of the brief tale, along with an informative translator’s introduction. The following PDF was put together from smartphone photos as I don’t currently have access to a scanner.
1) A supplement (bu, 補) is an addendum to an existing body of work, sort of like modern fan fiction. See, for example, A Supplement to the Journey to the West (1640).
Sources
Chen, J. (1998). A supplement to Jiang Zong’s biography of a white ape. Renditions, 49, pp. 76-85.
Chen, J. (2003/2004). Revisiting the yingshe mode of representation in “Supplement to Jiang Zong’s biography of a white ape”. Oriens Extremus, 44, pp. 155-178.
Wu, H. (1987). The earliest pictorial representations of ape tales: An interdisciplinary study of early Chinese narrative art and literature.T’oung Pao LXXIII, pp. 86-112.
