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“That Piece of Rare Magic Iron”: The Literary and Religious Origins of the Monkey King’s Staff

Jim R. McClanahan 2 Comments

Last updated: 02-06-2021

Sun Wukong (孫悟空) the Monkey King (fig. 1) is one of the most enduring characters of East Asian literature and folklore. Much ink has been spilled in the analysis of the novel in which he appears, the highly popular Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) classic Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592, “JTTW” hereafter). For instance, Anthony C. Yu’s updated translation includes an almost 100 page introduction highlighting the historical background and religious and literary influences of the novel. [1] The origins of Monkey has also been discussed at great length. [2] However, few scholars have attempted to trace the origins of his magical iron staff, one of the most recognizable parts of his iconography. In this paper, I propose that the weapon is an amalgam of ringed staves carried by religious monks and iron staves carried by martial monks. Both are featured in Chinese fiction and religious-inspired martial arts legends. My hope is that this information will be both useful to researchers and interesting to fans of Ol’ Monkey.

Fig. 1 – A 19th-century woodblock print of Sun Wukong and his staff (larger version).

Table of Contents

1. Literary Description

The staff first appears in the third chapter when Monkey goes to the underwater kingdom of Ao Guang (敖廣), the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, looking for a magic weapon to match his supernatural strength and martial skill. When the offered weapons—a fork and a halberd weighing thousands of pounds each—fail to meet his standards, the dragon queen suggests to her husband that they give Sun “that piece of rare magic iron” (yikuai shentie, 一塊神鐵) taking up space in their treasury. She claims that the ancient shaft had started producing heavenly light days prior and proposes that the monkey is fated to own it. The novel subsequently explains that it was originally used by Yu the Great (大禹), a semi-historical Chinese emperor, to set the depths of the world flood during times immemorial. [3]

The staff is initially described as a pillar of black iron twenty feet in height and the width of a barrel. It is only when Monkey lifts it and suggests that a smaller size would be more manageable that the staff complies with his wishes and shrinks. This is when Sun sees that the weapon is banded with a gold ring on each end, as well as an inscription along the body reading: “The Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod. Weight: thirteen thousand five hundred catties” (如意金箍棒重一萬三千五百斤). [4] The inscription indicates that the staff follows the commands of its owner, shrinking or growing to their whim, and that it is immensely heavy, weighing 17,560 lbs. [5] One particular passage from the novel best summarizes the abilities of Monkey’s staff:

[Sun Wukong] held the treasure [the staff] in his hands and called out, “Smaller, smaller, smaller!” and at once it shrank to the size of a tiny embroidery needle, small enough to be hidden inside the ear. Awestruck, the monkeys cried, “Great King! Take it out and play with it some more.” The Monkey King took it out from his ear and placed it on his palm. “Bigger, bigger, bigger!” he shouted, and again it grew to the thickness of a barrel and more than twenty feet long. He became so delighted playing with it that he jumped onto the bridge and walked out of the cave. Grasping the treasure in his hands, he began to perform the magic of cosmic imitation. He bent over and cried, “Grow!” and at once grew to be ten thousand feet tall, with a head like the Tai Mountain and a chest like a rugged peak, eyes like lightning and a mouth like a blood bowl, and teeth like swords and halberds. The staff in his hands was of such a size that its top reached the thirty-third heaven and its bottom the eighteenth layer of Hell. Tigers, leopards, wolves, and crawling creatures, all of the monsters of the mountain and the demon kings of the seventy-two caves, were so terrified that they kowtowed and paid homage to the Monkey King in fear and trembling. Presently he revoked his magical appearance and changed the treasure back into a tiny embroidery needle stored in his ear. [6]

Sun later uses this powerful weapon in his war against heaven when they don’t recognize him as a full-fledged god. He is so powerful that the Jade Emperor of heaven has to ask the Buddha to intervene. After being imprisoned beneath a mountain range for 500 years, Monkey is eventually released and takes the tonsure as a Buddhist monk. He is charged with the protection of the monk Tripitaka (Sanzang, 三藏) on a quest to retrieve Buddhist scriptures from India. He uses his staff to battle all sorts of monsters, spirits, and rogue gods along the way.

1.1 Literary Antecedent

The earliest depiction of the staff appears in the oldest edition of JTTW, 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; “The Story” hereafter), published during the late Song Dynasty (960–1279). [7] In the second chapter, Sun’s antecedent, the Monkey Pilgrim (Hou xingzhe, 猴行者), transports his master to heaven to meet Vaisravana, the Mahabrahma Deva. [8] After the monk impresses the heavenly retinue with his lecture on the Lotus Sutra, Monkey is given a cap of invisibility, an alms bowl, and a golden ringed monk’s staff (khakkhara) (fig. 2) as magical weapons against the evils they will face on their journey to India. He later uses the staff in a battle with a white-clad woman who transforms into a tiger demon. Monkey changes the staff into a titanic, red-haired, blue-skinned yaksha with a club, showing that the predecessor of the Compliant Rod has more magical abilities in comparison. [9]

A weapon that predicts the Compliant Rod is mentioned early on in The Story. Monkey describes how the Queen Mother had him flogged with an “iron cudgel” (tiebang, 鐵棒) for stealing ten peaches from her heavenly orchard. He later borrows the cudgel to use in tandem with the monk’s staff to punish nine dragons. [10] The golden rings (jinhuan, 金環) on the monk’s staff most likely influenced the golden hoops (jingu, 金箍) on the weapon from the Ming version. [11] Therefore, both staffs from the Song version were combined to create the Compliant Rod.

Fig. 2 – The head of a ringed monk’s staff (khakkhara) (larger version). Originally found here.

2. Origin

Many scholars believe that Sun Wukong was influenced by the monkey god Hanuman from the Indian epic the Ramayana (3rd century BCE). The two have many textual similarities, [12] but weapons are not among them. Despite his traditional iconography, the Ramayana doesn’t mention Hanuman wielding a mace. His later association with this weapon may have been influenced by two sources. First, the novel portrays him as using his great strength to wield heavy objects, both natural and man-made, as blunt weapons. [13] Second, he was closely associated with yaksha demons in other great Hindu classics like the Mahabharata (4th c. BCE to 4thvc. CE). Early Buddhist sutras mention yakshas wielding maces. [14] One such individual is the Yaksha King Kubera-turned-Buddhist deity Vaisravana, who later makes appearances in the The Story and JTTW. [15] The mace was a fixture of Hanuman’s iconography by at least the 12th century since dynastic coins from this time feature him holding the weapon. [16] However, the association between the two surely took place well before this if the iconography was common enough to stamp on coins. Yet, I am not inclined to speculate that stories of his mace eventually made it to China. Monkey’s weapon may have just been influenced by Buddhist yakshas as well.

As previously mentioned, Sun becomes a Buddhist monk after being released from imprisonment. Meir Shahar explains that the staff was the emblem of the monk. It was a part of the eighteen items that Indian Buddhist monastic law required that they carry with them on the road. [17] In China, there were two different kinds of monks (with some overlap), the lesser known martial type charged with protecting the religious community (sangha) and the more widely known religious type living in cloisters and proselytizing on the road. Both groups carried different kinds of staves. The martial monks wielded the wooden or iron kind. The former was chosen for its diminished capacity to kill unlike edged weapons, [18] while the latter was used for killing during times of war. [19] The religious monks carried the aforementioned ringed kind.

Fig. 3 – The 1517 Shaolin stele featuring Vajrapani (larger version).

The martial monks of the Shaolin Monastery, for example, are famous for their skill with the staff. It’s interesting to note that they venerate the yaksha-turned-Buddhist protector deity Vajrapani as the progenitor of their staff method. A stele erected in 1517 tells the story of how the deity, disguised as a lowly kitchen worker, grew to titanic proportions and wielded a fire poker as a makeshift staff to defend the monastery against rebels during the late Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) (fig. 3). [20] Buddhist iconography traditionally depicts Vajrapani wielding a mace in defense of the Buddha and his teachings (the dharma). [21] The Shaolin monks may have changed his mace to a staff because this was the blunt weapon with which they wielded in defense of the religious community and, by extension, the Buddha and his Word, [22] as well as in defense of China against rebels and foreign invaders. Shahar suggests that “martial deities such as Vajrapani exonerated the monks from their responsibility for the creation of military techniques.” He continues, “In this respect their legends could be read as Buddhist apologies for the monastic exercise of violence.” [23] Therefore, I suggest that Monkey’s iron staff from the The Story is based on the staves used by martial monks. After all, Sun is a Buddhist warrior just like the monks of Shaolin, and he uses his iron staff to meter out punishment and death just like Vajrapani and his mace. [24]

The ringed staves were known as “xi staves” (xizhang, 錫杖; Sk: khakkhara), which early medieval Chinese documents describe as being decorated with six to twelve metal rings. These rings were designed to make a clanging noise (xi, 錫) to not only scare away any poisonous animals on the road, but also to alert possible donors to the monk’s presence. Noted Buddhist personages and deities were often portrayed as having the same ringed staff and alms bowl given to Monkey in The Story. [25] For instance, a popular story circulating during the Song involves Mulian (目連; Sk: Maudgalyayana), a close disciple of the Buddha, using the magic power of the aforementioned objects to free his deceased mother from the torments of the underworld. [26]

3. Conclusion

The Compliant Rod from JTTW is based on two staves from an earlier Song-era edition of the story. The first is a golden ringed monk’s staff given to Monkey by the deva Vaisravana (among other objects) as a magical weapon to protect the monk Xuanzang. The second is an iron staff procured by Monkey from the Queen Mother of the West in order to punish nine dragons. The former is based on ringed staves historically carried by religious monks while proselytizing on the road. The ringed staff is among the magic items used by Buddhist personages and deities in Song-era stories. The latter is based on wooden and iron staves historically used by martial monks to defend both the Buddhist community and China from rebels and foreign invaders. Martial monks, such as those from Shaolin, attributed their staff skills to mace-wielding yaksha demons-turned-Buddhist protector deities as way of excusing their use of violence. Likewise, Monkey’s use of violence is excused because he wields his staff in protection of his master Tripitaka. In the end, both staves were combined in the Ming version. The golden rings of the ringed staff were transposed onto the iron staff. The Compliant Rod, therefore, inhabits the worlds of heaven and hell, religion and combat, salvation and punishment.

5. Updates

Update: 06-4-14

I have three things to note. The first regards the weapon in popular culture. The staff influenced the polearm used by the humanoid alien Son Goku (himself based on Sun Wukong), [27] the main character of the Dragon Ball franchise. It is named Nyoi Bo, the Japanese transliteration of Ruyi bang (如意棒, “Compliant Rod”), and it is commonly called “Power Pole” in English language media. [28] The staff is given to him as a child by his grandfather Gohan, a human who adopts and teaches him martial arts. [29]

Second, the 75th chapter of JTTW has a long poem describing the history of the staff. The first few lines read:

The rod of steel nine cyclic times refined
Was forged in the stove by Laozi himself.
King Yu took it, named it “Treasure Divine,”
To fix the Eight Rivers and Four Seas’ depth.
In it were spread out tracks of planets and stars,
Its two ends were clamped in pieces of gold.
Its dense patterns would frighten gods and ghosts;
On it dragon and phoenix scripts were drawn.
Its name was one Rod of Numinous Yang,
Stored deep in the sea, hardly seen by men
[…]. [30]

However, instead of reflecting the actual history of the staff (within the novel’s fictional universe), I think this is an example of how character’s boast about their weapons in a bid to “one-up” their opponents. It’s like saying, “My weapon is more prestigious than yours, so you have no chance of beating me.”

And third, I wrote a sister blog to this entry a few days ago that describes additional influences of the staff. It can be read here:

A Historical Source for the Monkey King’s Staff?

Update: 12-30-14

I just posted the third and final installment of my investigation on the history of Monkey’s staff. It can be read here.

Deciphering the Inscription on the Monkey King’s Staff

Update: 09-10-16

I noted in the 06-4-14 update that a poem in the 75th chapter states that the staff was created by Laozi in his oven. A later poem in the 88th chapter notes that it was made by Yu the Great:

An iron rod forged at Creation’s dawn
By Great Yu himself, the god-man of old.
The depths of all oceans, rivers, and lakes,
Were fathomed and fixed by this very rod.
Having board through mountains and conquered floods,
It stayed in East Ocean and ruled the seas,
[…] [31]

Update: 02-06-21

I have written an article that discusses the magic powers of the staff. These include the ability to shrink and grow, control the ocean, astral project and entangle with Monkey’s spirit, multiply endlessly, pick locks, and transform into various objects. It also has sentience to a certain degree.

The Magic Powers of the Monkey King’s Iron Staff

Notes:

[1] Wu Cheng’en, and Anthony C. Yu. The Journey to the West (Vol. 1) (Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 1-96.

[2] See, for instance, Ibid, 8-15 and the sources therein.

[3] Yu the Great is believed to have ruled during the 22nd century BCE. The novel, however, does not follow a historical chronology. Yu is just portrayed as inhabiting a mystical time in the distant past.

[4] Wu and Yu, The Journey to the West, 135. Anthony Yu’s original translation uses the word “pounds.” However, Chinese versions of the novel use jin (斤), known in English as “catty.” Catty and pound are two different measures of weight, the former being heavier than the latter. Therefore, the English text has been altered to show this.

[5] The catty during the Ming Dynasty when the novel was compiled equaled 590 grams (Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (New Haven (Conn.): Yale university press, 2004), 491 n. 133).

[6] Meir Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 93.

[7] This is also known as the “Kōzanji Version” (高山寺) because a 17th-century document mentioning the work was discovered in a Japanese temple of that name (Victor H. Mair, The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 1181).

[8] These are actually two different deities, but the Chinese author of the tale seems to have confused them (Ibid, 1182 n. 4 and 1183 n. 6.)

[9] Dudbridge, The Hsi-Yu Chi, 32 and 35.

[10] Ibid, 37-38.

[11] Ibid, 38. For a comparison between the Chinese names of the Song and Ming weapons, see Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery, 107-108.

[12] These similarities include being monkey protagonists and having births associated with wind, episodes of upsetting cosmic order in their youths, and comparable powers of transformation and flight. Bits and pieces of the Ramayana arrived in China in the form of Buddhist sutras from the north via the Silk Road and word of mouth from Southeast Asian merchants via the southern sea route. It then mixed with indigenous Chinese stories concerning water spirits and ape demons to influence the creation of Sun Wukong. For more details, see Hera S. Walker, “Indigenous or Foreign? A Look at the Origins of the Monkey Hero Sun Wukong”, Sino-Platonic Papers 81 (September 1998): 1-110, accessed February 20, 2014, http://sino-platonic.org/complete/sp…sun_wukong.pdf.

[13] Philip Lutgendorf, Hanuman’s Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 41 n. 9.

[14] Ibid, 41-42.

[15] He appears as the heavenly general Li Jing (李靖) in the Ming version.

[16] Ibid, 61.

[17] Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery, 102.

[18] Ibid, 101.

[19] Shahar mentions a Shaolin monk who used his iron staff to kill the wife of a rebel during the Ming dynasty (Ibid, 69).

[20] Ibid, 83-85.

[21] Ibid, 37. For a story of Vajrapani defending the Buddha, see Vessantara, Meeting the Buddhas: A Guide to Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Tantric Deities (Birmingham [England]: Windhorse Publications, 1998), 162.

[22] The Sangha, Buddha, and Dharma are known as the “Three Jewels of Buddhism.”

[23] Ibid, 91.

[24] For instance, one story tells how Vajrapani kills a Hindu deity in order to revive him as a Buddhist deity. This is connected to the concept of skill in means in which an evil being is killed in order to save them from karmic punishment in the next life (Mark Juergensmeyer, Margo Kitts, and Michael K. Jerryson, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 55).

[25] Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery, 103.

[26] Dudbridge, The Hsy-Yu Chi, 32 n. 6. For a full version of the story, see Mair, The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, 1093-1127.

[27] Mark I. West, The Japanification of Children’s Popular Culture: From Godzilla to Miyazaki (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2009), 203.

[28] Brian Camp and Julie Davis Anime Classics Zettai!: 100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces (Berkeley, Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2007), 112.

[29] Akira Toriyama and Gerard Jones, Dragon Ball (Vol. 2) (San Francisco, Calif: Viz LLC, 2003), 4.

[30] Wu and Yu, Journey to the West (Vol. 3), 375.

[31] Ibid (Vol. 4), 201.

Bibliography

Camp, Brian, and Julie Davis. Anime Classics Zettai!: 100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces. Berkeley, Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2007.

Dudbridge, Glen. The Hsi-Yu Chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970

Elvin, Mark. The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven (Conn.): Yale university press, 2004

Juergensmeyer, Mark, Margo Kitts, and Michael K. Jerryson. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Lutgendorf, Philip. Hanuman’s Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Mair, Victor H. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994

Shahar, Meir. The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008.

Toriyama, Akira, and Gerard Jones. Dragon Ball (Vol. 2). San Francisco, Calif: Viz LLC, 2003.

Vessantara. Meeting the Buddhas: A Guide to Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Tantric Deities. Birmingham [England]: Windhorse Publications, 1998.

Walker, Hera S. “Indigenous or Foreign? A Look at the Origins of the Monkey Hero Sun Wukong.” Sino-Platonic Papers 81 (September 1998): 1-110. Accessed February 20, 2014. http://sino-platonic.org/complete/sp…sun_wukong.pdf.

West, Mark I. The Japanification of Children’s Popular Culture: From Godzilla to Miyazaki. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2009.

Wu, Cheng’en, and Anthony C. Yu. The Journey to the West (Vol. 1-4). Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

The Story of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King

Jim R. McClanahan 8 Comments

One of the most famous primate characters in world literature appears in the great Chinese classic Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592 CE). The story follows the adventures of Sun Wukong (孫悟空, a.k.a. “Monkey”) (fig. 1), an immortal rhesus macaque demon, who gains extraordinary power via spiritual cultivation and rebels against the primacy of heaven. Like Lucifer in Judeo-Christian mythology, this trickster god falls from grace when a supreme deity, in this case the Buddha, banishes him to an earthly prison below. But unlike his western counterpart, the monkey repents, becoming a monk and agreeing to use his abilities to protect a Buddhist priest on his journey to collect sutras from India.

What follows is an overview of Monkey’s story. It will primarily focus on the first seven of the novel’s 100 chapters, but chapters eight through 100 will be briefly touched upon, along with lesser-known literary sequels to Journey to the West. I will also discuss the novel’s impact on pop culture and religion.

Table of Contents

1. His Story

In the beginning, the mystical energies of heaven and earth and the light of the sun and moon come together to impregnate a boulder high atop the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit (Huaguo shan, 花果山), an island that lies to the east of the easternmost continent in the Buddhist disc world system. The stone gestates for countless ages until the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE), when it hatches a stone egg that is eroded by the elements into a simian shape. The Stone Monkey (Shihou, 石猴) awakens and bows to the four cardinal directions as light bursts forth from his eyes. The light is so bright that it reaches heaven, alarming the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang dadi, 玉皇大帝) and his celestial retinue. The light soon subsides, however, once he ingests food for the first time.

The Stone Monkey happens upon other primates on the island and becomes their king when he proves himself in a test of bravery by blindly leaping through a waterfall, thereby discovering a long-forgotten immortal’s cave. He rules the mountain for over three centuries before the fear of death finally creeps in. One of his primate advisors suggests that the king finds a transcendent to teach him the secrets of eternal life, and so Monkey sets sail on a makeshift raft and explores the world for ten years. His quest eventually takes him to the western continent, where he is finally accepted as a student by the Buddho-Daoist sage, Patriarch Subodhi (Xuputi zushi, 須菩提祖師). He is given the religious name Sun Wukong, meaning “monkey awakened to emptiness” or “monkey who realizes sunyata.” The sage teaches him the 72 methods of earthly transformation, or endless ways of changing his shape and size; cloud somersaulting, or a type of flying that allows him to travel 108,000 li (33,554 mi / 54,000 km) in a single leap; all manner of magical spells to call forth gods and spirits, grow or shrink to any size, part fire and water, create impassable barriers, conjure wind storms, cast illusions, freeze people in place, make endless clones of himself, unlock any lock, bestow superhuman strength, bring the dead back to life, etc.; traditional medicine; armed and unarmed martial arts; and, most importantly, an internal breathing method that results in his immortality. He is later disowned by the sage for selfishly showing off his new found magical skills to his less accomplished classmates.

Sun eventually returns to his cave and faces a demon who had terrorized his people during his prolonged absence. After killing the monster, he realizes that he needs a weapon to match his celestial power, and so his advisor suggests that he go to the undersea palace of Ao Guang (敖廣), the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. There, he tries out weapons weighing thousands of pounds, but each one is too light. He finally settles on a massive nine-ton iron pillar that was originally used by Yu the Great (Dayu, 大禹) to set the depths of the fabled world flood, as well as to calm the seas. Named the “As-You-Will Gold-Banded Staff” (Ruyi jingu bang, 如意金箍棒), the iron responds to Sun’s touch and follows his command to shrink or grow to his whim, thus signifying that this weapon was fated to be his. In addition to the staff, Monkey bullies the Dragon King’s royal brothers into giving him a magical suit of armor.

Shortly after returning home to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, he shows off his new weapon by turning into a frightful cosmic giant and commanding the staff to grow, with the top touching the highest heaven and the bottom the lowest hell. This display of power prompts demon kings of the 72 caves to submit to his rule and host a drunken party in his honor. Soon after falling asleep, Sun is visited by two psychopomps who drag his soul to the Chinese underworld of Diyu (地獄). There, he learns that he was fated to die at the allotted age of 342 years old. But this enrages Monkey since his immortality freed him from the cycle of rebirth, and so he bullies the kings of hell in to bringing him the ledger containing his info. He promptly crosses out his name with ink, as well as the names of all monkeys on earth, thus making them immortal, too. He wakes up in the mortal world when his soul returns to his body.

Fig. 1 – A modern depiction of Sun Wukong (by the author) (larger version).

Both the Eastern Dragon King and the Hell King Qinguang (秦廣王) submit memorials to heaven concerning Sun’s misconduct. But the court advisor, an embodiment of the planet Venus, convinces the Jade Emperor to give Sun the menial task of watching over the Heavenly Horses in order to avoid further conflict. Monkey accepts and steadfastly performs his duties, that is until he learns that he’s just a glorified stable boy. He immediately returns to his earthly home in rebellion to proclaim himself the “Great Sage Equaling Heaven” (Qitian dasheng, 齊天大聖). The celestial realm mobilizes an army of powerful demon hunters, including the Heavenly King Li Jing (Li Jing tianwang, 李靖天王) and his son, the child god Third Prince Nezha (Nezha santaizi, 哪吒三太子), but they all fall to Monkey’s magical and martial might. The embodiment of the planet Venus once again steps in to convince the Jade Emperor to acquiesce to Monkey’s demand for higher rank, thereby granting him the empty title of Great Sage Equaling Heaven and even promoting him to watch over the immortal peach groves.

Sun takes stock of the magical peaches that ripen every few thousand years, but he eventually succumbs to their heavenly aroma. He eats all but the youngest life-prolonging fruits, thus gaining another level of immortality. His theft is soon discovered, however, when fairy attendants of the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu, 西王母) arrive to pick the choicest specimens for her long-awaited immortal peach banquet. Sun is alerted to there presence and, upon questioning them, learns that he has not been invited. Naturally, Sun becomes enraged, freezing the maidens in place with fixing magic and then crashes the party before the hallowed guests arrive. He eats all of the celestial food and drinks all of the immortal wine, and then drunkenly stumbles into the laboratory of Laozi (老子), a high god of Daoism. There, he gobbles up the deity’s alchemically-derived elixir pills, thereby adding several more levels of immortality.

Sun returns home once again to await the coming storm of heavenly forces. Tired of the demon’s antics, the Jade Emperor calls up 72 heavenly generals, comprising the most powerful Buddho-Daoist gods, and 100,000 celestial soldiers. In response, Monkey mobilizes his own army comprising the demon kings of the 72 caves and all manner of animal spirits, including his own monkey soldiers. But soon after the battle commences, the demon kings fall to heavenly troops, forcing Sun to take on three heads and six arms and multiply his iron staff to meet the onslaught. Once again, the heavenly army is no match for him. However, he soon loses his nerve when his monkey children are captured in great heavenly nets. He flees with Erlang (Erlang shen, 二郎神), a master of magic and the nephew of the Jade Emperor, taking chase. The two battle through countless animal transformations, each trying to one-up the other. Monkey is finally captured when Laozi drops a magical bracelet on his head, incapacitating him long enough for Erlang’s celestial hound to bite hold of his leg.

Sun is taken to heaven to be executed for his crimes, but fire, lightning, and edged weapons have no effect on his invincible body. Laozi then suggests that they put him inside of the deity’s alchemical furnace to reduce the demon to ashes. They check the furnace 49 days later expecting to see his rendered remains. However, Monkey jumps out unscathed, having found protection in the wind element (xun, 巽) of the eight trigrams. But intense heat and smoke inside the furnace had greatly irritated his eyes, refining his pupils the color of gold and giving them the power to recognize the dark auras of demons in disguise. He overturns the furnace and begins to cause havoc in heaven with his iron staff. The Jade Emperor finally beseeches the Buddha (Rulai, 如来) in the Western Paradise to intervene.

The Tathagata appears and declares that he will make Sun the new ruler of heaven if the macaque can simply jump out of his palm. Monkey agrees to the wager, and with one tremendous leap, speeds towards the reaches of heaven. He lands before five great pillars, thinking them to be the edge of the cosmos. He tags one with his name and urinates at the base of another in order to prove that he had been there. Upon returning, Sun demands the throne. However, the Buddha reveals that the five pillars were actually his fingers, meaning that the Great Sage had never left. But before Monkey can do anything, the Tathagata overturns his hand, pushing it out the gates of heaven, and transforming it into the Five Elements Mountain (Wuxing shan, 五行山). There, Sun is imprisoned for his crimes against heaven, as well as subjected to a hellish diet.

Chapters thirteen to 100 tell how six hundred years later Sun is released during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to help escort the Buddhist monk Tripitaka (Sanzang, 三藏) (whose early story is told in chapters eight to twelve), a disciple of the Buddha in a previous life, on a quest to retrieve salvation-bestowing scriptures from India. The Bodhisattva Guanyin (觀音) gives the monk a golden headband (jingu, 金箍; a.k.a. jingu, 緊箍, lit: “tight fillet”) as a means to rein in Monkey’s unruly nature. It tightens around Sun’s head whenever a magic formula is recited, causing him great pain. In addition, Guanyin gives Monkey three magic hairs on the back of his neck that can transform into anything he desires to aid in his protection of the monk. Along the way, the two meet other monsters-turned-disciples—Zhu Bajie (猪八戒), the lecherous pig demon, Sha Wujing (沙悟净), the complacent water demon, and the White Dragon Horse (Bailongma, 白龍馬), a royal serpent transformed into an equine—who agree to aid in the monk’s defense. Monkey battles all sorts of ghosts, monsters, demons, and gods along the way. In the end, he is granted Buddhahood and given the title of the “Victorious Fighting Buddha” (Dou zhanzheng fo, 鬥戰勝佛) for protecting Tripitaka over the long journey.

A summary of all 100 chapters can be read on my friend’s blog (fig. 2).

https://journeytothewestlibrary.weebly.com/novel-summary

Fig. 2 – The summary header (larger version).

2. Sequels

There are a total of four unofficial sequels to the novel.

The first is called A Supplement to the Journey to the West (Xiyoubu, 西游补, 1640), which takes place between chapters 61 and 62 of the original. In the story, the Monkey King wanders from one adventure to the next, using a magic tower of mirrors and a Jade doorway to travel to different points in time. In the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE), he disguises himself as Consort Yu in order to locate a magic weapon needed for his quest to India. During the Song Dynasty (960–1279), he serves in place of King Yama as the judge of Hell. After returning to the Tang Dynasty, he finds that his master Tripitaka has taken a wife and become a general charged with wiping out the physical manifestation of desire (desire being a major theme running through the novelette). Monkey goes on to take part in a great war between all the kingdoms of the world, during which time he faces one of his own children in battle. In the end, he discovers an unforeseen danger that threatens Tripitaka’s life.

The second is the Later Journey to the West (Hou Xiyouji, 後西遊記, 17th century). This novel focuses on the adventures of Monkey’s spiritual descendent Sun Luzhen (孫履真, “Monkey who Walks Reality”). I have a three-part article about it (first, second, and third).

And the third and fourth are the Continuation of the Journey to the West (Xu Xiyouji, 續西遊記, 17th century) and the New Journey to the West (Xin Xiyouji, 新西遊記, 19th century), respectively. As of 2023, I have not written any articles on these sequels.

3. Cultural Impact

Stories about Sun Wukong have enthralled people the world over for centuries. His adventures first became popular via oral folktale performances during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). These eventually coalesced into the earliest known version of the novel, 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; The Story hereafter), published during the late-13th century.

Since the anonymous publishing of the complete novel in the 16th century, Monkey has appeared in numerous paintings, poems, books, operatic stage plays, video games, and films (both live action and animated).

He was sometimes “channeled,” along with other martial spirits, by citizen soldiers of the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901). There is also a monkey-based martial art named in his honor.

It is interesting to note that there are people in southern China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam who worship him as a patron deity. Thus, Sun became so popular that he jumped from oral and published literature to take his place on the family altar.

Copies of The Story were discovered in Japan among a 17th-century catalog of books in the Kozanji Temple (高山寺, Ch: Gaoshan si). No copies are known to exist in China, which suggests this version came to the island many centuries ago. The complete Ming edition of the novel came to Japan in the late-18th century, where it was translated in bits and pieces over the course of some seventy years. However, Monkey did not become immensely popular until the first complete translation of the novel was published in 1835. The last part was illustrated with woodblocks by Taito II (fl. 1810-1853), a noted student of famous artist Hokusai (1760-1849).

Other Japanese artists, such as Kubo Shunman (1757-1820) and Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) (fig. 3), produced beautiful full color woodblock prints of Sun.

Fig. 3 – (Left) Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, “Jade Rabbit – Sun Wukong”, October 10, 1889 (larger version). Fig 4. – (Right) Son Goku (孫悟空) from the Dragonball Franchise (larger version).

Like in China, Monkey has been adapted in all kinds of Japanese media. By far, his most famous adaptation is the manga and anime character Son Goku (孫悟空) (fig. 4) from the Dragon Ball (Jp:ドラゴンボール; Ch: Qi longzhu, 七龍珠) franchise (1984-present). Like Sun, Goku has a monkey tail, knows martial arts, fights with a magic staff, and rides on a cloud. His early adventures in Dragon Ball (manga: 1984-1995; anime: 1986-1989) see him traveling the world in search of seven wish-granting “dragon balls,” while also perfecting his fighting abilities and participating in a world martial arts tournament. Several of the supporting characters, such as Oolong (ウーロン), a lecherous anthropomorphic pig who can change his shape, a nod to Zhu Bajie, were directly influenced by the novel. Dragon Ball Z (manga: 1988-1995; anime: 1989-1996), a continuation of the comic book and animated TV show, follows Goku as an adult and reveals that he is actually a humanoid alien sent as a child to destroy Earth. He arrived in a spherical spaceship that recalls the stone egg from which Sun Wukong was formed. But instead of destroying the planet, he becomes its stalwart protector and faces extraterrestrial menaces from beyond the stars. Goku’s adventures have continued in the sequels Dragon Ball GT (1996-1997), Dragon Ball Super (2015-2018), and Super Dragon Ball Heroes (2018-present).