Figures

Sun Wukong was a stone monkey that came out of an immortal stone on Mount Huaguo when it split open. Because he led the way through the waterfall and found the Water Curtain Cave, the monkeys made him their king and called him the Handsome Monkey King.

After years of ease on the mountain the Handsome Monkey King saw one of the monkeys die of age and was troubled by it. He built a raft alone, crossed the sea, and travelled through the southern and western continents seeking the art of deathlessness.

After long wandering the stone monkey found the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars on the Mountain of Numinous Terrace and Square Inch in the western continent, and entered the gate of Puti Zushi, who gave him the surname Sun from his appearance and, by the generation order of the school, the religious name Wukong.

Having learned the forms of sweeping and speech in the cave, Wukong was given the formula of long life by the master himself at the third watch of one night, and afterwards mastered the seventy-two transformations and the somersault cloud, which carried him a hundred and eight thousand li at a leap.

For showing off his transformations before his fellows — turning himself into a pine tree — he was driven out of the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars, and strictly forbidden ever to speak of who had taught him.

Wukong rode the somersault cloud back to Mount Huaguo, and the monkeys, seeing him come home a master of arts, honoured him more than ever; the mountain’s name grew.

Finding his weapon crude and ill-suited, Wukong went alone into the dragon palace of the Eastern Sea and demanded a weapon from its dragon king. Several did not suit him, and at last he took the sea-stilling divine iron from the seabed — the Ruyi Jingu Bang — and then pressed the dragon kings of the four seas for a suit of armour as well.

One night Wukong lay drunk on the mountain, and in his dream two black-robed soul-catchers chained him and took him to the underworld. Trusting the deathless body he had refined, he refused to accept it, made havoc of the Hall of Judgement with his staff, found the register of life and death, and struck out every name of the monkey kind.

The Ten Kings of the underworld petitioned heaven jointly, and the Jade Emperor sent Taibai Jinxing below with an offer of office. Wukong accepted gladly, was made Bimawen and went to the imperial stables of heaven to keep the horses.

Learning afterwards that Bimawen was a post too low to be ranked at all, Wukong took offence, fought his way out of the southern gate of heaven back to Mount Huaguo, raised the banner of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, and set himself against the Heavenly Court.

The Jade Emperor sent the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li Jing and his third son Nezha with troops to put him down. Wukong fought Nezha several passes, beat him, and the heavenly host returned without success.

Taibai Jinxing proposed his plan again, and the Jade Emperor offered a second amnesty, investing Wukong as Great Sage Equal to Heaven in name only and setting him to look after the peach garden of heaven with no real office.

On duty in the peach garden, Wukong repeatedly ate the ripened peaches when nobody was watching.

When the Queen Mother held the peach banquet, Wukong was not invited. He froze the seven fairy maidens who came to pick, tricked the Barefoot Immortal into taking another road, went first into the Jade Pool himself, drank the immortal wine and ate everything on the tables.

Still drunk, he blundered into the Tushita Palace, took out the golden elixir Taishang Laojun had refined and ate it all; sobering, he knew the trouble was serious, made himself invisible and fled back to Mount Huaguo.

The Jade Emperor, furious at the report, ordered the Four Heavenly Kings with the twenty-eight lodges and the heavenly host to spread a net of heaven and earth and besiege Mount Huaguo; battle followed battle without a decision.

Guanyin recommended the Manifest Sage Erlang Zhenjun of Guanjiangkou, and Erlang and Wukong used all their transformations against each other and fought a long while without a decision.

Taishang Laojun, watching from the clouds for his moment, threw down the Diamond Bracelet and struck Wukong on the crown; caught off guard, Wukong was knocked over by the howling celestial hound and taken, and was sent up to the Heavenly Court.

The heavenly soldiers bound Wukong to the demon-executing platform, and blade, axe, thunder and fire could not scratch him. At a loss, they threw him into Taishang Laojun’s eight-trigram furnace to be refined away in samadhi fire.

Wukong hid in the xun position within the furnace and survived forty-nine days of smoke and flame. As the lid opened he sprang out, overturned the furnace, and fought his way with his staff to the doors of the Hall of Universal Brightness and down to the Numinous Empyrean Hall.

With nothing left to try, the Jade Emperor sent for Rulai of the western heaven. Rulai wagered that if Wukong could somersault out of his palm he would give up the heavens; Wukong thought he had flown to the edge of the sky and had never left the palm at all.

Rulai turned his hand into Five Elements Mountain and pinned Wukong beneath it, ordering the mountain spirit and earth god to watch him, with iron pellets for hunger and molten copper for thirst.

Five hundred years later Guanyin, going east at Rulai’s order to find a pilgrim, passed below Five Elements Mountain and made an agreement with Wukong: when the pilgrim came and peeled the seal from the summit he would be free to go west with him.

Tang Sanzang came west to Five Elements Mountain, peeled away the paper as agreed, and Wukong came out of his prison, took Tang Sanzang as master and set out on the road for the scriptures.

Guanyin also gave Tang Sanzang a flowered cap with the band-tightening spell hidden in it; Tang Sanzang put the golden band on Wukong when he was not looking, and from then on, whenever Wukong would not be governed, Tang Sanzang recited the words and his head hurt unbearably, so that he was more easily held.

At White Tiger Ridge, the White Bone Demon took the shapes of a village girl, an old woman and an old man in turn to reach Tang Sanzang. The first two times Wukong struck only the borrowed bodies and her spirit escaped; the third time he killed her. Tang Sanzang, believing he had killed three innocent people, drove him back to Mount Huaguo in anger.

At Mount Hao, Red Boy pretended to be a child in distress, lured Tang Sanzang and carried him into his cave. Wukong fought him several times and could not stand against the samadhi fire, and at last brought Guanyin, who sent down her lotus throne, subdued Red Boy and took him to the southern sea as the Boy of Wealth.

On the road the Six-Eared Macaque took Wukong’s shape, injured Tang Sanzang and stole the luggage. The two monkeys fought without end, from Mount Huaguo to the southern gate of heaven and the Numinous Empyrean Hall, and then to the underworld, and no god could tell them apart until Rulai named the false one to his face; the Six-Eared Macaque showed his true shape and Wukong killed him with a blow of the staff.

At the Flaming Mountains the fire blocked the road, and Wukong sought the plantain fan three times, contending with Niu Mowang and Princess Iron Fan, until he obtained the true fan, put out the flames, and the pilgrims could cross.

At Lion Camel Ridge the green lion, the white elephant and the great peng together took the whole party. Wukong went for help in turn to Manjushri, Samantabhadra and Rulai, and only then were the three subdued and his master and brothers rescued.

Having passed ordeal after ordeal the pilgrims reached Vulture Peak, saw Rulai, received the true scriptures, and set out to carry them back to the great Tang to be translated and preached.

The quest completed, Rulai judged their merits and invested Sun Wukong as the Victorious Fighting Buddha.