Journey to the West- Murine

What is Journey to the West?

Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The novel is written by a monk named Wu Cheng’en.  (c.1500-82) The novel is loosely based on the true story of the monk Xuanzang in the 7th century traveled across the desert wastes of Chinese Central Asia to India in order to collect Buddhist text for translation into Chinese. The novel adds elements from ancient Chinese folk tales and the author’s invention—the Buddha gave this task to Tang Sanzang for him to complete with three other characters (The Monkey King, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing), who agreed to help Sanzang as an atonement for past sins. 

Though we could not be sure if Wu Cheng’en really wrote the book, everything about Journey to the West suggests that it is written by a single author. The ‘Chinese Odyssey’ is written in poems in a simple, lively and descriptive way. The tale is at once an adventure story and traditional folk tale for centuries. Journey to the West is strongly based in Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology and value systems. The Journey is very inspirational and is an extended allegory in which the group of pilgrims journeying toward India shows people’s journey towards enlightenment.

What is the Novel About?

Journey to the West reveals an epic vision of Imperial China, populated by demons, gods, animals, woodsmen, bandits, and farmers. The novel opens with the birth of Monkey from a stone egg, who later became the King of the Monkeys on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. He achieved supernatural Daoist skills and creates havoc on his visits to heaven in vain hope of achieving even higher celestial office. He upsets the Jade Emperor and other deities by eating the peaches of immortality and is incarcerated beneath the Mountain of the Five Elements by Buddha. Many years later, the Monkey King was released to accompany the monk Xuanzang to get the holy Buddhist scriptures from India as an redemption of his past sins. The Story is about how Xuanzang’s pilgrims—The Monkey King, Pigsy(Zhu Baijie), Monk Sha(Sha Wujing) and the dragon horse overcome 81 disasters and fights before finally reaching their goal and returning to China with the text. 

Today’s influence of the Novel

Enduring popularity in China over the centuries, there are a number of dramatic adaptations of the Journey to the West in ceramics, shadow puppets, dramas and operas, as well as modern film and television series. The novel has also proven its global appeal: 

‘This past summer, six years after premiering in Manchester and going on to play in other cities on both sides of the Atlantic, a high-octane stage adaptation, Monkey: Journey to the West, featuring animation, kung fu, song, and dance, from the creators of the British group Gorillaz and the Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng, enjoyed a much buzzed-about run at New York’s Lincoln Center.’—Los Angeles Review of Books, Monkeying Around with the Nobel Prize: Wu Chen'en's "Journey to the West" by Julia Lovell.