Monkey King
He is born out of a rock, fertilized by the grace of Heaven, Being extremely smart and capable, he learned all the magic tricks and gongfu from a master Taoist, being able to transform himself into seventy-two different images such as a tree, a bird, a beast of prey or a bug as small as a mosquito so as to sneak into an enemy's belly to fight him inside or out. Using clouds as a vehicle he can travel 180,000 miles a single somersault and a huge iron bar that supposedly serves as ballast of the seas and can expand or shrink at its owner's command as his favorite weapon in his later feats. |
 |
 |
"Monkey King", or known to the Chinese as "Journey to West", written by Wu Ch'eng-en (1500-1582), a scholar-official, is one of the renowned classical Chinese novels about an allegorical rendition of the journey, mingled with Chinese fables, fairy tables, legends, superstitions, popular beliefs, monster stories as well as whatever the author could find in the Taoist and Buddhist religions.
Monkey King claims to be the king in defiance of the only authority over heaven, the seas, the earth and the subterranean world -- Yu Huang Da Di, or the "Great Emperor of Jade" in Chinese. That act of high treason, coupled with complaints from the masters of the four seas and the hell, invites the relentless scourge of the Heavenly army.
After many showdowns, the emperor had to offer the monkey an official title to appease him. Enraged he revolted, fighting all his way back earth to resume his own claim as a king after learning that the position he held was nothing but a stable keeper. Eventually, the heavenly army subdued him, only after many a battle, with the help of all the god warriors. However, Having a bronze head and iron shoulders, all methods of execution failed and the monkey dulled many a sword inflicted upon him.
As a last resort, the emperor commanded that he be burned in the furnace where his Taoist minister Tai Shang Lao Jun refines his pills of immortality. Instead of killing him, the fire and smoke added to the monkey a pair of firy golden crystal eyes that can see through what people normally can not. He fought his way down again. Finally, under Buddha's help, the monkey was suppressed under a great mountain known as the Mount of Five Fingers and he could not move. Only five hundred years later, there came to his rescuer, the Tang Monk, Xuan Zang.
The Monkey King become the disciple of the monk and escort him with Buddha's arrange to insure that he could make for the West to get the sutras, along with two other disciples they later came across, (actually also arranged by the Buddha).
| |
