The Journey to the West

After crossing the river, Tripitaka and Pa-chieh feel thirsty. When they see how clear the water of the river is, they both drink some. Soon they both start to feel intense pain in their stomachs....

As one of the four great classics of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West has over 2000 pages chronicling the adventures of the Buddhist monk Tang Sanzan and his companions as they go on a...

Of the four main protagonists in The Journey to the West, only two might qualify as true “heroes” in the mythic sense. Tripitaka, or Xuanzang, is the monk who sets off to find the sutras in India...

Truth and justice are very important themes in this book. In fact, one could make the argument that they are the central themes of the book. The titular journey can be seen as an archetypal quest...

At the beginning of The Journey to the West, the Monkey, Sun Wukong, is portrayed as a brilliant, arrogant, selfish trickster, a superlative fighter with magical powers. He is insulted and rebels...

In Wu Cheng'en's The Journey to the West, Monkey is a complex character who both makes progress and backtracks during his journey to enlightenment. He is filled with curiosity and mischief, and the...

Orionis is a star lord who lives in the Luminescent Palace in the heavens. In chapter 55 of the book, Tripitaka is taken by a female scorpion fiend to her place of residence, the Cave of the Lute...

In The Journey to the West, Chapter 20 begins with the Tang priest encountering trouble on the Yellow Wind Ridge. Sanzang has been traveling with his followers for half a day when they reach the...

The brocade cassock is originally gifted to the Boddhisatva Guanyin by the Buddha. When the Buddha hands the cassock to Guanyin, he tells her that she must present the cassock and a nine-ringed...

Zhu Bajie is given the title of Altar Cleanser. This sounds more important than it is, as it simply involves clearing up after Buddhist religious services. In conferring this role upon Zhu,...

Journey to the West is a Chinese novel published in the sixteenth century during the Ming dynasty. The novel is attributed to Wu Cheng’en and is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese...

Quest stories have always been a part of Western literature. They may not be quite as important as they once were, but they're still to be found all the same. A great example of a modern-day quest...

Mountains play a crucial role in the Monkey King’s journey to immortality. The Monkey King’s quest for immortality begins on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. This is the mountain on which the...

Zhu Bajie's new title is Altar Cleanser. He is given this title by the Tathagata. Accordingly, Zhu Bajie once served as Marshal Tien Peng, a water god in the River of Heaven. He was an illustrious...

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en is a sixteenth-century Chinese “novel” that fictionalizes a pilgrimage made by Buddhist monk Xuanzang (or Tang Sanzang or Hsuan Tsang depending on the spelling in...

In The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, Monkey is finally released from his penance under the mountain after five hundred years, but sometimes, he doesn't seem to have changed all that much, at...

In The Journey to the West, Buddha, also known as Tathagata, notices a varying morality of characteristics in the Four Continents of the Universe. He sees the people of the Southern Continent as...

The Journey to the West was written by Wu Chengen. It is largely a collection of stories about Chinese legends and folklore. In part of the book, Xuanzang goes on an expedition in search of the...

Yuan Chang (whose name can be transcribed from Chinese in several different ways, meaning that he is sometimes called Xuanzang or Hsuan-Tsang) was a seventh-century Chinese monk who made a long...