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Sun Wukong

Character in Chinese mythology

  • 37 min read
  • 7 chapters
A 19th-century illustration of the character Sun Wukong, or "the Wanderer Sun ".
Anonymous Unknown author · Public domain

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Sun Wukong possesses many abilities. He has supernatural strength and is able to support the weight of two heavy mountains on his shoulders while running "with the speed of a meteor". He is extremely fast, able to travel 108,000 li (54,000 km, 34,000 mi) in one somersault. He has vast memorization skills and can remember every monkey ever born. As king of the monkeys, it is his duty to keep track of and protect every monkey. Sun Wukong acquires the 72 Earthly Transformations, which allow him to access 72 unique powers, including the ability to transform into animals and objects. He is a skilled fighter, capable of defeating the best warriors of heaven. His hair has magical properties, capable of making copies of himself or transforming into various weapons, animals and other things. He has partial weather manipulation skills, can freeze people in place, and can become invisible.

The supernatural abilities displayed by Wukong and some other characters were widely thought of as "magic powers" by readers at the time of Journey to the West's writing, without much differentiation between them despite the various religious traditions that inspired them and their different and varied functions, and were often translated as such in non-Chinese versions of the book.

Origins and development

Sun Wukong has a varied and highly debated background and cultural history. His inspiration might have come from many influences, generally relating to religious concepts.

Art historian Wu Hung argues that some of the earliest visual prototypes of the Monkey King legend can be found in Eastern Han dynasty (25–220) stone carvings from Sichuan.

According to Wu, one recurring theme is an ape abducting a woman. This motif appears on Han dynasty stone coffins from Xinjin and Neijiang, as well as a cliff tomb in Leshan. Wu suggests that it later influenced literary works such as the Tang dynasty tale The Supplement to Jiang Zong's Biography of a White Ape (补江总白猿传), which shares similarities with later Monkey King stories. A second theme depicts an archer confronting a white ape. One example appears on the Shen Fujun Que (沈府君阙), an Eastern Han stone gate tower in Qu County, Dazhou, built between 122 and 125 AD. The carving shows the legendary archer Yang Youji aiming at an ape. Wu interprets this scene as a possible early prototype of the later conflict between Erlang Shen and Sun Wukong. Other scholars disagree with this interpretation. Wang Ping, director of the Dazhou Cultural Relics Management Office, argues that the Shen Fujun Que carving is not mythological. Instead, he interprets it as a visual pun based on Han dynasty wordplay, in which the Chinese word for "monkey" (猴, hóu) sounds similar to "marquis" (侯), while "bird" (雀, què) resembles "noble rank" (爵, jué). According to Wang, the image symbolizes the pursuit of official rank and status rather than a mythological story.

To explain changes in Sun Wukong's character throughout Journey to the West, Li Tianfei, a scholar and editor at the Zhonghua Book Company, proposed the "Southern Ape and Northern Monkey" hypothesis. According to Li, the Monkey King in the final novel combines two separate folklore traditions that merged during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). The first tradition is the "Southern Ape" or "Great Sage". In parts of southern China, including Sichuan, Fujian, and Guangdong, local folklore featured powerful ape spirits that were worshipped and given titles such as "Great Sage Equal to Heaven" (齐天大圣). Li argues that this tradition influenced the opening chapters of the novel, where Sun Wukong rebels against Heaven and is commonly called the "Great Sage". The second tradition is the "Northern Monkey" or "Pilgrim". In northern China and the Western Regions, folklore featured a monkey guardian who accompanied and protected the monk Xuanzang on his journey. According to Li, this tradition influenced the pilgrimage portion of the novel, where Sun Wukong is frequently referred to as "Pilgrim" (行者). Li argues that the combination of these two traditions helps explain the differences between Sun Wukong's portrayal in the early and later parts of the novel. In the opening chapters, he appears as a rebellious figure who challenges Heaven, while during the pilgrimage he serves as Tang Sanzang's protector and often relies on assistance from other deities to defeat powerful demons.

The earliest known literary prototype of Sun Wukong appears in the Song dynasty (960–1279) storyteller's prompt-book Poetic Tale of Tripitaka of the Great Tang Fetching Scriptures (大唐三藏取經詩話). In this 17-chapter text, the character is known as the "Monkey Pilgrim" (猴行者, Hou Xingzhe). Unlike the Ming dynasty classic where the monkey is freed from under a mountain, the Monkey Pilgrim voluntarily approaches Xuanzang disguised as a white-robed scholar (白衣秀士). He reveals his true identity as the "Bronze-Headed, Iron-Browed Macaque King of the Eighty-Four Thousand Monkeys of Flower Fruit Mountain" and offers to protect the monk on his perilous journey to India.

The Monkey Pilgrim's weapons and magical abilities in the Poetic Tale differ significantly from the later Sun Wukong. Instead of wielding the iconic Golden-Hooped Rod (Ruyi Jingu Bang), his primary weapon is a golden-ringed monk's staff (金鐶錫杖), which he uses to cast spells, such as transforming it into a giant Yaksha or an iron dragon to devour enemies. He also utilizes a magical begging bowl to manipulate water and a cap of invisibility. The narrative contains the earliest seeds of Sun Wukong's famous "Havoc in Heaven" story arc. The Monkey Pilgrim recounts to Xuanzang that in his youth, he sneaked into the Queen Mother of the West's Heavenly Peach Garden and stole her immortal peaches. He was caught and severely punished with 800 strikes from an iron rod; millennia later, he claims his sides still ache from the beating. Because of this lingering trauma, he adamantly refuses Xuanzang's request to steal more peaches later in their journey. Throughout the text, the Monkey Pilgrim serves as Xuanzang's sole magical protector, as the characters of Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) and Sha Wujing (Sandy) had not yet been fully developed as fellow disciples. His combat encounters include defeating a shape-shifting White Tiger Demon (白虎精)—a direct prototype for the famous White Bone Demon—by shrinking into a rock, jumping down her throat, and violently expanding inside her stomach. Upon the successful completion of the pilgrimage, the Tang Emperor rewards the Monkey Pilgrim with the title of "Great Sage Steel Muscles and Iron Bones" (銅筋鐵骨大聖), foreshadowing his eventual elevation to Buddhahood in the later Ming novel.

One source for inspiration came from differing ways gibbons were venerated during the Chinese Chu kingdom (700–223 BC), and various legends about gibbons and monkeys in Chu and its successors. These legends and religious practices, alongside doctrine from Taoist organizations that reinforced them and combined elements from all five kinds of traditional religious Taoism, gave rise to stories and art motifs during the Han dynasty, eventually contributing to the Sun Wukong figure.

Some believe the association with Xuanzang is based on the first disciple of Xuanzang, Shi Pantuo. Hu Shih first suggested that Wu Cheng'en may have been influenced by the Hindu deity Hanuman from the Ramayana in his depictions of the Monkey King.

The Ramayana was first translated into Chinese in the 20th century, 500 years after Journey to the West was written, by Mi Wenkai, Sun Yong and Ji Xianlin. Although Ji Xianlin speculated that some related stories might have circulated in China before that, he also acknowledged that most scholars, including Lu Xun, believe the Ramayana had not been translated into Chinese or was accessible to Wu Cheng'en prior to the writing of Journey to the West. Instead, Lu Xun suggested the 9th-century Chinese deity Wuzhiqi, who appears as a sibling of Sun Wukong in older Yuan dynasty stories, as the inspiration. Anthony C. Yu writes in his unabridged translation of Journey to the West that Wuzhiqi "has provided many scholars with a prototype of Sun Wukong" and that the author of Journey himself had "certainly" read of Wuzhiqi.

Sun Wukong may have also been influenced by local folk religion from Fuzhou province, where monkey gods were worshipped long before the novel. This included the three Monkey Saints of Lin Shui Palace. Once fiends, they were subdued by the goddess Chen Jinggu, the Empress Lin Shui. The three were Dan Xia Da Sheng (丹霞大聖), the Red Face Monkey Sage, Tong Tian Da Sheng (通天大聖), the Black Face Monkey Sage, and Shuang Shuang San Sheng (爽爽三聖), the White Face Monkey Sage. The two traditional mainstream religions practiced in Fuzhou are Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Traditionally, many people practice both religions simultaneously. However, the roots of local religion dated back many years before the institutionalization of these traditions.

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