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Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en

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西遊記 by Cheng'en Wu

Journey to the West: Introduction

by That's Mandarin | Oct 11, 2022 | Guest Blogs & Media

To spark your interest, our guest author Jeff Pepper from Imagin8 Press has shared a brief introduction of the book.

TIP: Scroll the the bottom of the article to discover links to a version of the book written for English-speaking students of Chinese!

Q: What is Journey to the West about?

Journey to the West (西游记, Xīyóu Jì), is a Chinese novel written in the 16th century by Wu Cheng’en (吴承恩, Wú Chéng’ēn).

It is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. Its place in Chinese literature is roughly comparable to Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey in Western literature. Wikipedia sums up the book’s role perfectly, saying, “Enduringly popular, the tale is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a spring of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory in which the group of pilgrims journeys towards enlightenment by the power and virtue of cooperation.”

Q: Is Journey to the West based on a real story?

The novel’s storyline is loosely based on an actual journey by a Buddhist monk also called Xuanzang who traveled from the city of Chang’an (today’s Xi’an) westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned 17 years later with priceless knowledge and texts of Buddhism.

Q: In short, what is Journey to the West about?

A long time ago, in a magical version of ancient China, the great Tang Empire is ruled by an emperor named Taizong. Due to a mixup involving the wrongful execution of a dragon king, Taizong falls ill, dies, and is dragged down to the underworld. There he comes face to face with the Ten Kings of the Underworld, survives a harrowing journey through hell, and finally escapes with the help of a deceased courtier.

When Taizong returns to the human world he is a changed man. He decides to send a monk to the Western Heaven (that is, India), to visit the Buddha, obtain holy scriptures, and bring them back to the people of the Tang Empire. This task is nearly impossible, requiring the crossing of thousands of miles of wild and dangerous territory. With guidance from the bodhisattva Guanyin, the emperor selects a young monk named Xuanzang.

Xuanzang is a brilliant young man but has a complicated history. In an earlier lifetime centuries before, he was a student of the Buddha but was careless in his studies. Expelled from the Buddha’s temple, he spent the next ten lifetimes meditating and acquiring merit. As an infant in his current lifetime he is nearly killed by bandits, placed in a floating basket by his widowed mother and sent downriver, rescued by a monk, and raised in a monastery. At age eighteen he learns his true history, and goes off to avenge his father’s death.

Later he is chosen by Taizong to undertake the epic journey to the west. Now called Tangseng (“monk from Tang”), he faces a near-impossible task: he must cross hundreds of mountains and thousands of rivers, and survive encounters with a horrifying series of bandits, monsters, demons, ghosts, evil kings, scheming monks, false Buddhas, and much more.

Q: How about the Monkey King and other famous characters?

Tangseng could never survive the journey on his own. Fortunately he acquires three powerful but deeply flawed disciples.

First is the monkey king Sun Wukong (孙悟空, S ūn W ù kōng , his name means “ape awakened to the void”), who he frees from a 500-year imprisonment under a mountain in punishment for creating havoc in heaven.

Second is Zhu Bajie (猪八戒, Zhū Bājiè, “pig of the eight prohibitions”), a gluttonous pig-man who is constantly fighting, and often succumbing to, his desires for food, sex and comfort.

And third is Sha Wujing (沙悟净, Shā Wùjìng, “sand seeking purity”), a reformed man-eating river demon.

All three have been converted to Buddhism by the monk, but they often slip back into their bad habits and cause Tangseng a great deal of trouble. Fortunately they all have great magical powers which come in handy for battling demons and monsters, and saving Tangseng from all sorts of trouble.

The story of this journey is described in this epic novel.

Q: How long is the original book?

The original Journey to the West is a very long book. It contains 100 chapters and is 588,000 Chinese characters long. It uses a very large vocabulary of 4,500 different words, over 90% of which are not included in HSK Levels 1-6, making it quite difficult for most non-native Chinese speakers to read.

The novel is also available in English translation, the best one being by the scholar Dr. Anthony Yu. His version fills four volumes and runs over 2,300 pages.

Q: Is the book suitable for Chinese beginners?

Fortunately for people learning to read Chinese, there is now another way to read this book. My writing partner Xiao Hui Wang and I have spent the last five years writing a series of 31 books that retell the Journey to the West story in language that is accessible to anyone learning to read Chinese at the HSK 3 level. The stories in these books are told in a way that matches the original as closely as possible, but because they are graded readers they are much easier to read. The first book, Rise of the Monkey King, is relatively short and uses just 512 Chinese words. Each book adds more new words and slightly increases the length of the story and complexity of the writing, leading step by step to the longest and most challenging book, Book 31, The Final Trial. All told, the entire series uses about 2,200 different Chinese words excluding proper nouns.

Fortunately, the original novel is not written as a single continuous story, but is broken up into more or less standalone episodes, each one between one and four chapters in length. This makes it possible to read and enjoy any of the 31 graded readers without having to read the ones that came before it.

Each book is written in Simplified Chinese. The books include pinyin, English translation, and a glossary. Free audio versions of each book are available free of charge on YouTube.

Q: Where can I get these books?

A list of all 31 books in the series, along with short descriptions and links to the Amazon product pages and free YouTube audiobooks, can be found on the Imagin8 Press home page, www.imagin8press.com .

by Jeff Pepper

Jeff Pepper ([email protected]) is President and CEO of Imagin8 Press , and has written dozens of books about Chinese language and culture.

Over his thirty-five year career he has founded and led several successful computer software firms, including one that became a publicly traded company. He’s authored two software related books and has been awarded three U.S. patents.

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Journey to the West: Volume I

85 pages • 2 hours read

The Journey to the West: Volume I

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-25

Character Analysis

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Important Quotes

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Summary and Study Guide

The Journey to the West: Volume I (1983) , translated and edited by Anthony C. Yu, contains the first 25 chapters of a 100-chapter hero’s epic , an allegory designed to impart knowledge on how to behave and what values to extol. Originally published in the late 16th century during the late Ming Dynasty, this epic is “loosely based on the famous pilgrimage of Xuanzang…the monk who went from China to India in quest of Buddhist scriptures” (1). Xuanzang lived from approximately 596 to the year 664. This journey was part of a movement of pilgrimages to the west for universal truth imparted by Buddha. There are two original components to the text, one attributed to the author Yang Zhihe, the other attributed to the compiler Zhu Dingchen.  

For an abridged translation of Wu Cheng'en's full work, please refer to the study guide for Monkey: A Folk Novel of China (1942), translated by Arthur Waley.

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Plot Summary

Shortly after the formation of the universe, a monkey is born from an immortal stone, possessing the traits of both the Yin and Yang. He becomes a king of other monkeys , and then trains in the Way, a Daoist discipline which earns him the ability to travel great distances with ease and to transform himself. Unfortunately, he angers his master and is cast out, at which point his selfishness and greed take hold of him. He develops an inferiority complex that leads to his offending Heaven. To get him under control, the ruler of Heaven—the Jade Emperor—offers him a fake title and gifts. When the monkey offends Heaven again, he flees to Earth, where a Heavenly army pursues him. 

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Wukong defies this army, until the Emperor’s nephew Erlang and the highest sage, Laozi, work together to trap him. The Jade Emperor sentences Wukong to death. Wukong is captured by the Buddha, Tathāgata , and imprisoned by five mountains on the promise that he can one day redeem himself. Guanyin and Hui’an leave to find the pilgrim that Tathāgata calls for to quest for knowledge, and Guanyin promises three monsters—and Wukong—opportunities for redemption. For Wukong, he will have to serve the pilgrim. The pilgrim, Xuanzang, grows up an orphan named and raised by a monk. He learns the Way, and when he’s 18, he finds out who his parents were and how they were wronged by bandits. He avenges his parents, and after his mother’s suicide, Xuanzang returns to the monastic lifestyle.

Emperor Tang Taizong is supposed to save the Dragon King from execution after the Dragon King ruins a fortune teller, but he fails because the executioner and judge, Wei, kills the Dragon King while dreaming. Taizong dies of sadness, and in the Underworld, promises to send food and hold a mass for the trapped souls so they can be reborn—he’s then sent back to the world of the living because he still has another 20 years to live. Taizong makes good on his promises.

At a mass sanctioned by Taizong and led by Xuanzang, Guanyin shows up and announces the quest to the west; Xuanzang volunteers. Xuanzang, also called Tripitaka, is helped along his journey and in return, saves a man’s father’s spirit. The man then agrees to guide him; when they are on a mountain, they hear Wukong cry out for his master. Tripitaka frees Wukong; they’re attacked, and Wukong kills the bandits attacking them. Tripitaka chides him, and Wukong flees. Guanyin helps Tripitaka control Wukong, who now goes by Pilgrim. Later, they gain control of the dragon that Guanyin promised redemption to when she turns it into a horse. Along their journey, Pilgrim is becoming a better soul, but he still has lessons to learn, such as how to curb his pride and vanity—a lesson he must learn when the abbot at the monastery of Guanyin tries to steal Tripitaka’s holy cassock because Pilgrim wanted to show it off.

Pilgrim and Guanyin work together to subdue a bear monster and regain the heavenly cassock for Tripitaka; Guanyin reminds Pilgrim to be good and not lazy. Despite this, Pilgrim continues to cause trouble for the remainder of Volume I of The Journey to the West , though as the entire epic contains 100 chapters, and Volume I is only the first 25, the monkey still has time to achieve redemption and enlightenment.

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• Jul 2, 2022

Classical Chinese Novels 101: Journey to the West

For centuries, the literati of China wrote in Literary Chinese, crafted rigidly-structured essays, delighted in allusive poetry—and looked down on fiction as a lesser form of writing. Despite this, the stories and characters of China’s traditional novels have long influenced popular culture, and they are still readily apparent in both modern Chinese and East Asian culture.

This 101 series will serve as a basic introduction to China’s Four Great Classical Novels, as well as the entertainingly divergent (and often banned) Ming classic, Plum in the Golden Vase . In addition to discussing the development of Chinese long-form vernacular fiction, these articles will seek to present different critical interpretations of each novel, as well as highlight the insights that they offer into Chinese culture. As this series is designed for those without knowledge of Chinese or just beginning their studies of the language, Chinese names will be given in English, Chinese pinyin, and characters for the first appearance, and all subsequent references will use the English.

Classical Chinese Novels 101 is divided into six chapters:

1. Classical Chinese Novels 101: Introduction to the Traditional Chinese Novel

2. Classical Chinese Novels 101: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

3. Classical Chinese Novels 101: Water Margin

4. Classical Chinese Novels 101: Journey to the West

5. Classical Chinese Novels 101: The Plum in the Golden Vase

6. Classical Chinese Novels 101: Dream of the Red Chamber

Journey to the West , or Xiyouji (西游记), is a late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) novel of comedic fantasy based on the religious pilgrimage of a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk to India in search of religious scripts. Published in the late 16th century, with the earliest extant edition dating back to 1592, Journey to the West is a hundred-chapter novel attributed to the author Wu Cheng’an.

As with Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms , the authorship of Journey to the West is still disputed (Hsia, 1968; Lee, 2010; Yu, 2008). Also like the earlier two novels, Journey to the West appears to be the lengthy culmination of a long history of narrative development. Based on the historical travels of Xuanzang, a monk who travelled to India in the early 7th century and brought back 657 Buddhist texts, the eventual folk legends that developed out of this historical pilgrimage gained ever-more fantastical elements through centuries of storytelling, from Song dynasty (960-1279) oral stories to Yuan (1271-1368) and Ming dynasty dramas (Hsia, 1968; Lee, 2010).

Though similar in development to Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin , Journey to the West represents an evolution in the traditional Chinese novel. While the ultimate identity of its author is still disputed, the novel itself is widely seen as the product of one primary author rather than a product of the type of composite authorship usually mentioned in relation to the earlier traditional novels. As the well-regarded Chinese literature professor Y. W. Ma writes, “There should not be much doubt that a single author is responsible for the extant one-hundred chapter version of the novel” (Ma, 1986:43). Indeed, Ma considers Journey to the West as one of the two novels that represent the height of Ming dynasty fiction (the second being Plum in the Golden Vase ) (Ma, 1986).

The basic structure and narrative of Journey to the West are, at first appearance, relatively simple and episodic. It begins with the tale of Sun Wukong, a monkey born from a stone who gains consciousness and then attempts to seek immortality and power. Sun Wukong, also called Monkey, rebels against Heaven and has a confrontation with the Buddha, who defeats Monkey and traps him beneath a mountain. Later, Tang Sanzang, courtesy name Tripitaka, is sent by the Tang Emperor on a mission west to find sacred Buddhist texts. Along his way, Tripitaka recruits companions who serve as his protectors and disciples; his first follower is the freed Monkey, who is bound to obey him by the Bodhisattva Guanyin (Guanyin, also a Chinese goddess of mercy, is an enlightened patron to the travellers; she appears recurringly to save them, and sometimes to test them.). His other companions are Zhu Bajie, or Pigsy in the acclaimed Arthur Waley abridged translation (1942), and Sha Wujing, or Sandy. Together, the pilgrimage members encounter and overcome (sometimes with the help of Guanyin) eighty-one trials involving demon-fighting and resisting temptation before reaching the end of their journey.

Despite its simple structure, the novel stands out among the traditional novels for its vivacious comedy and sense of fun. The 20th-century scholar and Chinese ambassador to the United States, Hu Shih, specifically emphasized the novel as a book of good humor and entertainment (Lee, 2010). Though Hu Shih was arguing for an appreciation of Journey to the West separate from its history of scrutiny and philosophical analysis, the novel is undeniably allegorical, philosophical, and rich with possible interpretations.

To begin with, Journey to the West is a novel based on the historical pilgrimage of Xuanzang. In addition to the religious journey where the main characters discuss Buddhist tenets with each other, the language of the novel borrows heavily from Taoist and Confucian texts, incorporating well-known ideas and phrases from the other two Chinese religions. For example, in his article “Formation and Fiction in Journey to the West ,” scholar Anthony Yu (2008) points out that the decision to make the fictional Tripitaka an envoy of the Tang emperor, a marked departure from the historical Xuanzang who went to India in secret and asked for pardon on his return, aligns the character more with the archetype of the traditional Confucian official-scholar. Furthermore, the character Tripitaka is far from the pious, calm traveller that one might expect given his fictional identity as either a reincarnated earth-bound dweller of Buddha’s Western Paradise, or as the fictionalized version of a devoutly religious historical pilgrim. Instead, as C. T. Hsia succinctly puts it, “he is merely helpless” (Hsia, 1968:117). A constant victim of the various ordeals the group faces, Tipitaka is nervous, fearful, and worried about completing his mission for the emperor, and requires continually rescuing. While Tripitaka’s weaknesses, complemented by Monkey’s endless mischievousness and Pigsy’s gluttony, are the main elements of comedy in the novel, they also serve greater allegorical purposes.

Many scholars, including C.T. Hsia (1968), Andrew Plaks (2015), and Anthony Yu (2008), highlight the division between Tripitaka as the all-too-human leader of the party and Monkey as the representation of the “mind” of the party in accordance with a Chinese idiomatic expression that refers to the “monkey of the mind.” This characterization of the party as separate parts of one being, supports an allegorical reading of Journey to the West which sees the eighty-one ordeals faced by the pilgrimage party, as well as the tensions between them as commentary on the proper cultivation of the heart and mind. Though Chinese expression about the "monkey of the mind" originated in Buddhist texts, by the time of Journey of the West, it was a syncretic Buddhist, Neo-Confucian and Taoist idea. At the same time, other allegorical readings focus on its treatment of Buddhist enlightenment. In The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel , Andrew Plaks (2015) outlines how characteristics like Tripitaka’s concern for his own comfort, Pigsy’s gluttony and sensual desires, and Monkey’s quest for power are allegories for the different kinds of physical and spiritual impediments to Enlightenment. Hsia (1968) goes further in describing how Tripitaka’s continued attachments, both physical and spiritual, cause part of his susceptibility to demons' attacks and temptations; his compassion and other kindly emotions, while well-meaning, lead to more trouble. Meanwhile, Monkey’s humor, liveliness, and general disregard for others, which often offends Tripitaka’s sense of propriety and morality, is more truly aligned with Buddhist non-attachment.

In Hsia’s interpretation of the novel, the Heart Sutra received by Tripitaka at the beginning of his journey is the central message of the allegory (Hsia, 1968). The Heart Sutra teaches that “form is emptiness, and the very emptiness is form,” but Tripitaka and his fellow travellers show through their eighty-one ordeals that they are too attached to their comforts and desires (the form) (Hsia, 1968:119). Monkey, who more easily rejects his physical attachments—in one highly allegorical scene, he kills thieves called Ear, Eye, Nose, Tongue, Mind, and Body against Tripitaka's wishes—fails to find the enlightenment (the emptiness) described by the Heart Sutra because deliberately seeking enlightenment is also a form of attachment. The novel offers a representation of and commentary on the seeming paradox of attaining enlightenment (Hsia, 1968). Anthony Yu (2008) recalls other traditional interpretations of Journey to the West which indicate that the novel represents the Three-Religions-in-One ideology (Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism) that was common among contemporary Ming scholars. Andrew Plaks, for his part, argues that the novel is ultimately a “ psychomania of the process of the cultivation of the mind as construed by sixteenth-century thinkers” (2015:258). In Plaks’ reading, the allegorical meaning of the novel is an exploration of the conflicts relating to the cultivation of the mind while playing with the available language and motifs of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

The various interpretations, or the arguments against excessive interpretations, aside, Journey to the West remains a beloved novel for its mixture of comedy and fantasy. Though the journey made by Tripitaka, Monkey, and the others is a story that has been retold countless times in Chinese and East Asian culture in dramas, movies, televisions shows, video games, and children's literature, English readers interested in becoming acquainted with this lively story can start with Arthur Waley’s translation before diving into the allegorical complexities of China’s three religions. Waley’s renamed version, Monkey , does great justice to the character who is arguably the most interesting and compelling figure of the novel: the fun, mischievous, and powerful Monkey King.

Bibliographical References

Hsia, C. T. (1968). The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction = Zhongguo gudian xiaoshuo . New York Columbia University Press.

Lee, W. (2010). Full-Length Vernacular Fiction. In V. H. Mair (Ed.), The Columbia history of Chinese literature . Columbia University Press.

Ma, Y. W. (1986). Fiction. In W. H. Nienhauser (Ed.), The Indiana Companion to Chinese Literature (pp. 31–48). Indiana University Press.

Plaks, A. H. (2015). The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu ta ch’i-shu . Princeton University Press.

Yu, A. C. (2008). The Formation of Fiction in the “Journey to the West.” Asia Major , 21 (1), 15–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41649940

Visual Sources

Figure 1: Yoshitoshi, T. (Early 1880s). Sun Wukong Blows on His Hairs [woodblock print; ink and color on paper]. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://collections.mfa.org/objects/215182/sun-wukong-blows-on-his-hairs-goku-ke-o-fuku-jo-and-uba-

Figure 2: Unknown. (1690-1720). Monkey Battles the Spider Spirit [woodblock print]. The British Museum. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1928-0323-0-20

Figure 3: Donshu, Ohara. (1815-1857). Priest Xuanzang and his attendants from the Xijouji [hanging scroll; ink and color on silk]. The British Museum. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/36401001

Figure 4: Wiyono, L. D. (2014). Sun Wukong, the Infamous Monkey King [digital illustration]. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/louisdavilla/14220881646/in/photostream/

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Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

Tang Sanzang, an aspiring Buddhist hero tries to protect a village from three demons. He develops complex feelings for Miss Duan, the demon hunter who repeatedly helps him, and finally quest... Read all Tang Sanzang, an aspiring Buddhist hero tries to protect a village from three demons. He develops complex feelings for Miss Duan, the demon hunter who repeatedly helps him, and finally quests to meet the legendary Monkey King. Tang Sanzang, an aspiring Buddhist hero tries to protect a village from three demons. He develops complex feelings for Miss Duan, the demon hunter who repeatedly helps him, and finally quests to meet the legendary Monkey King.

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• Connections Followed by Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back (2017)
• Soundtracks Love In A Life Time Composed by Lowell Lo Original Lyrics by Tang Shu Chen Lyrics by Wendyz Zheng Performed by Shu Qi Imar Music Entertainment Co., Ltd. Rock Music Publishing Co., Ltd.

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Journey to the West (Chinese Classics, Classic Novel in 4 Volumes) Paperback – Box set, January 1, 2003

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Attached are a number of illustrations drawn during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

• Print length 2346 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Foreign Languages Press
• Publication date January 1, 2003
• Dimensions 4.5 x 3.75 x 7.5 inches
• ISBN-10 7119016636
• ISBN-13 978-7119016634
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Foreign Languages Press; 1st edition (January 1, 2003)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 2346 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 7119016636
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-7119016634
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.5 x 3.75 x 7.5 inches
• #119 in Asian Literature (Books)

About the authors

W. j. f. jenner.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Anthony C. Yu

Cheng'en Wu

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