Monkey King and Piggy
The first volume in The True Meaning of the Journey to the West contains nineteen illustrations of some of the main characters and memorable scenes in the novel. The portraits of the Monkey King (Object 2A) and Piggy (Object 2B) are particularly significant. The drawings were drawn on paper before being transferred onto the woodblocks. Both images were probably rendered by the same artist who focused on the personality of these characters. The brushstrokes are clean, with bold slits of ink and loosely executed lines. Such artistic touches allow the audience to grasp the charisma of Xuanzang’s two most famous disciples.
Known as Sun Wukong in Chinese, the Monkey King was born from a stone egg, nourished and fertilized by Heaven and Earth at the beginning of Creation. Under the guidance of Daoist masters, he mastered the supernatural powers of flying on clouds and replicating himself from body hair. Moreover, he possessed the ability to transform himself into another person, creature, or object. After attaining unmatched supernatural power, the Monkey King rebelled against Heaven. As a result, the Buddha decided to imprison him under the mountain for five hundred years until an opportunity for redemption finally came about: The Monkey King was to protect monk Xuanzang during his search for sacred Buddhist texts in India. In this light, the journey to the West is as much about fighting evils as about redemption and self-realization. In the early part of his travels with Xuanzang, the Monkey King often disregarded existing order. As a result, he would find himself in trouble for his bold and impulsive actions, even endangering those around him. However, as the story progresses, the Monkey King became more compassionate and considerate. Not only did he save many lives and perform good deeds, he also became more determined than ever to protect Xuanzang from evildoers. The character development of the Monkey in the novel thus offers a classic lesson in Buddhist teaching, in which this character returns to the right path by committing himself to Xuanzang’s protection and letting go of the idea of the self in the process.
Like the Monkey King, Piggy also undertook the journey with Xuanzang in search for his own redemption. His human qualities are fully captured in the illustration in which he appears in a hybrid form with a pig’s head and a human body draped in a simple robe. The tension between the human and animal nature inside Piggy is further articulated through his pose and the setting. Against a backdrop of wild tree grove and a flowing river nearby, he turns his head backward while his body continues to stride forward. In the novel, Piggy was bestowed with a Buddhist name by a bodhisattva: Zhu Bajie, meaning the Eight Rules of Prohibitions. Throughout the journey with Xuanzang, he was tasked with fulfilling the significance of his new name by suppressing his lustful desires and vast, gluttonous appetite. According to Chen Shibin’s explanation, Piggy’s role is inherently Daoist despite his Buddhist name. His appetite can be understood through his identity as a deviant deity, or as a Daoist “who has fulfilled his life-store but not his Buddha-nature, one who has acquired an immortal body but whose mind remains mortal” [1]. In other words, Chen interprets Piggy’s characterization as a deviant deity in order to showcase how his inherent humanity, expressed through his insatiable appetite, acts as a barrier towards achieving the Daoist belief of spiritual immortality. The pig’s appetite also keeps him tethered to his mortal self, preventing him from attaining the Buddhist enlightenment.
Characters in the Journey to the West have continued to resonate with new audiences in modern times. The Monkey King, for example, had evolved from an obedient disciple to a national superhero in the twentieth century. During the Sino-Japanese War, he became a heroic figure encouraging the Chinese people to unite against the Japanese. In Maoist China, the Monkey King “epitomized positive and progressive values of the proletarian revolution.” After the Cultural Revolution, he was a symbol of loyalty. The moldability of the Monkey King sheds light on the power of the political discourses of the Communist Party and its ability to reconstruct images of not only historical figures but also of supernatural characters. It is fascinating to see the evolution of the fictional character Wu Cheng’en created and its political and cultural influences throughout Chinese history. Even to this day, the Monkey King remains to be the number one hero in every boy’s heart in China. The fictional character even made its international debut in many Japanese anime in which he has become a global icon representing fearlessness and loyalty in storylines that were completely detached from the original one (i.e., Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to India). Despite all the complex roles modern society has placed on the Monkey King, it is always important to look back at when and why it was created in the first place.
-Sally Chaohui Guo, Minh Nguyen, and Francesca Abruzzo
[1] Ping Shao, “Huineng, Subhūti, and Monkey's Religion in Xiyouji,” The Journal of Asian Studies 65, no. 4 (November 2006), 731.
Further Reading:
Benjamin Brose, “Taming the Monkey: Reinterpreting the Xiyou ji in the Early Twentieth Century,” Monumenta Serica 68, no. 1 (2020), 169–196.
Tang Li, Eastern Culture Nucleus: Chinese Rare Books in the USC Libraries. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/chinese-rare-books/index
Wu Cheng’en, The Journey to the West, translated by Anthony C. Yu (Revised edition: Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012).