A Monk, a Monkey King, a Pig and 81 Ordeals: Getting to Know China's Journey to the West

The Monkey King in Journey to the West is Sun Wukong, a magical monkey born from a stone who learns 72 transformations and the secrets of immortality, rebels against Heaven, is trapped under a mountain by the Buddha for 500 years, and is then released to protect the monk Tang Sanzang on a long pilgrimage to India to fetch Buddhist scriptures. The novel itself was published in China in the 16th century, during the Ming dynasty, and is one of the great classic Chinese novels; it has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. It is a comic adventure, a satire of bureaucracy and a spiritual allegory all at once, and its characters still appear everywhere from television to video games.

A real monk behind the fantasy

The fantasy rests on a real journey. The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang (602–664) left the Tang capital Chang'an, present-day Xi'an, in 629, defying the emperor's ban on travel, to seek Buddhist scriptures in India. He crossed Central Asia, studied for years at the great monastery-university of Nalanda, and returned to Chang'an in 646, where Emperor Taizong now welcomed him warmly. He built the Big Wild Goose Pagoda to store the texts he brought back, translated them, and described his travels in the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions. The novel keeps the broad outline of his account but fills it with demons, gods and folk-tale magic.

Who wrote it? A careful answer

The usual answer is Wu Cheng'en, a Ming-dynasty writer and poet who lived roughly from 1500 to the early 1580s. But the attribution is uncertain. Stories about Xuanzang's journey had been told orally for centuries and appeared in book form as early as the Southern Song dynasty. The 100-chapter novel we know dates from the 16th century, and its earliest surviving edition was printed in Nanjing in 1592, without an author's name.

In the 20th century the scholar Hu Shih argued for Wu, pointing to a 1625 local history from Wu's hometown that credited him with a work called Journey to the West. Later scholars pushed back: the record does not say the work was a novel, and it could have been some other version of the story or something else entirely. A standard reference on Ming biography calls the author's identity "still open to question". The safest way to say it is that the novel is traditionally attributed to Wu Cheng'en.

If Wu was the author, publishing anonymously would have been normal, because fiction written in everyday language had a low reputation among the educated class. Wu himself failed the imperial examinations several times, served briefly as an official without enjoying it, and spent much of his life poor and out of politics.

The story in four parts

The novel has 100 chapters, which fall into four unequal parts.

1. The Monkey King's rise and fall (chapters 1–7). A monkey is born from a stone on Flower Fruit Mountain. Afraid of death, he goes in search of immortality, learns 72 transformations and a "somersault cloud" that carries him 108,000 li in an instant, and takes the title "Great Sage Equal to Heaven". Disappointed with the minor post Heaven gives him, he rebels and fights the gods to a standstill, until the Buddha traps him under a mountain for 500 years.

2. The monk and his mission (chapters 8–12). The Buddha asks the bodhisattva Guanyin to find someone in China to bring scriptures back from the West. The chosen pilgrim is the monk Tang Sanzang, sent off by Emperor Taizong.

3. The pilgrimage (chapters 13–99). This is the long heart of the book. Along the Silk Road, through a mostly imaginary landscape of gorges and mountains, Sanzang gathers his disciples and faces demon after demon. Many monsters want to eat him, because his flesh is believed to grant immortality. Episodes usually run one to four chapters: Sanzang is captured, and his disciples find an ingenious, often violent way to rescue him. The travellers meet a White Bone Demon, rivers too wide to cross, flaming mountains, a kingdom of women and seductive spider spirits. Near the end, the Buddha even arranges one last disaster, because the pilgrims are one short of the 81 tribulations required before Buddhahood.

4. Return and reward (chapter 100). The pilgrims carry the scriptures home and each receives a heavenly post. Sun Wukong and Sanzang become Buddhas, while greedy Zhu Bajie is made "Cleanser of the Altars", a job that lets him eat leftover offerings.

The pilgrims

• Sun Wukong, the Monkey King – clever, proud, funny and unbelievably strong. His staff can shrink to the size of a needle and hide in his ear. To keep him in line, Guanyin places a band around his head that Sanzang can tighten by chanting a spell, which the disciples nickname the "Headache Sutra".
• Tang Sanzang – the gentle, often helpless monk, called "Tripitaka" in many English versions. He cannot defend himself, so he depends on his disciples, and in the allegory he represents the human heart.
• Zhu Bajie, "Pigsy" – once a heavenly marshal, banished for harassing the moon goddess Chang'e and reborn half man, half pig. He is a good fighter but lazy and greedy for food and women, which constantly sets him against Sun Wukong.
• Sha Wujing, "Sandy" – a former heavenly general banished for breaking a crystal goblet, now a quiet, dependable river ogre.
• The White Dragon Horse – a dragon prince who carries Sanzang in the form of a horse and hardly speaks.

What the novel is about

The book works on several levels at once: it is a comic adventure, a satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a source of spiritual reflection and a rich allegory. Heaven itself is run like an imperial government, with titles, ranks and officials who can be bribed or embarrassed. Spiritually, the pilgrims find enlightenment through cooperation, and each disciple can be read as part of a single person: the restless mind, the greedy appetite, the obedient follower and the will. Even their Buddhist names carry meaning; "Wukong", for instance, roughly means "awakened to emptiness".

Its legacy

The novel draws on Chinese folk religion, mythology, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, and it inspired many later comics, manga and anime. It is also considered a forerunner of xianxia, the genre that mixes martial arts with high fantasy. English readers first came to know it widely through Arthur Waley's abridged translation Monkey (1942). Adaptations include a Japanese TV series broadcast from 1978 to 1980 and often known by its theme song "Monkey Magic", China Central Television's series from the 1980s, the Korean drama A Korean Odyssey (2017) and the video game Black Myth: Wukong, released in 2024.

If you want to read it, start with a translation of the first seven chapters, which tell the Monkey King's story on their own. They are fast, funny and a perfect introduction before you join the pilgrims on the road.

Learn with Journey to the West: Chinese idioms

Idiom	Literal meaning	How it is used
七十二变 (qīshí'èr biàn)	seventy-two transformations	someone who can adapt to anything
大闹天宫 (dà nào tiāngōng)	to wreak havoc in the Heavenly Palace	to cause a huge uproar against authority
火眼金睛 (huǒyǎn jīnjīng)	fiery eyes and golden pupils	a sharp eye that sees through tricks
九九八十一难 (jiǔjiǔ bāshíyī nàn)	nine times nine, eighty-one trials	endless difficulties on the way to a goal
跳不出如来佛的手掌心 (tiào bù chū Rúlái Fó de shǒuzhǎng xīn)	cannot jump out of the Buddha's palm	cannot escape someone's control

Try this: Use 火眼金睛 in an English sentence about someone who spotted a lie, then say the idiom aloud three times, paying attention to the tones.