Chapter 1

Monkey goes off across the oceans to find a divine education

**The Divine Root Conceives, Its Source Revealed; Mind And Nature Nurtured, The Great Way Is Born** (靈根育孕源流出 心性修持大道生, *Línggēn yùyùn yuánliúchū, xīnxìng xiūchí dàdào shēng*?) is the first chapter of the novel *Journey to the West*.

## Summary

Eons after the universe is created, the Monkey King is born on Flowers and Fruit Mountain. He becomes the king of a group of monkeys, gaining the moniker "Handsome Monkey King", and rules from the Water Curtain Cave. To obtain immortality and escape reincarnation, the Monkey King travels to the faraway Western Continent and becomes a disciple under an immortal patriarch called Puti Zushi, where the monkey king receives the name "Sun Wukong".

## Synopsis

*In the arithmetic of the universe, 129,600 years make one cycle. Each cycle can be divided into twelve phases/branches, and each phase lasts 10,800 years. Before creation, Heaven and Earth were still one in the Great Vagueness. At the beginning of a new cycle in Phase I, Heaven first had a foundation. The light and pure rose upwards, and the sun, moon, stars, and constellations were created simultaneously. At the height of Phase II, the heavy and impure congealed into the Earth. Water, fire, mountains, stone, and Earth came into being. At the beginning of Phase III, the essences of Heaven and Earth intermingled, and from that all living creatures were born. At the height of Phase III, Man was created.*

A long time ago, in a world put in physical and moral order by the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, there were four great continents: The Eastern Continent of Superior Body, the Western Continent of Cattle−gift, the Southern Continent of Jambu, and the Northern Continent of Kuru, all surrounded by the Four Seas. Beyond the seas sat a country called Aolai, and in the middle of the ocean was a famous island called the Flowers and Fruit Mountain, the ancestral artery of the Ten Continents and the Three Islands, formed at the moment of creation itself. The island's summit towered above the Eastern Sea, offering residence to many flora and (supernatural) fauna.

There was once a large magical stone on top of the mountain that had been influenced by the world since the moment of creation. After absorbing their essences for eons, it developed a magic womb, which one day burst open to reveal a stone egg. After the wind blew it into the shape of a Stone Monkey, it became alive. The Stone Monkey bowed to each of the four directions, accidentally activating two rays of golden light from his eyes that shot up to the Heavens and startled its ruler, the Supreme Heavenly Sage, the Greatly Compassionate Jade Emperor of the Azure Vault of Heaven. The Jade Emperor sent two of His officers, Thousand-mile Eye with clairvoyance and Wind-accompanying Ear with godlike hearing, to the Southern Heavenly Gate to investigate. The two soon reported back to Him that it was the doing of some magical creature down below, which the Jade Emperor, in all His benevolence and mercy, dismissed as unremarkable.

Back below, the stone monkey grew up at an alarming pace, eating, drinking, and befriending a horde of monkeys. As they frolicked around the island without a care in the world, they one day started wondering where the stream in which they always bathed came from. They decided to find out and climbed the mountain to find it. When they reached its source, they saw a waterfall cascading from a spring that went down to join the waves of the sea. Eventually, it was agreed upon that whichever monkey was clever enough to go through the waterfall and come back out in one piece will be their new king. After it was proclaimed three times, the stone monkey leaped out and volunteered himself. He shut his eyes and leaped straight through the waterfall, where he found a large cavern that seemed like a house. The water that rushed under the iron bridge leading to the cave poured out through a fissure in the rocks, thus screening the gateway to the bridge. The house already had pre-made furniture and other objects made of stone. At the middle of the bridge was a stone tablet, in which was the inscription "*Happy Land of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, Cave Heaven of the Water Curtain."* The monkey saw this as a perfect place for living with protection against the elements and the whims of the Heavens.

After the stone monkey came out and introduced the cave to the other monkeys, they agreed to move in with their entire group. Soon, all the monkeys entered the cave and immediately began fighting over possession of rooms and furniture. The stone monkey lowered himself into the main seat and requested the monkeys fulfill their promise to make him king since he had the requirements. The monkeys kept their words and prostrated before him, acclaiming him as the "Great King of the Thousand Years." The Stone Monkey then took to the throne, renaming himself the "Handsome Monkey King." He created an entire bureaucracy for the monkeys and ruled for a time without worry. But one day, worried about the future, he started weeping during a banquet. He feared the day would inevitably come when he would die and depart for the Underworld of the Yama King. Then, a gibbon advised him to seek enlightenment for immortality and eternal youth to escape the wheel of reincarnation like the Buddhas, Immortals, and Holy Sages. Hearing this, the monkey king swore he would discover the secrets of said immortality and decided to descend the mountain tomorrow, leaving the island to find the immortals.

After a huge banquet to see him off, the monkey king departed on a raft and sailed with the wind towards the Southern Continent of Jambu]]. After some days of sailing, he reached its Northwestern shore. Once he came ashore, he stripped a fisherman of his clothes and dressed like a human. Afterward, he roamed through the provinces and prefectures of the continent, learning human speech and behavior as he went. But whenever and wherever he asked about immortality and eternal youth, he saw the people were too concerned with fame and fortune. He kept going for 8 or 9 years until he reached the Western Ocean, across which was the Western Continent of Cattle-gift. The monkey king assumed that that was where the immortals lived and crossed over. When he reached the summit of a mountain, he heard a song mentioning immortals coming from the forest. The song came from a Woodcutter whom the monkey king mistook as an immortal. The woodcutter learned this song from a real immortal that lived near his hut in the Cave of the Setting Moon and the Three Stars on this Spirit Tower Heart Mountain. In that cave lived Puti Zushi, an immortal patriarch with 30 to 40 disciples cultivating themselves. After learning this from the woodcutter, the monkey king took the path south for two or three miles and reached the cave.

The surroundings of the magnificent cave rivaled paradise in beauty, but the monkey king did not dare to knock on the cave door. So he waited and ate some pine seeds. Before long, an immortal boy came out to investigate a disturbance. The monkey king came down and introduced himself and his intent to study under Puti Zushi. It seemed Subhuti had predicted his arrival and sent the boy to receive him. The two entered the cave and saw the patriarch Puti Zushi sitting in an elevated position with 36 minor immortals below. After the monkey king paid his respects to him, Puti Zushi asked him for his name and place of origin. When he heard he came from the Flowers and Fruit Mountain in faraway Aolai on the Eastern Continent, Puti Zushi ordered the monkey to be thrown out, for the patriarch did not believe he crossed such a distance. But after learning the monkey wandered through the continents for over ten years before arriving here, Puti Zushi asked him for his surname instead, which the monkey king did not have. The patriarch offered to give him a name and inspected his appearance. After some observation and deliberation, Puti Zushi bestowed the dharma name "Sun Wukong" onto the monkey king, meaning "Monkey Awakened to Emptiness," much to the newly-born Sun Wukong's joy.

## Characters

* Sun Wukong
* Jade Emperor
* Thousand-mile Eye
* Wind-accompanying Ear
* Yama King
* Woodcutter
* Puti Zushi

## Intro poem

* Hanzi
* Pinyin
* English

    混沌未分天地亂，茫茫渺渺無人見。

    自從盤古破鴻濛，開闢從茲清濁辨。

    覆載群生仰至仁，發明萬物皆成善。

    欲知造化會元功，須看西遊釋厄傳。

hundun mo fen tian di luan, mangmang miaomiao wuren jian.

zicong pangu po mingmeng, kaipi cong ci qing zhuo bian.

fuzai qunsheng yang zhi ren, faming wanwu xie cheng shan.

yuzhi zaohua hui yuan gong, xukan xiyou shi'e chuan.

Ere Chaos’s divide, with Heav’n and Earth a mess,

No human appeared in this murkiness.

When Pan Gu broke the nebula apart,

The dense and pure defined, did clearing start.

Enfold all life supreme humaneness would,

And teach all things how become good they should.

To know cyclic time’s work, if that’s your quest,

Read Tale of Woes Dispelled on Journey West.

## Trivia

* 129,600 years make one cycle. Each cycle can be divided into twelve phases / branches. Each phase lasts 10,800 years. The story compares the 12 phases to 12 subdivisions in a day (1-4 the sun rises, 6 one does business, 8-12 the sun sets).
* Subhuti asks the Monkey King what his surname is (你姓什么 ni xing shenme). In the Chinese text, the monkey misinterprets 姓 (xing, surname) as 性 (xing) and answers that he has no xing (我无性).
	+ Anthony Yu translates this as: "I'm not surly. If people call me names it doesn't bother me, and if they hit me I don't get angry. I'm just polite to them and that's that. I've never been surly."
	+ In Chinese xing 性 can refer to 性格 personality / temperament, 人性 human nature / disposition, and 性别 gender. So when monkey says he has no xing, it can mean he has no temperament and is unaffected when other people scold or hit him.
	+ Moreover wuxing 无性 is a Buddhist term that refers to dharmas lacking 'substance' (一切诸法无实体).
		- This usage originates from Tang Jiaoran (唐·皎然《妙喜寺赋得夜磬送吕评事》).
		- 无性 also means asexual.
* Subhuti says the Monkey King looks like a husun (猢狲 which is translated as rhesus monkey or macaque) and contemplates giving the Monkey King the surname Hu (猢). Hu is composed of the 3 components:
	1. 犭quan referring to animal (from 犬 or dog),
	2. 古 gu, meaning old
	3. 月 yue, meaning moon
* However, Subhuti ultimately gives the Monkey King the surname Sun 孙 as it fits better.
	+ Subhuti explains that 孙 is composed of the parts zi 子 meaning person and xiao 小 meaning small.
* Subhuti says there are 12 words in his sect: broad, great, wisdom, intelligence, true, likeness, nature, sea, bright, awakened, complete and enlightenment (广、大、智、慧、真、如、性、海、颖、悟、圆、觉); and that the monkey belonged to the 10th generation of disciples, so the 10th word 悟 (wu, awakened) will be part of his new name.
	+ Subhuti then bestows the dharma name Sun Wukong on to the monkey, saying it means "Monkey Awakened to Emptiness".