Tripitaka

**Xuanzang**, or **Tripitaka**, is a Buddhist monk and the main character in the Journey To The West. He is also the reincarnation of Golden Cicada. He was chosen by Kuan Yin and the Buddha to make a journey to pick up some scrolls (also called the Tripitaka) and use them to spread Buddhism in the east. He is voiced by Blue.

## Overview

Xuanzang is the grandson of an emperor and has been a monk his whole life after being Moses'd by his mother and is the reincarnation of Golden Cicada, an original disciple of the Buddha and holy being. He is basically the best dude ever. Unfortunately, this tends to a fault as he is also very gullible, and he and Monkey often butt heads over Monkey's actions; this is due to Monkey representing the mind and thus being impulsive and volatile.

Xuanzang has been kidnapped eight times so far on his journey.

### The Monkey King (Journey To The West Part 1)

Xuanzang appears briefly as Red explains that *The Journey to the West* is about him, not Sun Wukong, despite Xuanzang's lack of appearances in the first seven chapters.

### The Journey To The West (Part II)

Three court officials decide on Xuanzang to present a memorial to the Tang Emperor at the Grand Mass. Then, as Xuanzang is presenting the memorial, Quan Yin reveals herself to the court, and requests someone to go on a pilgrimage to go to the western heaven and retrieve the Tripitaka, Buddha's fancy scriptures. Xuanzang volunteers and is given the byname Tripitaka, a horse and two attendants.

The group is captured and his attendants are killed and eaten by demons. After eating, the demons rest for the night, leaving Tripitaka still captured. However, he is saved by the Gold Star of Venus disguised as an old man. Later, Tripitaka is saved from being eaten by the friendly hunter Poqin. Then, after an awkward dinner of not-vegetarian food and accidentally pacifying the ghost of Poqin's father, Poqin escorts Tripitaka to the edge of the Tang Empire.

At the border, they arrive at Five Phases Mountain, where they meet Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. He tells them that Quan Yin said that Tripitaka would let him out. Tripitaka agrees to do so, and climbs to the top of the mountain to remove the magic seal. Tripitaka takes the seal off and Monkey destroys the mountain. Tripitaka and Monkey are attacked by bandits, and Monkey kills all of them. However, Tripitaka tells Monkey that he can't kill people if he wants to keep going on the journey, to which Monkey responds by leaving in a huff.

Quan Yin, while disguised as an old woman, gives Tripitaka a hat, some clothes, and a spell to help him control Monkey. Monkey eventually returns, and Tripitaka gives him the clothes. Monkey puts them on, but when Tripitaka starts reciting the spell, the hat shrinks and gives him a splitting headache. After trying to get out of the hat, Monkey resigns himself to the fact that he can't get up to his hijinks anymore.

Tripitaka and Monkey keep trekking onward until they run into an enormous dragon that eats their horse. Tripitaka hides while Monkey fights the dragon, who runs away. Monkey gets Quan Yin who tells the dragon to turn into a replacement horse for Tripitaka.

Tripitaka, the horse, and Monkey keep going when they arrive at a monastery run by a sketchy old monk. During the night, however, the monk burns down the monastery in an attempt to steal his cassock. Monkey, smelling the smoke, lets the Monastery burn down but puts a fireproof cloak over Tripitaka and the horse. Despite this, a mountain demon steals the cassock anyway, and the old monk kills himself. Monkey and Quan Yin then kill the demon and get the cassock back.

### The Journey To The West (Part III)

Tripitaka and Monkey arrive at a village and help a patriarch by serving divorce papers to a pig demon. Monkey defeats him and it is revealed that he was selected by Quan Yin to help Tripitaka. Tripitaka is excited about having another disciple, and the patriarch then throws a banquet for the group, and then they continue on their journey.

The group encounters the Crow's Nest zen master, who warns Tripitaka that there will be many demons and monsters on their journey. He then gives Tripitaka the Heart Sutra, which will protect him from danger when he recites it, tells him to be on the lookout for a water spirit, and leaves back to his nest.

The group is attacked by a tiger demon, who pulls off his skin and kidnaps Tripitaka. He takes him to his boss, a cave demon, and they debate how to eat him. However, Monkey and Pigsy go to rescue Tripitaka, and, with the help of the Bodhisattva Lingqi, defeat the Tiger and Cave demons and rescue Tripitaka.

Eventually, the group run into a turbulent river with a river demon living in it. After unsuccessful attempts to defeat the demon, Monkey gets Moksa to help. He tells the river demon, Sandy, that the scripture pilgrim he was selected to help was Tripitaka, so he joins the group and they continue on their journey.

### The Journey To The West (Part IV)

While journeying through some mountains, Tripitaka starts feeling hungry, so Monkey goes out to find some fruit for him. The White Bone Spirit living in the mountains spots Tripitaka and makes a plan to eat him to gain immortality. She disguises herself as a young woman and then her non-existent parents to get close to him, but Monkey sees through her disguises and kills them every time. However, Pigsy convinces Tripitaka that they were just innocent people, and Tripitaka then banishes Monkey from the group.

The remaining members of the group enter an ominous forest. Tripitaka sends out Pigsy to find some food, but Pigsy takes a nap instead. Tripitaka then goes into a nearby pagoda to light incense and pray. However, it turns out that the pagoda was actually a demon cave, and Tripitaka is once again captured. Sandy gets Pigsy, and the two and a multitude of other gods fight the demon in the cave, although they are unable to defeat him. Fortunately, the demon's wife, Hundred Flowers Shame, frees Tripitaka, gives him a letter, and convinces her husband to stop attacking them. Tripitaka, Sandy, and Pigsy then hastily escape.

The trio comes across the kingdom where Hundred Flowers Shame was kidnapped from. The king asks Tripitaka's disciples if they could defeat the demon, and Pigsy arrogantly shows off his powers, convincing the king that he is well-suited for the job. Pigsy and Sandy then go to fight the demon, and the two are soundly defeated, with Sandy being captured and Pigsy hiding in a bush. The demon then goes to the king and tells him a story about a shape-shifting tiger demon that was threatening the princess. He then puts a tiger illusion around Tripitaka, convinces the king that he's the demon, and has him imprisoned.

Later, Monkey returns to the group and defeats the demon, and he and Hundred Flowers Shame explains to the king that Tripitaka is not a tiger demon. Monkey then frees Tripitaka and the group continues on their journey.

### The Journey To The West (Part V)

Tripitaka and Co. come upon a huge, foreboding mountain, so Tripitaka sends Pigsy to scout it out. Monkey doesn't trust him to do this and tails him as a fly. Eventually, Monkey returns and informs Tripitaka that Pigsy didn't actually do any scouting and that he would return with a story about an enormous demon stronghold. When Pigsy returns, he goes into his spiel and is immediately caught and sent back out to scout properly. He doesn't return for a while, and this gets Tripitaka a bit worried, but Monkey tells him to relax since Pigsy would have come running back if there was any danger. The crew keeps moving, but Tripitaka is on edge; unbeknownst to them, they are being tailed by the demon Silver Horn Big King, younger brother of Gold Horn Big King, who both captured Pigsy, and Tripitaka is picking up on his presence. Monkey cheers Tripitaka up with a fancy and impressive martial arts demonstration that also intimidates the demon into revising his plan of kidnapping Tripitaka to instead sneakily take down Monkey instead.

The demon transforms into an elderly man with a broken leg and puts himself on the path of the group. Tripitaka takes pity on him and has Monkey carry him, who cheerfully obliges. Unfortunately, Monkey is privy to the demon's plan and threatens to throw him off a cliff, so the demon orders some mountain demons to drop three mountains on Monkey, barely pinning him down, and then captures Tripitaka, Sandy, and the horse.

Later, in the demon brothers' cave, Monkey shows up disguised as their mother. Pigsy recognizes him from his tail and begins to laugh like crazy. The demons offer Tripitaka to their "mother" to eat, but Monkey says he would rather have Pigsy's ears instead. A demon minion then runs into the room saying that they found the demon brothers' mother and coterie dead, so Monkey vanishes. The older brother decides to not deal with this by just giving Tripitaka back, but the younger brother asks to let him duel Monkey, and that whoever wins gets the monk. The younger brother and Monkey fight, but Monkey is eventually defeated, tied up, and brought back to the demon brothers' cave. Monkey, however, uses his staff as a file to cut the rope he was tied up with and surreptitiously escaped, leaving a duplicate in his place while transforming into a demon servant. Eventually, Monkey successfully steals four out of five of the demons' sacred treasures, kills the younger brother, forces the older brother to flee, and rescues the group. They all take a moment to eat some food and give Monkey some flack for getting the treasures before them.

Soon after, Monkey spots a giant demon army being led by the older brother and his uncle and warns Tripitaka. Then Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy go out and defeat the giant demon army, killing the uncle and the older brother, Monkey gets the five treasures, and the group continues on their merry way. Unfortunately, they run into Lao Tzu, who asks for the five treasures back since they were his. He then explains that the demons are his lab assistants sent by Quan Yin to test the group and reverts the two to their original forms. The crew then continues on their journey.

### The Journey To The West (Part VI)

The group eventually comes across another set of foreboding mountains. Monkey, seeing a pattern, gives the crew a warning when a flaming red cloud appears. Monkey instantly recognizes it as a demon and tackles Tripitaka off the horse. The demon, recognizing Monkey as a problem, retreats back into the mountains, and the group continue through the mountains.

The demon changes his plan and transforms himself into a malnourished child hanging from a tree and begins calling for help. Tripitaka hears his cries and says they should go help him, but Monkey ignores the cries and fast-forwards the group up the mountain. Later, Monkey sees the demon again pass through the air above them as a cloud and tackles Tripitaka. Despite his yelling at Monkey, Tripitaka hears the demon's cries again and goes to investigate.

When they find the demon, again disguised as a boy, he introduces himself as Red Boy and goes on about how his parents are dead and bandits left him there to starve. Tripitaka instantly believes him and orders Pigsy to cut him down, but Monkey isn't so keen on the plan. He notes that since the kid has no parents or anyone else to take care of him, they should just leave him here to die. His distressingly morbid logic doesn't convince anyone, and they take the boy and give him to Monkey to carry. Monkey gets grumpier at Tripitaka as they continue their journey, and Red Boy senses this and makes himself much heavier on Monkey's back. This futile attempt does nothing to Monkey, and the Red Boy drops his form just before getting destroyed by Monkey. He then kidnaps Tripitaka in a whirlwind. After an arduous and fiery battle and a bail out from Quan Yin, Monkey, Sandy, and Pigsy defeat Red Boy, rescue Tripitaka, and continue on their journey.

## Physical Appearance

Tripitaka wears a fancy cassock. He is bald and has blue eyes.

## Appearances

* The Monkey King (Journey To The West Part 1) (Cameo)
* The Journey To The West (Part II)
* The Journey To The West (Part III)
* The Journey To The West (Part IV)
* The Journey To The West (Part V)
* The Journey To The West (Part VI)
* The Journey To The West (Part VII)
* The Journey To The West (Part VIII
* Journey To The West (Part IX)
* Journey To The West (Part X)

## Links

* Legends Summarized: The Monkey King (Journey To The West Part 1)
* Legends Summarized: The Journey To The West (Part II)
* Legends Summarized: The Journey To The West (Part III)
* Legends Summarized: The Journey To The West (Part IV)
* Legends Summarized: The Journey To The West (Part V)
* Legends Summarized: The Journey To The West (Part VI)
* Legends Summarized: The Journey To The West (Part VII)
* Legends Summarized: The Journey To The West (Part VIII)
* Legends Summarized: Journey To The West (Part IX)
* Legends Summarized: Journey To The West (Part X)