The Monkey King
BY ALPER ÖZKAN (MBG/IV)
d_ozkan@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
Are you familiar with Dragon Ball? Who am I kidding, of course you are. And you're in luck, for this week's world literature will cover it, or at least the text it was based on, Journey to the West. One of the four great classical novels of China, Journey to the West details exactly what it says on the title, a journey from the East (in this case China) to the West (India.) What it does not say is that the journey in question is taken by Xuanzang, an auspicious monk whose is said to grant immortality to any demon who consumes his flesh.
Unfortunately for him, the scarcely populated areas through which he must travel happen to be ideal homes for a host of demons, so just about everything in between China and India wants a piece of his flesh. It must be noted that the Turkish expansion in Central Asia had begun slightly earlier than Xuanzang's journey and the Tang Dynasty was in conflict with Göktürks at the time, so yes, the Turks might account for some of the demon population there (I wonder how monks taste). Anyhow, the celestial host who sent him to this journey wasn't stupid, though, so he gave Xuanzang a companion to guard him. Journey to the West is about this companion.
You'd expect the monk to be given more attention, but this is not the case; the English translation of Journey to the West is not titled Monk. Instead it is known as Monkey, for if there is a protagonist in the novel, it is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. A stone monkey brought to life, Wukong's decidedly chaotic life had a rather humble beginning; he trained as a Buddhist disciple to acquire his formidable array of supernatural powers. Eventually the monkey grew proud, his hubris leading him to be kicked out of the temple he had joined. No matter, because Wukong by now knew enough to beat up and steal from practically anyone, including a number of dragon kings, acquiring his iconic size-changing, 8-ton staff along the way. And, since he had qualms about dying, he also took the time to descend to hell and remove the names of himself and his monkey companions from the Book of Life and Death, thus ensuring his immortality. The Monkey's misdeeds were heard in Heaven, where he was called to report. In order to calm his chaotic nature, he was given a divine rank, but he eventually took insult to his treatment (having been excluded from a banquet) and decided that it's about time to conquer the heavens.
If you're fighting a war against Heaven, you can never be immortal enough, so after stealing a few objects that would grant him just that, the Monkey started his struggle. After a gruelling battle against the one-monkey army, the forces of Heaven succeed in capturing him, and for his sins he is imprisoned in the Eight-Trigrams Reactor, capable of destroying even immortals (the Eight-Trigrams Reactor was in effect very similar to the Large Hadron Collider, so my greatest fear upon the activation of LHC was an impish monkey king leaping out of it. Either that or the structure is actually a giant robot in disguise and will defend humanity in its darkest hour with its Graviton Cannon). But Wukong was no ordinary immortal, so he was fairly unfazed with this ordeal, and even got new powers out of the sacred flames that powered the reactor. Left with no other way to deal with the Monkey, the helpless lords of Heaven called upon the Buddha to help, and he offered a challenge to Wukong: If he can get out of the Buddha's hand in a single leap, the Monkey King would be set free. Wukong naturally accepted and leaped off, eventually landing near five pillars, and sure of his victory he urinated on one of them, only to notice that those five pillars were Buddha's fingers. (So yes, amongst the monkey's accomplishments is peeing on the Buddha.) He is later imprisoned by the very same Buddha, and released only because Xuanzang needed a reliable guardian or three (or rather four; their horse is also a penitent dragon who has taken that form).
Well, that was about seven chapters of the Journey. The remaining 93, mostly consisting of Xuanzang getting kidnapped and Sun Wukong and his two fellow disciples beating up everyone involved, are up for you to read.