#Buddhist and taoist figures...

[i-bring-crack]

A Journey to the West x SL crossover would be fun

Liu Zhigang as Sun Wukong

Woo Jin-Chul as Tang sanzang

Christopher Reed as Pigsy Zhu Bajie

Thomas Andre as Sandy Sha Wujing

Kaisel is the White Dragon Horse

Cha Hae-In as GuanYin

Woo Jin-Chul who always has to get saved from every kind of demon attack by Liu Zhigang and the gang, all of this crisis just to deliver some scrolls to the West. Meanwhile lady Hae-In is just giving them farewell wishes from afar with her pet fish and her disciple Han Song-Yi.

Liu Zhigang was known very well as the Sage Equal to Heaven, often caused chaos since the time of his birth, it wasn't until he got kicked to the ground by Buddha and rested over a mountain for 500 years. Then Hae-In, trying to see who would be a good candidate to take care of this very important monk, decided to go to his mountain and convince him that he shall take care of Woo Jin-Chul from all kinds of evils in this trip.

The old Lao Tzu is Go Gun Hee.

The Jade Emperor is Yoo Jin-Ho who was entirely scared of a lot Liu Zhigangs acting and the way he just became immortal like 5 times. He eventually was the one to ask for help from the Buddha.

S-

S-sung

S-sung Jin Woo as six ear macaque 👀👀👀

Sung Jin Woo creating tension between Zhigang and Jin-Chul because he knows how much zhigang cares for Jin-Chul and he is jealous of that.

Sung Jin-Woo also appearing more times in the story just to keep creating problems for Zhigang more than Jin-Chul, he gets to be a bit fond of Jin-Chul and wants to take him away so that HE can be Jin-Chul's disciple and not Zhigang, that way Zhigang cannot become enlightened with Jin-Chul.

#guys i just realised #there might be fon jinchul Mpreg #god i love the journey to the west like ill read it and proabbly make more headcanons about it here #Jin woo fooling Jin chul about being Liu Zhigang and then Liu zhigang is just over there eating peaches and crying because Woo Jin chul - #said he doesnt want him as a disciple anymore and Hae In is like 'i guess imma have to talk to him about it ughhh' #I dont know whenever I should choose Laura or Hae In as Guan Yin #I also dont know whenever its rude to change the people as whoever you want? i mean they are characters from a book but they are also real #Buddhist and taoist figures... #I mean here Jesus could be portrayed as Beyonce and no one would bat an eye. #but idk if its the same there hmmmm #anyways might just get the story from the movies too so its more acceptable #hwbisbwk im doing mental gymnastics for some reason #solo leveling #solo leveling manwha #cha hae in #sung jin woo #he only appears once lmao #but in this fanfic he will probably appear more times absolutely just to cause chaos between Jin-Chul and Zhigang #Julyarya this can absolutely count as a shipping fanfic of Zhigang and JinChul #liu zhigang #thomas andre #christopher reed #kaisel sl #go gun hee #yoo jinho #woo jin chul

[our-happygirl500-fan]

How many layers of ‘glamour’ does Macaque have?

We know that Macaque is using magic to hide his blind eye since we briefly saw it in S1EP9

However there is a chance that Macaque is changing his appearance even more than just covering up his blind eye

During S3EP8 ‘Benched’ we briefly see Macaque’s tail turn white before turning back to black & this has caused some debate on whether or not Macaque actually has white fur since there are white furred Macaque’s & previous interpretations of Macaque such as Monkey King 2009 have depicted him with more of a white furred shade

So there is the possibility that Macaque could have white fur but is using another layer of glamour to cover it up though since we saw his blind eye in season one a lot of people have argued that Macaque doesn’t have another layer of glamour usually & that the white fur we saw was from LBD’s influence on Macaque in season 3.

Whether Macaque is naturally white furred or not though in season 3 it’s possible he had two layers of glamour one to cover his blind eye and one to cover his white fur but there’s also a possibility of a third layer of glamour.

For his six ears

Despite introducing himself as the Six Eared Macaque & LBD also referring to him under the same title we’ve never actually seen Macaque’s six ears though the shows team say that Macaque’s reaction to Pigsy’s singing is a reference to his six ears & keen hearing.

There’s been some debate on whether Macaque actually has six ears since we didn’t see them when we saw his blind eye & the argument that people have made is that the six ears are metaphorical since there’s a chance that Macaque’s ‘six ears’ are actually a pun based off an old Buddhist sayings of “The dharma is not to be transmitted to the sixth ear [i.e. the third pair/ person]”. A 'sixth ear' refers to an extra person in a private conversation, someone possibly eavesdropping or listening in & Macaque is said to have exceptional hearing. 

Macaque being called the Six Eared Macaque because he has the ability to constantly be 'the sixth ear' or third party listening in on peoples conversations.

Those that believe that Macaque had come from Monkey King representing his ‘evil side’ think that Macaque’s six ears are actually a reference to the six desires a concept found in some Buddhist and Taoist writings & those desires are things that Sun Wukong had to cast aside in order to achieve true enlightenment.

However in the show there is a chance that Macaque does literally have six ears that he’s hiding since he has at least one lego figure which were given six ears & the season 3 concept art showed him with six ears as well

So there is a chance that Macaque has six ears in the show but is just covering them up though that has led to some debate on why he revealed his blind eye in S1EP9 but not his ears even though he introduced himself as the Six Eared Macaque. The debate may continue until we actually see Macaque’s six ears in the show itself.

So as it stands it’s possible that Macaque is using three layers of glamour:

One to hide his blind eye

Another to hide his white fur (debatable since the white fur could have been caused by LBD 

A final one to hide his six ears

#lego monkie kid #lmk macaque #lmk

[yamayuandadu]

Horned hermits and immoral immortals: an inquiry into Zanmu's background

As you might remember from my previous post covering Zanmu, I was initially unable to tell how her historical background led to ZUN choosing to make her an oni. The historical, or at least legendary, Zanmu seemed to be, for all intent and purposes, a human. That has since changed, and the matter now seems considerably more clear to me. Read on to learn more about the real monk Zanmu is based on, and to find out what she has in common with the most famous Zen master in history, Taoist immortals, and Tsuno Daishi. Even if you are not particularly interested in Zanmu, this article might still worth be checking out, seeing as the discussed primary sources are also relevant to a number of other Touhou characters, including Byakuren, Yoshika and Kasen.

As in the case of the previous Touhou article, special thanks go to @just9art, who helped me with tracking down sources advised me while I was working on this.

The historical Zanmu

Statue of Zanmu from the Sazaedo pagoda (Fukushima Travel; reproduced for educational purposes only) As already pointed out by 9 here even before my previous post about Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, Zanmu is based on a real monk also named Zanmu. His full name was Nichihaku Zanmu (日白残夢), and he also went by Akikaze Dōjin, but even Japanese wikipedia simply refers to him as Zanmu. ZUN basically just swapped one kanji in the name, with 日白残夢 becoming 日白残無. The character 無, which replaces original 夢 (“dream”), means “nothingness” - more on that later.The search for sources pertaining to the historical Zanmu has tragically not been very successful. In contrast with some of the stars of the previous installments, like Prince Shotoku or Matarajin, he clearly isn’t the central topic of any monographs or even just journal articles. Ultimately the main sources to fall back on are chiefly offhand mentions, blog articles and some tweets of variable trustworthiness. The only academic publication in English I was able to locate which mentions Zanmu at all is the Japanese Biographical Index from 2004, published by De Gruyter. The price of this book is frankly outrageous for what it is, so here’s the sole mention of him screencapped for your convenience:

The book referenced here is the five volume biographical dictionary Dai Nihon Jinmei Jisho from 1937. I am unable to access it, but I was nonetheless able to cobble together some information about Zanmu from other sources. Not much can be said about Zanmu’s personal life. He was a Buddhist monk (though note a legend apparently refers to him as “neither a monk nor a layperson”, a formula typically designating legendary ascetics and the like) and a notable eccentric. Both of these elements are present in the bio of his Touhou counterpart.

The Sazaedo pagoda (Fukushima Travel; reproduced for educational purposes only)

Zanmu’s tangible accomplishments seem to be tied to the temple Shoso-ji, which he apparently founded. He is enshrined in the Sazaedo pagoda near it, though this building postdates him by over 200 years. It’s located in Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima. You can see some additional photos of his statue displayed there in this tweet. It’s a pretty famous location due to its unique double helix structure, and it has a pretty extensive article on the Japanese wikipedia. It’s also covered on multiple tourist-oriented sites in English, where more photos are available (for example here or here). There’s even a model kit representing it out there. Sazeado’s fame does not really seem to have anything to do with Zanmu, though. While many Buddhist figures ZUN used as the basis for Touhou characters in the past belonged to the “esoteric” schools (Tendai and Shingon), Zanmu was a practitioner of the much better known Zen, specifically of the Rinzai school.

The kanji mu (無 ) caligraphed by Shikō Munakata (Saint Louis Art Museum; reproduced for educational purposes only) Since the concept of “nothingness” or “emptiness” represented by the kanji 無 (mu) plays a vital role in Zen (see here or here for a more detailed treatment of this topic; it’s covered on virtually every Zen-related website possible though), and there’s even a so-called mu kōan, it strikes me as possible this is the reason behind the slightly different writing of the names of ZUN’s Zanmu, as well as the source of her ability. Granted, the dialogue in the games makes it sound like Zanmu (and by extension Hisami) just talks about nothingness as a memento mori of sorts, which is not quite what it entails in Zen. Of course, ZUN does not adapt Buddhist doctrine 1:1 (lest we forget Kasen seemingly being unaware of the basics of Mahayana in WaHH) so this point might be irrelevant.

The legendary Zanmu

The eccentric monk Ikkyū (center), as imagined by Kawanabe Kyōsai (Egenolf Gallery; reproduced for educational purposes only)

A number of legends developed around the historical Zanmu. If this blog post is to be trusted, there is a tradition according to which he was a student of arguably the most famous member of the Rinzai school, and probably one of the most famous Buddhist monks in the history of Japan in general, Ikkyū. He is remembered as the archetypal eccentric monk, and spent much of his life traveling as a vagabond due to his disagreements with Buddhist establishment and unusual personal views on matters such as celibacy. As I already said in my previous article pertaining to Zanmu, long time readers of my blog might know Ikkyū from the tale of Jigoku Dayū and art inspired by it, though since this motif only arose in the Edo period it naturally does not represent an actual episode from his very much real career. 

A page from Ikkyū Gaikotsu (wikimedia commons)

In art a distinct tradition of depicting Ikkyū with skeletons developed, as seen both in the case of works showing him with his legendary student Jigoku Dayū and in the so-called Ikkyū Gaikotsu. Skeletons also played a role in Zen-inspired art in general (for more information see here). Whether this inspired ZUN to decorate Zanmu’s rock with bones is hard to determine, but it does not seem implausible. It would hardly be the deepest art history cut in the series, less arcane of a reference than the very existence of Mai and Satono or Kutaka’s pose. Obviously, it does not seem very plausible that Ikkyū ever actually met the historical Zanmu. Ikkyū passed away in 1481, and Zanmu in 1576, with his birth date currently unknown. Even if we assume he was a particularly long-lived individual and by some miracle was born while Ikkyu was still alive, it is somewhat doubtful that an elderly sick monk would be preaching Zen doctrine to an infant. However, apparently legends do provide a convenient explanation for this tradition. Purportedly Zanmu lived for an unusually long time. The figure of 139 years pops up online quite frequently, and does seem to depend on a genuine tradition, but even more fabulous claims are out there.

Kaison Hitachibō, as imagined by an unknown artist (wikimedia commons)

According to another legend, Zanmu was even older, and in fact remembered the Genpei war, which took place in the Heian period - nearly 400 years before his time. Supposedly he told many vivid tales about its famous participants, Yoshitsune and Benkei. A tradition according to which he was himself originally a legendary retainer of Yoshitsune, the warrior monk Kaison Hitachibō (常陸坊海尊) developed at some point. This has already been pointed out by others before me in relation to the Touhou version of Zanmu. From what I’ve seen, some Japanese fans in fact seem excited primarily about the prospect of Zanmu offering an opportunity to connect Touhou and works focused on the Genpei war. The tradition making Zanmu a centuries-old survivor from the Heian period must be relatively old, as his supposed immortality is already mentioned in Honchō Jinja Kō (本朝神社考; “Study of shrines”) by Razan Hayashi, who was active in the first half of the seventeenth century, mere decades after Zanmu’s death. While I found no explicit confirmation, it seems sensible to assume this legend was already in circulation while Zanmu was still alive, or at least that it developed very shortly after he passed away. Perhaps he really was invested in accounts of that period to the point he sounded as if he actually lived through it.

The choice of Kaison as Zanmu’s original name in the legend does not seem random, as there was a preexisting tradition according to which this legendary Heian figure was cursed with eternal life for betraying Yoshitsune by fleeing from the battlefield instead of remaining with his lord to die. You can read more about this here. Apparently there is a version where he instead becomes immortal to make it possible to pass down the story of the Genpei war to future generations (this is the only source I have to offer though), and there's even a well-received stage play based on it, Hitachibō Kaison (translated as "Kaison, priest of Hitachi") by Matsuyo Akimoto. Another thing worth pointing out is that Kaison was seemingly a Tendai monk from Mount Hiei, which means that even though Okina isn’t in a new game, you can still claim she’s metaphorically casting her shadow over it in some way if you squint (and that’s without going into the fact sarugami are associated with Mount Hiei). I've seen two separate sources which mention that according to a legend he trained Benkei there, and that the two did not get along because Kaison was a corrupt monk (lustful, keen on substance abuse, greedy, the usual routine). You can access them here and here,but bear in mind they're old. Zanmu’s Genpei war connection does not really seem to matter in Touhou, though, as ZUN pretty explicitly situated his version in the Sengoku period, with no mention of earlier events. Granted, if you like it, this should not prevent you from embracing the view that Zanmu is an alter ego of Kaison as your headcanon - as I said people are already doing that. It seems equally fair game as “Okina is Hata no Kawakatsu”, easily one of the most popular “historical” headcanons in the history of the franchise. According to this twitter thread, the legends about Zanmu’s longevity (or immortality) have a pretty long lifespan themseles, as they were referenced by relatively high profile modern writers, like Orikuchi Shinbou and Tatsuhiko Shibusawa. 

Buddhist immortals

A word carving of a sennin, "immortal" or "hermit" (wikimedia commons)

Legends about long-lived (or outright immortal) monks, such as Zanmu or Kaison, are hardly uncommon. A work which seems to be the key to understanding their early development, and by extension possibly also the portrayal of Zanmu in Touhou, might be Honchō Shinsenden, “Records of Japanese Immortals”. This title refers to a collection of setsuwa, short stories typically meant to convey religious knowledge or morals. Its title pretty much tells you what to expect. Honchō Shinsenden is an interesting work in that while it in theory deals with Buddhism, and largely describes the individual immortals as, well, Buddhists, it ultimately reflects a Taoist tradition. There is a strong case to be made that it was an inspiration for another Touhou installment, specifically Ten Desires, already, seeing as it mentions prince Shotoku and Miyako no Yoshika and its Taoist-adjacent context has a long paper trail in scholarship, but I will not go too deep into that topic here - expect it to be covered in a separate article later on. Stories of immortals are pretty schematic, and their protagonists can be categorized as belonging to a number of archetypes. I think it’s safe to say this has a lot to do with the self-referential character of this sort of literature - compilers of new works were obviously familiar with their forerunners, and imitated them for the sake of authenticity. In China, literary accounts of the lives of immortals circulated as early as in the first century BCE, with the concept of immortals (xian, 仙, read as sen in Japanese; this term and its derivatives have various other translations too, with Touhou media generally favoring “hermit”) itself already appearing slightly earlier. It seems Shenxian Zhuan (Biographies of Spirit Immortals) by a certain Ge Xuan, certified immortals enthusiast and cinnabar-based immortality elixir connoisseur (discussing and developing immortality elixirs was a popular pastime for literati in ancient and medieval China), can in particular be considered the inspiration for the later Japanese compilation. While the concept of immortals was largely developed by Taoists, tales focused on them were already not strictly the domain of Taoism by the time they reached Japan. They were embraced in Chinese culture in general, both in strictly religious context and more broadly in art. In Japan, they came to be incorporated into Buddhist worldview, and in fact Honchō Shinsenden states that their protagonists can be understood as “living Buddhas” (ikibotoke), a designation used to refer to particularly saintly Buddhists. Their devotion to both Buddhas and other related figures, and to local kami, is stressed multiple times too.

Presumably this was the result of the influence of the Japanese Buddhist concept of hijiri (聖), a type of particularly rigorous solitary ascetic in popular imagination regarded as almost divine. Needless to say, most of you are actually familiar with the hijiri even if you never read about them, as this is the source of Byakuren’s surname and a clear influence on her character too. In Honchō Shinsenden, it is outright said that the sign 仙, normally read as sen, should be read as hijiri in this case.

A portrait of Huisi (wikimedia commons)

The notion of extending one’s lifespan was not incompatible with Buddhism, as evidenced by tales of adepts who lived for a supernaturally long period of time to show their compassion to more beings or to get closer to the coming of Maitreya. Even the founder of the Tiantai school of Buddhism (the forerunner of Japanese Tendai), Huisi, was said to meditate in hopes of extending his life to witness Maitreya. At the same time, Chinese compilations of stories about immortals do not list Buddhists among them, in contrast with Japanese ones. This might be due to the rivalry between these religions which was at times rather pronounced in Tang China, culminating in events such as emperor Wuzong's persecution of Buddhism. Let’s return to Honchō Shinsenden, though. Its original author was most likely Ōe no Masafusa, active in the second half of the eleventh century. No full copy survives, but the original contents can nonetheless be restored based on various fragmentary manuscripts. Some of the sections are preserved as quotations in other texts or in larger compilations of stories, too. I have seen claims online that the historical Zanmu is covered in some editions of the Honchō Shinsenden or works dependent on it. So far I was only able to determine with certainty that Zanmu is covered alongside the immortals from Honchō Shinsenden in at least one modern monograph (Nishi-Nihon-hen by Kōsai Chigiri; if anyone of you have access to it I’d be interested to learn what exactly it says about Zanmu) and a number of posts and articles online. However, he lived around 400 years after this work was completed, so he quite obviously does not appear in its original version, contrary to what the Touhou wiki says right now. Masafusa does not necessarily portray the immortals as pinnacles of morality, and indeed moral virtues do not seem to be a prerequisite for attaining this status in his work. It is therefore possible that despite being setsuwa, his tales of immortals were an entirely literary endeavor and were not meant to evoke piety, let alone promote the worship of described figures.

A recurring pattern which unifies all of these tales is describing immortals as eccentric. As I already noted, this is a distinct characteristic of the historical Zanmu too, and it comes up in the bio of his Touhou counterpart as well. She has “reached the absolute pinnacle of eccentricity”. It seems safe to say ZUN is aware of that pattern, then, and consciously chose to highlight this. He also stresses that Zanmu has lived through an era of marital strife, specifically through the Sengoku period. The inclusion of such episodes is another innovation typical for Japanese immortal tales, and does appear to be a feature of the tradition pertaining to Zanmu’s counterpart too, as discussed above. Horned hermits?

A modern devotional statuette of Laozi with horns, found on ebay of all places; reproduced here for educational purposes only.

There is a further possible feature of Zanmu that might be tied to Honchō Shinsenden. While there are numerous physical traits attributed to immortals in Chinese sources, Masafusa decided to only ever highlight two. One of them are unusual bones, the other - horns on the forehead. Tragically one of my favorites, square pupils (mentioned in Liexian Zhuan), is missing. Masafusa relays that an anonymous hijiri, the “Rod-Striking Immortal”, grew stumpy horns as a sign of attaining his supernatural status.This might be a stretch, but perhaps Zanmu, due to being the Touhou version of a legendary immortal, also already had horns before becoming an oni. You have to admit it would be funny.

The two horns - or rather small bumps, based on available descriptions -  characteristic for some immortals were known as rijiao (日角; “sun-horn”) and yuenxuan (月懸; “moon crescent”). Such unusual physical features were already attributed to various legendary and historical rulers and sages in China in the first century CE, so this is not really a Taoist invention, but rather an adoption of beliefs widespread in China in the formative years of this religion. They also intersected with the early Buddhist tradition about the so-called “32 marks of the Buddha”, documented for example in Mahāvastu and later in Chinese Mahayana tradition which Taoist authors were familiar with. Yu the Great, the flood hero, was among the legendary figures said to possess horns in Chinese tradition. It is even sometimes believed Laozi had them when he was born, which according to Livia Kohn was meant to symbolically elevate him to the rank of such mythical figures as Fuxi.

While this is ultimately a post focused on Zanmu, I think it’s worth pointing out this belief in horned ascetics has very funny implications for Kasen. Being a “horned hermit” is not really an issue, it would appear. If anything, it adds a sense of authenticity. Clearly Kasen needs to study the classics more.

Immortals (and mortals) in hell

One last connection between Zanmu and legends about immortals is her role as an official in hell. However, this is much less directl. Early Chinese sources mention “Agents Beneath the Earth” (dixia zhu zhe 地下主者), a rank available to low class immortals choosing to serve in the land of the dead. They could be contrasted with the immortals inhabiting heaven, regarded as higher ranked than them. However, note that there are also many narratives focused on mortals becoming officials in hell - in Japan arguably the most famous case is the tale of Ono no Takamura, a historical poet from the early Heian period. In Chinese culture there are multiple examples but I think none come close to the popularity of judge Bao. It does not seem any immortals playing a similar role retain equal prominence in culture. Ultimately this paragraph is only a curiosity, and a much closer parallel to Zanmu's role in hell exists - and it’s connected to materials ZUN already referenced to booth.

Corrupt monks, oni and tengu

Ryōgen, the most famous monk turned demon, and his alter ego Tsuno Daishi (wikimedia commons)

In addition to characterizing Zanmu as eccentric, ZUN also wrote in her bio that she is a corrupt monk. As we learn, she developed a belief that the best way to reconcile the Sengoku period ethos which demanded boasting about the number of enemies killed with Buddhist precepts was to focus on spirits rather than the living, since she will basically deliver salvation to them. She ultimately “absorbed some beast-youkai spirits, thus discarding her life as a human”. This to my best knowledge does not really match any genuine tradition about the historical Zanmu, related figures or anyone else. As far as I can tell, it’s hard to find a direct parallel either in irl material or elsewhere in Touhou... at least if we stick to the details. More vaguely similar examples are not only attested, discussing them was for a time arguably the backbone of Buddhist discourse in Japan, and neatly explains why Zanmu became an oni. The idea that monks who broke Buddhist precepts in some way turned into monsters is not ZUN’s invention. It first appears in sources from the Heian period, and gained greater relevance in the Kamakura period. Particularly commonly it was asserted that members of Buddhist clergy who fail to attain nirvana turn into tengu. However, oni were an option too. Bernard Faure points out that Ryōgen, the archetypal example of a fallen monk (see here for a detailed discussion of this topic, and of his return to grace as a demon keeping other demons at bay), could be described as reborn as an oni, for example. The Shingon monk Shinzei is variously described as turning into an oni, a tengu or an onryō (vengeful spirit). Oni are also referenced in a similar context in Heike Monogatari alongside tenma, a term referring to demons obstructing enlightenment in general.

Corrupt monks turned into tengu in the Tengu Zoshi Emaki (wikimedia commons)

Typically it was believed that monks who turned into demons went to a realm variously known as makai, tengudō or madō. As you may know, normally there are three realms one should avoid reincarnating in - beasts, hungry ghosts and hell - but this was basically a bonus fourth one. Granted, this view was not recognized universally, and the alternative interpretation was that it was just a specific hell with a distinct name. At the absolute peak of this concept’s relevance, the foremost Buddhist thinkers of these times, including Nichiren, were accusing each other of being demons. Additionally, some of the past emperors, especially Sutoku and Goshirakawa, could be presented as tengu, for example in Hōgen monogatari. There was also an interest in finding gods who could keep the forces of disorder at bay. You can see echoes of these beliefs in rituals pertaining to Matarajin, which ZUN rather explicitly referenced in Aya's route in Hidden Star in Four Seasons. Typically the reason behind transformation into an oni, tengu or another vaguely similar being were earthly attachments. Alternatively, it could be pursuing gejutsu, “outside arts”, essentially teachings which fell outside of what was permitted by Buddhism. Note this does not necessarily mean anything originating in religions other than Buddhism, though, the term is more nuanced. So, for instance worship of kami or following Confucian values are perfectly fair game. A synonymous term was gedō, “heretical” way (on the use of the term “heresy” in the context of study of Buddhism see here). We can make a case for Zanmu’s bio alluding to that - she wanted to adhere to the social norms of the Sengoku period by symbolically taking in a headcount by absorbing spirits, I suppose. That’s not really a thing in any Buddhist literature, though, and I assume ZUN came up with this himself. Conclusion While this article is slightly less rigorous than my recent research ventures pertaining to Matarajin, let alone the Mesopotamian wiki operations, I hope it nonetheless sheds some additional light on Zanmu. I will admit I already liked her even before I started digging into the possible inspiration behind her, and finding out more only strengthened my enthusiasm. While there are clear parallels between Zanmu, her namesake and a variety of other characters from Japanese and Chinese literature and religions, as usual for a character made by ZUN her strength lies both in creative repurposing of these elements and in adding something new.

Postscriptum: Zanmu and Tang Sanzang?

Xuanzang, as depicted by an unknown Qing artist (wikimedia commons) While much about Zanmu’s character - her backstory as an eccentric fallen monk who became a demon, her apparent zen theme, and so on  - all form a coherent whole, there is a tiny detail which does not really match anything else discussed in this article. It does not come from her dialogue or bio, but rather from Enoko’s. As we learn, she became immortal herself after eating a piece of Zanmu’s body back when the latter was still a human. Or rather, the combination of that and subsequently consuming a magical gemstone as recommended by Zanmu did it - I’m pretty sure I misread this before. As 9 pointed out to me, probably the implications are just that Enoko’s backstory is a partial reference to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, which does state that consuming the flesh of a monk would be a particularly suitable way for an ordinary animal to turn into a youkai. Still, comparisons between this tidbit and Journey to the West have been made by others before already, so I figured it would be suitable to address them here even if they lie beyond my own argument about the inspiration behind Zanmu. In this novel, many demons want to devour its protagonist Tang Sanzang because his flesh is said to make anyone who consumes immortal. This is because he is a reincarnation of Master Golden Cicada (Jinchan zi, 金蟬子), a disciple of the Buddha invented for the sake of the story. Interestingly, Sanzang is portrayed as an adherent of Chan Buddhism, the school from which Japanese Zen is derived (note that his historical forerunner Xuanzang belonged to the Yogācāra tradition instead). Despite the vague similarities, I ultimately do not think there are particularly close parallels between Zanmu and Sanzang. For starters, Zanmu is meant to be a corrupt monk, while Sanzang is the opposite of that. Their respective characters couldn’t differ more either. Throughout the entire novel, Sanzang is a pretty poor planner, shows doubt in his own abilities, and regularly misjudges the situation. Needless to say this does not exactly offer a good parallel to Zanmu. Sure, she creates a bootleg Wukong, but Sanzang did not create Wukong, the famous primate was just assigned to him as a bodyguard. Therefore, until evidence on the contrary appears (for example in an interview) I would personally remain cautiously pessimistic regarding a possible connection here.  Recommended reading

Bernard Faure, Rage and Ravage (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 3)

Noga Ganany, Baogong as King Yama in the Literature and Religious Worship of Late-Imperial China

Zornica Kirkova, Roaming into the Beyond: Representations of Xian Immortality in Early Medieval Chinese Verse

Christoph Kleine & Livia Kohn, Daoist Immortality and Buddhist Holiness: A Study and Translation of the Honchō shinsen-den 

Livia Kohn, The Looks of Laozi

James Robson, The Institution of Daoism in the Central Region (Xiangzhong) of Hunan

Haruko Wakabayashi, From Conqueror of Evil to Devil King: Ryogen and Notions of Ma in Medieval Japanese Buddhism

Idem, The Seven Tengu Scrolls. Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism

#touhou #zanmu nippaku #nippaku zanmu

[namazunomegami]

emperor!geto x imperial concubine!reader

a/n: I’ve spent way too much time to research about chinese imperial concubines, playing with Royal Chaos during my highschool years and I had a boring shift at work. This is the result. Probably out of character as hell but hey, I wrote this for my enjoyment.

This is part 1 of a lil historical AU drabble series. I’m already finished with Sukuna, Gojo is in the works, and I got some ideas for Choso and Toji but don't think too much about it, ideas are just ideas.

I was so close to write reader as gender neutral but reader owns a type of traditional chinese headgear used exclusively by noblewomen so... yeah, reader is afab if you squint (very hard).

Likes and reblogs are appreciated, mwah <3

wc: 1011, I initally wanted a few headcannons but I got a full ass drabble

cw: suggestive, false accusations, implied murder, mentions of whipping, choking (not the kinky kind), yandere behavior

credits: renmakia for the gorgeous fanart and my dear @notveryrussian for proofreading and just putting up with my massive jjk brainrot every day, luv ya darling <33

MDNI, if you do, I'm gonna catch you like I'm gonna catch Gege.

He’s a monarch who considers his mind a weapon and information as a whetstone despite being born in relative peace. Spending his leisure time reading Sun Ce, the scripts of Confucian and Taoist scholars, sharing afternoon teas and long walks around the gardens with Buddhist priests and conversing about reaching enlightenment. As if he desperately wanted to understand how the world he was meant to rule works. His mandate of heaven brought prosperity, a flourishing economy, a strong connection between allied realms, a good education system that produced more scholars than in any other time before.

Competing for his attention is not an easy task. You almost gave up, bracing yourself for a long and uneventful life where you can only admire him from afar. You sit in the shade of a willow tree with a board of xiangqi, your playmate having left you not so long ago and you were trying to figure out which tactics and strategies they should’ve used to defeat you. You’re so lost in your thoughts you can’t notice him standing there, in the presence of his guards. You kowtow to him, excusing yourself for daring to bother him, pleading for his patience while you pack your things and leave. He likes that your manners are spot on, and he rewards you with a command to stay, to play with him, since xiangqi is a game between two people. And based on the positions of the pieces on the board you’re an experienced player.

Of course, he defeats you with ease, but he’s grateful you showed him everything you’ve got and didn’t let him win. He tells you that his victory lies in applying the teachings of Sun Ce to his playstyle. Your eyes light up and you beg him to elaborate further, maybe he can help you improve your tactics in the next game. He’s such a well-read man, so hungry for knowledge, so desperate to understand people. You’re sure he wants to figure out your thoughts too, what you think about the world, what values dominate your heart. And the secret to win him over is to shower him with all the details and even politely disagree with some of his beliefs and explain your point of view. That’s what gets him going, knowing your place in the hierarchy but not being afraid to stand your ground. Mindless obedience, at this point, bores him. That’s probably the reason why he slowly starts to favor you, your conversations refresh him, inside and outside of his bedchambers.

You may think that earning your place in his heart is a lengthy and hard process, but when he becomes sure that your infatuation comes from an honest place, he generously rewards your efforts. He showers you with gifts, each more thoughtful than the other. He sends you scripts from his personal library about topics that interest you, fulus he received from his priests to protect you and your chambers, phoenix crowns so elaborately adorned with pearls, sapphires, small dragons, and phoenixes made from solid gold. Gowns embroidered with clouds, cranes dancing around them, gifting you a small piece of the sky itself he descended from. He elevates your rank quickly so you can accompany him during events. Letting the whole court look at you, wrapped in everything he gave you, standing so close you can see him stealing glances at you from under the twelve tasseled crown. He rewards your family with money, grain, rice, political power. If he lifts you up, he does the same with everyone important to you.

But Geto’s court is highly competitive. It’s certainly not easy to be his favorite. You can literally smell the stench of jealousy eminating from the other consorts. Their gaze pierces your skin deeply when the eunuchs drag you around the Palace of Heavenly Grace with a brocade blanket hugging your naked figure. They must endure the sight every other night and they have no idea that the son of heaven is ready to serve you and do as you please behind closed doors and not the other way around, as tradition dictates.

Though he can comfort you, outside of his chambers you fear for your life. You needed a food taster now and never dared to walk the gardens without at least four guards in your proximity. You begin to doubt the trust between you and those you’ve befriended, because they can only blame you for his negligence towards them.

And then, the first accusation about you begins circulating around the palace. Some concubines claimed that you were guilty of witchcraft. So many of them are against you, with so much made-up proof you cannot do more than spend the night crying, believing that at dawn, guards will come for you and throw you into a well. You have no idea where Geto is or how you could beg him for protection.

The next day, strangely, a new set of officials deem you innocent. What boggles you even more is that he comes to your residence instead of having you delivered to him. Even his scent is not like it usually is, there’s something metallic, salty, and musky mixed in with the incense smoke.

That night he cradles you, shushing you, promising to keep you safe at all costs. Keeping it a secret how brutally he disposed of the rumor mongers, how he had some of his officials whipped bloody for not believing your testimony or about the thinly veiled threats that he’ll make anyone’s life a living nightmare if anything happened to you. Your heart skips a beat and simultaneously sinks deep in your chest when those of higher rank than you lower their head, trying their best to not look at you as they pass you by. With dark marks staining the skin below the neckline of their gowns, not even the empress consort being an exception.

It's not easy to be his favorite. It’ll never be easy.

But he’s a god, the son of heaven, and heaven will forgive him and so will you.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #geto suguru x reader #jjk drabbles #getou suguru x reader #jjk x y/n #meesa writes

[eponastory]

I know you most likely already realized this, but I was just thinking about Aang as a father in LOK, and realized something. If Katara ended up with Zuko and eventually had children together, Zuko would likely end up being a better father than Aang. Aang never even met his parents, and only had instructors as parental figures. They're like parents but mostly just in the way that a school teacher would be. But Zuko understands what good parents and what bad parents look like because he knows what his own parents are like. His memories of Ursa and Iroh would be his guide to what you SHOULD do for a child, and Ozai is an example of what you should NOT do. Zuko doesn't have the pressure of repopulating firebenders because firebenders aren't virtually extinct, so there wouldn't be as much (if any) pressure to pay unfairly extra attention to one child over the other. Zuko knows what it's like to be neglected by a parent that's supposed to love because of something you can't control. Aang clearly doesn't, hence why he neglected Bumi and Kya II in the first place. Zuko also has experience with Azula, and would know to recognize any bad signs of sibling jealousy and/or hatred, and put an end to it because he knows what bad sibling dynamics look like.

I feel like he would also be a better husband to Katara. He's not as naive as Aang when it comes to marriage; Zuko has the experience of growing up with two married parents, and would know what not to do. Katara would relax better because the distribution over who watches the kids would be more fair, as Zuko would give them ALL attention. While Aang made Katara jealous from always being around the Air Acolytes (in the comics), I feel like Zuko would not give polite attention to women who are rude to Katara/flirting with him because in the show, Zuko knows exactly how hurtful it feels for a romantic partner to flirt with/give polite attention to people who are obviously pursuers. Imagine being in an alternate dimension where Zutara was the main endgame couple, and we get to see their parental dynamics in LoK. There would probably be a flashback of Katara getting worked up about one of their children, and Zuko would ease her into calming down because he sees a solution that she didn't.

Aang's issues are more than he doesn't know. He is selfish by nature. Selfish parents aren't good parents. I know this for a fact. It's an endless cycle of 'It's your fault' or 'what about how I feel' every time you try to say something. It's not fun, and it's damaging. I can totally see Aang using this behavior as a way to get what he wants. As far as him being naive... yes. He is very naive and doesn't take anything seriously.

Like the war, for instance. He was only there for the last year of it. He wasn't born into the war like Zuko, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Suki. They aren't naive. They know what war is like. Toph is the same age as Aang, and she is much more mature than he is. He's got this idea that killing anyone is bad, but he is responsible for a lot of deaths. Honestly, he has a kill count from the Fire Nation attack on the NWT, and a lot of people overlook that for some reason. Actually, the show overlooks it because Aang is the Hero, and it's okay if he killed people. So, when all is said and done, all of the things that he does afterward is overlooked too. It's a huge writing flaw with the show. So how does this translate to him as a parent?

It makes him a hypocrite.

Plain and simple.

He's so focused on reviving the Air Nomads that he has little knowledge on what they actually believed. What we are given is a few Taoist, Hindu, and Buddhist proverbs to go off of. Then, it's completely disregarded (disrespected as well) for 'Love'. This 'Love' is actually deep infatuation fueled by jealousy and possessive behavior. Which is actually frowned upon by the three religions mentioned above. It is a 'poison' to the spirit. And disconnects you from being enlightened (I think that is what the proverbs/scriptures are eluding too, if I'm wrong, please do not hesitate to explain, I'm super interested in cultures and eastern religions) or granted a place in Heaven (or their version of it). Letting go of all earthly possessions is common place in most religions. Aang does not do this. But I digress.

So, while there is the Nature vs Nurture aspect of parenting... where Katara does most of the Nurturing because that is how her character is written post-war and LoK. Notice how is said Written. Written by two misogynistic men who stripped her of a lot of her characteristics from the original run of the show. This is the problem. And it's the same with Aang. I can't take him seriously because he doesn't take any of it seriously. Especially with his children. He's not a serious character. He acts like he's serious, but he never really left the 12 year old boy behind to mature. Probably because in his fictional relationship with Katara, she enables him to keep doing what he always does. Which is to not grow. Relationships grow sour when the two people in them do not grow. It's not really about who grew up with parents at that point because it's the current parents that are the ones that should be to blame.

Now on to Headcanon space...

Zutara is a Headcanon ship. Did it almost happen? Oh yes I believe it did because the writing supports it heavily and Bryke's actions post show also scream 'lairs'. Sorry, but I have a pretty good Bullshit metor and Bryke set it off big time by their immature behavior.

But I digress.

Zuko grew up with a Narcissistic Sociopath as a Father and a Mother who was caught in the middle of a choice she was essentially forced to make. Ursa was also forced to forget her own parents never existed after she married Ozai. This is all canon, by the way. Her life before her marriage was great, but then it was taken away so she had nothing left but her morals and beliefs. However, while she loved both of her children, her influence on Zuko is essentially what made him who he is. Ursa didn't get to influence Azula like she did Zuko. Why? Because of Ozai.

Ozai pit his children against each other. This was apparently a Fire Nation Royal Family tradition because it sounds like Azulon did this with Iroh and Ozai as well. This kind of parenting style is abusive to its core. What Ozai did to Zuko isn't neglect... it's straightforward abuse and control. How do you make a child do what you want? You hurt them, or you take something away from them. Ozai both hurt Zuko and took away his home by banishing him. If Zuko wants to go back home, he has to find and capture the Avatar. It's that simple, but at the same time, it's also near impossible.

Flash forward to Canon Zuko and we see he has one child and he is a very loving father. Actually, he's the best father in the show. His experiences with growing up as the not so favorite child has made his choice to have one child easy. Probably because he and his spouse had a less than perfect relationship. This also may have influenced him to be protective of Izumi (as we can see he's still protective over her even at 90 years old) because of the loveless relationship his parents had. It was enough to damage him deeply when it came to relationships. This is likely also why he had trouble with Mai as well.

Headcanon space now...

Zuko loving Katara is what makes the difference here. Love is giving your partner the freedom to make their own choices and support them. As long as there is good communication, trust, and honesty. Something Maiko does not have, by the way. So it stands to reason that even with Nature Vs Nurture in the way of parenting, both win here. I'll tell you why Zuko's relationship with his parents here have no effect on why he would choose to have more children with Katara.

Because if written well, it's a very good relationship between them. We already know they work well as a team. The show gives us this. We know that Zuko absolutely cares about Katara. The show also gives us that. We also know they become lifelong friends. So why do they make great parents?

Because they rely on each other.

It has nothing to do with how they were raised individually, but everything to do with how they support each other narritively. They trust each other to make good decisions together. They rely on being honest with each other. They also communicate with each other. This by itself is the building blocks for a healthy and stable relationship. With that in mind, parenting is easier. There is no need to be afraid of becoming a bad parent because they hold each other accountable. It's a deep relationship. Having multiple children is easier because it is a loving relationship. There's no conflict besides the silly little arguments over simple things that happen all the time. It's just an overall healthy dynamic.

And that is what appeals to Zutarians.

While it was almost canon, I'm glad it isn't because Bryke would definitely not get it right. They tried to make Korra and Mako happen out of spite because they believe Zutara is toxic. It's not. Their children would turn out absolutely fine because Zuko would not change a thing about Katara. It's in the show. He doesn't try to change her because that's not his job. His job in TSR is to let her find closure. He offers it to her because he cares about her. Bottom line.

Anyway, I probably forgot what you said at this point because I just tend to go on and on, but I tried my best to stay on topic... ADHD is both a blessing and a curse.

#parenting is not about the past as long as you have a good partner #a bad relationship will force a parent to make decisions to protect their child. #if Zuko was like his father his partner would be the one making the hard decisions to protect their child. #if mai is Zuko's wife then it was not a good relationship. #zutara #relationships #parenting #anti bryke #anti aang

[ejaysstuff]

DESIGN REFERENCES FOR LI JINZHA

⚠️NOTE⚠️ I am NOT a researcher, meaning I did not go beyond his baike article for this post, so please don't take this post as a concrete, definite description of Jinzha. Remember that there are different versions of mythology characters all the time, and these are simply some of them. I'm only making this so others can have a starting point in designing him!

Any rbs with corrections/additions are highly welcome!!

Throughout my year of Li Brother Illness TM, I've seen some li brother designs which always makes me incredibly happy. However, I still thought it'd be neat if I shared some stuff that helped inspire my headcannons/designs of the li siblings. This one will be about Jinzha!

I hope this gives a little more insight to my beloveds while also generating more ideas for them <33

Jinzha is described as a handsome young man who wears light yellow/white Taoist robes. Sometimes the ends of his Daoist robes is drawn poofy which is so cute,, he is also depicted wearing a golden hair crown (束发金冠). Other figures like Sun Wukong and Lu Bu wear this too, but with pheasant feathers attached to it

There are also designs that depict him in armor!

SNAKES (蛇）

This is an older version of Jinzha, Bodhisattva Jundali Mingwang. He is a Buddhist figure, and can be seen decorated with red snakes and yellow-collared snakes around his body. He also has a spirit snake (灵蛇), which could either mean a magical snake or a fast and precise one. He uses it as a weapon, which I think means he flings the lil guy at his opponent and it just starts biting them (erlang shen strat with his dog)

While this isn't fsyy Jinzha, I still think it'd be neat to include snake motifs in Jinzha's design more,, plus I think it'd tie in nicely with his Dragon Stake :)

(Bodhisattva Jundali also wields other weapons such as a spear, a whip and a polearm that looks similar to a halberd (戟). Jinzha doesn't have any of these in fsyy, but just gonna put these here if you want more weapons to draw him with :>)

DRAGON STAKE (遁龙桩)

I've shown this weapon briefly here, but I'll show it again so it's much more organized! The Dragon Stake appears time to time in fsyy alongside Jinzha's swords, and is a weapon that can bind any opponent. It's commonly depicted as a pole with three rings. It seems to be able to change its size, growing bigger when in use. In fsyy, Jinzha would sometimes bind the enemy first with the Dragon Stake before finishing them off with his swords.

I was luckily able to find an illustration showing how it looks like in action!

This weapon was used by Jinzha's master before it was passed onto Jinzha. It's also what was used to subdue Nezha when he tried to kill Li Jing

More illustrations with Jinzha holding it:

more illustrations of Jinzha and the stake!

(^illustration credits: 苍狼野兽 on weibo)

VASE OF SWEET DEW (甘露宝瓶)

(For those who use his wikipedia article, the 'Ganlu Treasure Vase' is this.)

甘露 gān lù, meaning sweet dew, is a special substance that functions like holy water. It is contained in a vase, and Bodhisattva Jundali used this to defeat demons. This one doesn't seem to have a particular design, but it looks similar to the one that Bodhisattva Guanyin holds in her hand.

I did find some variations of it online though!

I hope this can give more ideas when drawing Jinzha! There aren't many english sources about him, so maybe this helps make researching a little easier <33

#jinzha #li jinzha #fsyy #chinese mythology #needed my dad to help translate for some of this pfff #jinzha was that kid with a hardcore reptile phase pass it around #manifesting for jinzha content

[the-monkey-ruler]

was subodhi teaching just taoism or some combination of taoism and buddhism?

While Puti was more known for the Taoist practices that Wukong learned about he does allude to express Buddhist allegories!

Puti is based on Subhūti one of the ten disciples of the Buddha, similar to how the Golden Cicada was as well. In Theravada Buddhism, he is considered the disciple who was foremost in being "worthy of gifts" and "living remote and in peace". In Mahayana Buddhism, he is considered foremost in understanding emptiness. Puti is a major figure in Mahayana Buddhism and is one of the central figures in Prajñāpāramitā sutras. Puti became a monk after hearing the Buddha teach at the dedication ceremony of Jetavana Monastery. After ordaining, Puti went into the forest and became an arahant.

Puti spent the first 7 years of Wukong's training with more mundane takes from writing, reading, cleaning, gardening, and meditation before teaching him more advanced arts. While Puti publicly chastised Wukong's desire to reach immorality he was secretly telling Wukong to meet him in the middle of the night to learn such secrets. And it is only after he masters these skills does he learn the 72 transformations and the somersault cloud.

Puti hits Wukong on his head three times similar to the life of Huineng who was another Buddhist monk known in early Buddism. Huineng was hit on the head three times by his master as well which lead to a quiet communication to come to his chambers and learn the Diamond Sutra. Wukong being a combination of both Taoism influences and Buddhist influences could represent Puti's own description within the story and how the story itself pushes for that connection of riding the gap between cultivation practices.

#anonymous #anon #anon ask #jttw #journey to the west #xiyouji #sun wukong #master subodhi #master puti #patriarch subodhi #ask

[luckychild]

howd u come up with hiruko's character design :)

Most of the design was inspired by the mythological figure I based him on. I just tailored elements of his real-world history so they fit into the larger tapestry of LC and its themes.

Hiruko (AKA Ebisu) is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. As a consequence of originating in Japan, he is the only one who doesn't have any Buddhist/Taoist influence. I gave him pink hair as a nod to Japanese cherry blossoms and his purely Japanese origin. The symbolic meaning of cherry blossoms in Japan ties into Hiruko's history and motivations nicely.

One of his many names is "the laughing god," which is why I nearly always depict him smiling and laughing.

I dressed him in traditional Japanese fashion because of his connection to ancient Japanese history.

Because he's known as the god of fishermen, I gave him a fishing hook earring hanging from a thread of fishing line. Given his connection to the Fates and their weaving within the context of LC, I liked the inclusion of thread in his character design. It was a way to marry his design with the item(s) he stole from the Fates. Webs/weaving/thread/tapestry are a big part of his role in LC, and it's one of the motifs I lean on when writing about him.

Since he is both the god of fisherman AND luck, I dressed him in red, which is known as an auspicious or lucky color in many East Asian cultures. It's also a color very commonly found in Shinto temples and is said to scare away evil spirits, so I thought he'd wear that color to try and signal to whoever saw him that he's a "good guy" and not a villain.

But that's also why I gave him blue eyes. In kabuki theater, blue is the color of villainous characters as well as the supernatural world, so they're a clue about his role in the story. Ocean blue eyes also connect back to the "god of fishermen" origin. Blue denoting the supernatural has some plot relevance as well.

Aaaand I guess the last notable trait I gave him was initial appearance of a child. This was partially inspired by Koenma, of course, who can change between a childish and adult appearance at will. A huge part of the Ebisu legend involves him being abandoned as a child, and I wanted a direct callout to that history from his first appearance. (I also think he took that form so people would underestimate him.)

That's the bulk of it, I think. Basically all of the most important bits come right out of Japanese culture and Hiruko/Ebisu's history.

Thanks for asking!

#luckychildfanfic #yu yu hakusho fanfiction #yyh fanfiction #hiruko #starcharterfanfic

[sketching-shark]

Selections from Hongmei Sun’s “Transforming Monkey”

Here it is! My compilation of quotes that I particularly liked from Sun’s excellent overview of the figure of the Monkey King. I hope you all enjoy them and find that they give you a richer understanding of an amazing text and its amazing monkey

---

Sun, Hongmei. Transforming Monkey: Adaptation & Representation of a Chinese Epic. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018.

 3: “Sun Wukong, known as the Monkey King in English, is the protagonist of the Ming dynasty novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji). He is famous for his ability to shape-shift and ride the clouds, his size-changing magic rod, and his love of playing tricks. The longevity of his story reflects his popularity in Chinese culture: the ‘Journey to the West’ narrative is among the most malleable and long-lasting in Chinese literary history. With the repeated adaptations of the narrative over the centuries, the image of the protean monkey character has evolved into the Monkey King we know today.

                       Journey to the West is a one-hundred-chapter novel published in the sixteenth century during the late-Ming period. It is considered one of the four masterworks of the Ming novel, along with Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan), Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), and The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jinping mei). Loosely based on the historical journey of the famous monk Xuanzang (602-664), who traveled in the Tang dynasty from China to India in search of Buddhist scriptures, the story experienced a series of adaptations over hundreds of years before it was developed into the full-length novel, which recounts a mythological pilgrimage of the monk Tripitaka (the fictional Xuanzang), accompanied by three disciples and protectors he converts along the way: Sun Wukong (aka the Monkey King, or Monkey), Zhu Bajie (aka Zhu Wuneng, Pigsy, or Pig), and Sha Wujing (aka Sha Seng, Sha Heshang, Friar Sand, or Sandy). These disciples, as well as a dragon prince who transforms into a white horse as Tripitaka’s steed, are demons or animal spirits who have sinned…”

 4: “Along the way, the group encounters and overcomes eighty-one tests, most of which involve demons and spirits who want to capture Tripitaka and eat his flesh in order to gain immortality.

                       The history of Journey to the West represents a process of continuous adaptations of Xuanzang’s story. The historical trip becomes a mythological journey in a world full of demons, spirits, Taoist gods, and Buddhist celestials. At some point—the actual origin and provenance remain unclear—the monkey follower of Xuanxang was added to a retelling of the story. Once included, the monkey figure grew in popularity until he replaced the monk as the main character and protagonist. It is owing to the long process of adaptation that today the Monkey King remains popular globally.”

 5: “Literary analyses of the text have taken diverse and heterogeneous approaches but have predominantly focused on the religious and allegorical meanings of the tales. Little has been written about the Monkey King image in contemporary settings from the approach of adaptation, despite the obvious importance of this approach for Journey to the West, which is the product of repeated adaptations and maintains its influence in popular culture through ongoing adaptation today. Journey to the West is an accretive text, shaped by many hands at many times, and through interactions with many audiences.”

 6: “…for lack of new data and more convincing interpretation, the Shidetang edition printed in 1592 is generally considered the ‘original.’ Although it is now generally accepted that Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1500-ca. 1582) is the author of the Shidetang edition of Journey to the West, this position is supported only by the lack of better candidates and more convincing evidence. Furthermore, the origin of the Monkey King character remains unclear.”  

           -“Through hundreds of years the Monkey King figure has shown amazing adaptability. His story appears in various forms in all media, crossing borders of culture and time, and his image has been frequently used in racial and political representations with social and political impact. Sun Wukong’s changes throughout modern history, intertwined with the construction and representation of Chinese identity, require a thorough examination.”

 9: “Tracing further back from “Journey to the West,” two major sources for the narrative have been found: the historical journey of Xuanzang and the mythical figure of the Monkey King. Although the historical event clearly refers to the journey to India that the monk Xuanzang undertook in the seventh century, and the historical figure Xuanzang is accepted almost unanimously by scholars as the source of the character Tripitaka in the novel, the source of the Monkey King is unclear. Multiple figures may have influenced the image of the Monkey King, including Hanuman in the Indian tradition and monkey lore in the Chinese tradition. Each of these two major narrative lines revolves around one protagonist, who together become the two major characters in Journey to the West. Although the Monkey King figure was adopted into the narrative of the journey to India as only a helper of the monk, in later versions of the story the monkey becomes the protagonist, as becomes evident in Journey to the West, and more obviously in contemporary adaptations in China, where the Monkey King becomes the central figure with whom the audience identifies, and Tripitaka is portrayed with more negative features.”

 11: “If one were to narrow the rich meaning of the Monkey King image down to a trope, it would like in the tension between the monkey, the human, and the god that coexists in the Monkey King. Because the tension exists in something as important and personal as the body itself, the image of Sun Wukong is therefore being used in a varied situations representing the struggle in identity. What the Monkey King can contribute to the issue of Asian American identity is the metaphor of transformation, the freedom one can attain in one’s body, and by extension in aspects of one’s social life.”

 13: “Because of the fundamental multivalence in this figure, various political and ethnic groups use him as a representative to tell their own stories…Historically speaking, ‘Journey to the West’ is a product of adaptation. When the image of the Monkey King is added to the narrative and gradually takes the shape of Sun Wukong in Journey to the West, the influence of antecedents and the interlacing traditions of popular and elite culture together shape what we know as the protagonist of the sixteenth-century novel. A major transformation takes place in the mid-twentieth century during the reign of Mao Zedong, when the trickster monkey is collectively recast as a revolutionary hero. This heroic image remains the mainstream view until a new change is initiated by a Stephen Chow film, A Chinese Odyssey (1995), after which the image of Monkey takes a postsocialist turn. While the new transformation of the Monkey King as a hero is ongoing in China, in American popular media the Monkey image is adapted in a different manner, representing a mythical and antiprogressive oriental. Asian American adaptations, on the other hand, use the image of the Monkey King to illustrate the struggles of ethnic minorities in the United States, racial stereotypes, and ethnic identity. Monkey continues to shape-shift in new places and times, and each new Monkey collectively enriches our understanding of his image.”

 15: “At the beginning of the hundred-chapter novel Journey to the West, a monkey is born from a primeval stone egg. This uncommon birth makes it impossible to place him into a distinct taxonomic category. ‘Born of the essences of Heaven and Earth,’ he is nonetheless still one of ‘the creatures from the world below.’ While the Monkey King belongs to both heaven and earth, his legendary birthplace is not easily locatable in either. According to the Buddhist cosmology introduced to the reader at the beginning of the first chapter, the Flower-Fruit Mountain (Huaguo Shan) appears to be located on the East Purvavideha Continent (Dong Shengshen Zhou), one of the four continents of the world. However, its geographic location relative to heaven and earth, or to the other continents that the monkey traverses in his journey, is never accounted for. To some extent the ambiguous birth and birthplace of the monkey contribute to his multivalent character.

                       At home on the Flower-Fruit MMountain, the monkey soon declares himself the Monkey King after demonstrating his prowess by crossing a waterfall and discovering a new territory, the Water-Curtain Cave, on behalf of the entire monkey kingdom. It is the first breakthrough in his life and is accomplished through crossing boundaries. Soon thereafter, and having become dissatisfied with a mortality that, by necessity, would subject him to the border between life and death, the self-proclaimed king sets off on a raft in search of a teacher who might guide him toward immortality. This journey brings him from the East Purvavideha Continent to the West Aparagodaniya Continent (Xi Niuhe Zhou), where he finds a master in the Patriarch Subhuti (Xuputi Zushi) on Lingtai Mountain.”

 16: “Of no small significance, the master, one of the ten disciples of the Buddha, is described here as one who finds harmony among Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. By means of the physical and spiritual journey from east to west, the monkey has acquired a name, Sun Wukong (Awaking to Emptiness), together with esoteric techniques enabling him to wield magical powers.

                       After returning to the Flower-Fruit Mountain, Sun Wukong successfully defends the subjects of his monkey kingdom by defeating a demon foe and thereby creating a name for himself among the demon kings. In addition, he befriends a number of immortal beings who occupy neighboring lands, one of whom in the Bull Demon King (Niumo Wang), who later becomes an antagonist of the pilgrims. By becoming brothers with these demons on earth, Sun Wukong posits himself as one of them. He tests his power in the water realms and convinces the dragon kings there to present him with their treasured magic iron, which becomes hi famous iron rod. He also creatures turmoil in hell when he deletes the names of his monkey tribe from the Register of Life and Death, hence attaining immortality, although unofficially. The sphere in which he can be active is thus enlarged to include the earth, the sea, and the underworld.

                       Heaven, having learned of the monkey’s mischievous behavior, appoints him as Supervisor of the Imperial Stables (Bimawen), in an effort to co-opt him. His territory is thus further enlarged to include heaven. This is an important step in his life since he is now recognized as a deity within the heavenly hierarchical system rather than an outsider demon. When Sun Wukong recognizes his low position in the celestial hierarchy, he returns to his mountain and lays claim to the title ‘Great Sage, Equal to Heaven,’ essentially declaring himself the strongest demon in the world in possession of an outlaw power on par with heaven’s. Dissatisfied with marginalization within one system, he simply chooses to create a parallel system and names himself its head. And when heaven is unable to take him by force, it once again must reabsorb the monkey peacefully by reaccepting him into the heavenly fold. Despite being officially recognized as the Great Sage, the Monkey King still constantly breaks rules in heaven, and ultimately creates havoc when he learns he is not invited to the Peach Banquet. The disgruntled monkey breaks off yet again from heaven, this time demanding that he replace the Jade Emperor…”

 17 + 18 (for list): “…himself. Significantly, the domains that Sun Wukong has so far tested and conquered include the earth, water, hell, and the Taoist heaven. Being active in all levels of the mythic cosmos enables him to enjoy immense growth in his realm—but more importantly, he becomes effectively limitless.”

                       Sun Wukong’s rebellion comes to an end when he meets the Buddha. He accepts the wager the Buddha has proposed, which is to jump out from the Buddha’s palm. Failing to do so, since the Buddha’s palm can grow as fast as Wukong can jump, he is subsequently imprisoned under the Five Phases Mountain for five hundred years, which functions as a turning point in Monkey’s life and an intermission in the narrative. What Monkey goes through during this period is completely omitted by the narrative, which simply switches to the story of Tripitaka and the beginning of the journey. When the Monkey King reappears in the story, his life starts anew on a very different track.

                       The monkey is in due course released by the traveling monk Tripitaka, who becomes his master and gives him the name Pilgrim (Xingzhe). At the beginning the master is shocked by Wukong’s demonic behavior and worried that the monkey might be out of control. The Bodhisattva Guanyin responds by setting a fillet on the monkey’s head. The tightening of this band—in response to Tripitaka’s recitation of the Tight-Fillet Spell (Jingu Zhou)—enables Tripitaka to control the monkey’s actions. Henceforth Sun Wukong serves as Tripitaka’s protector and as leader of the other disciples. He becomes the monk’s most reliable defense against demons and monsters on their way to the West. In the following eighty-seven chapters, which are primarily a long series of captures and releases of the pilgrims by monsters, demons, animal spirits, and gods in disguise, Sun Wukong either defeats the adversaries himself or finds a natural or sociopolitical conqueror of the enemy to ensure victory.

                       In Journey to the West, Monkey’s life can be summarized as composed of two parts, with the Five Phases Mountain as the watershed. Before his subjugation by the Buddha under the Five Phases Mountain, his life can also be divided into several phases, each phase with a different name and identity:

                       I: Before Subjugation:

a.     The nameless stone monkey

b.     The Handsome Monkey King (Mei Houwang)

c.     Sun Wukong (name given by Subhuti)

d.     The Supervisor of the Imperial Stables (Bimawen)

e.     The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven (Qitian Dasheng)

Intermission: 500 years under the Five Phases Mountain

II: After Subjugation

     Pilgrim (Xingzhe)

 18: “The five phases of the monkey’s life before his subjugation by the Buddha demonstrate the innate drive of the monkey to test every limit that defines his sphere. With each step the monkey takes in his life, there is a transformation, a breakthrough, and his magic skills allow him to transgress limits. Step by step he broadens his sphere, challenging every authority, until he is facing the greatest cosmic power (who is, interestingly, the foreign Buddha from the West, invited by the indigenous god, the Jade Emperor). It is the spirit that challenges all limits that identifies him as a demon, one of those who dwell outside of the space of heavenly order. Since hierarchical control is about keeping boundaries and maintaining order, this kind of nonstop challenge cannot be accepted. Monkey therefore has to be either considered as a challenge from the outside (a demon) or changed and co-opted within the system.”

           --“The five hundred years serve as a narrative gutter, before which Monkey strives to surpass all boundaries—the patriarch of all beings—while after it the monkey becomes a servant, a pilgrim following the orders of a monk, confined by the magic headband. Before the gutter, he was a demon himself; after the gutter, he becomes a demon-subjugator and a demon killer. When encountering and fighting antagonist demons, the pilgrim monkey continually boasts to them about his glorious past as a demon monkey but the kills or subjugates them by himself or with celestial help. In this sense, the journey of the pilgrims is at the same time a story of demon-conquering and an account of the subjugation of the monkey himself.”

 19: “He is simultaneously the one and the other, dual contradictions within one body.

           But this is not only a journey from China to India. The Monkey King’s journey, far from unidirectional, is also full of upward and downward movement—he bounces between the heavenly gods and the demons and monsters on earth both before and after his submission. The nature of these trips does, however, change after his imprisonment. In the early phases of his life, the journeys up and down are carried out via his free will, whereas the later ups and downs as a pilgrim are mostly arranged by Guanyin and the other gods, as part of the trials of the journey. Just as his somersault never enables him to jump out of the hand of Buddha, his somersaulting up and down during the pilgrimage never gets him out of the determined trajectory of his life. He is only fulfilling his task, the mission of a pilgrim who works as a mediator.

                       The character of the Monkey King is fundamentally self-contradictory. In the earlier stage of his life, his is a self-important heroic rebel, but later he transforms into a loyal disciple of the monk master and a pious believer in Buddhist thought. Monkey does go through some transitional periods during the journey, including a few incidents in which he is in disagreement with, yet has to obey, Tripitaka, but later in the journey the narrative demonstrates that his understanding of the Heart Sutra often even surpasses that of Tripitaka.”

 20: “Reflected by his names and titles, Sun Wukong juggles his multiple identities, some of which are sharply opposed to each other.”

 21: “Rather than mediating between two opposite states, the Monkey King denies and deletes dualism and brings multiple and otherwise incompatible possibilities together.”

 24: “As a narrative rejecting dichotomy, Journey to the West clearly rejects a simple division of the story into shouxin (controlling the mind, retrieving of mind) and fangxin (letting the mind go, exile of the mind). Not only is the ‘mind monkey’ always fond of his mischievous ways when he remains a follower of Tripitaka, in the two episodes of the ‘exile’ of the ‘mind monkey,’ he is never totally let loose either. In both cases he asks Tripitaka or Bodhisattva to take his head fillet off, but neither of them is able to fulfill his request. Ironically, although Tripitaka ‘exiles’ the monkey from the pilgrim group, his power over the Tightening Fillet remains. Monkey, on the other hand, is also never totally happy when being released. In the case of the first release, Bajie (Pigsy) has to resort to a stratagem to persuade the monkey to return: he lies to the monkey that the monster who had beaten the pilgrims does not take seriously of the name of Sun Wukong and his deeds in heaven five hundred years ago. It is in defense of his reputation as the ‘number one monster’ that the monkey leaves his Flower-Fruit Mountain and returns to rejoin the band of pilgrims.

                       In the case of the second ‘exile,’ the episode of the ‘double-mind monkey’ (erxin yuan), a fake Wukong commits a series of monstrous crimes in his name. While one ‘mind monkey’ is staking with the Bodhisattva, the other ‘mind monkey’ goes to strike the master Tripitaka unconscious, takes his travel documents, returns to the Flower-Fruit Mountain, and sets up another pilgrim band, ready for his own journey to the West. The resemblance of the two ‘mind monkeys’ deceives everyone except the Buddha, who sees through the fake Wukong and recognizes him as a six-eared macaque (liuer mihou). The use of a double of Wukong enables the narrative to literally grant the monkey the facility to be self-contradictory, with one Monkey being a pious follower of Tripitaka, and the other a monster who is even capable of beating his master. At the culmination of this episode, Sun Wukong uses his rod to kill the six-eared macaque,…”

 25: “…despite the fact that the macaque had already been captured by Buddha’s golden almsbowl—a constraining weapon—and submitted to Buddha’s control, which seems out of character for the ‘good’ Monkey. One feasible explanation would be that it is an action of eliminating the monster in him, indicating that he is getting closer to achieving Buddhahood at this point in the journey. However, this explanation does not negate another one: that he kills the six-eared macaque because the latter has copied him too closely, the best demon among the ones that Monkey has conquered. By killing his rival who resembles himself, he plays the norm of self-contradiction to an extreme.”

 26: “At that very moment the actual smallness of the monkey’s bloated self is demonstrated in the shadow of the Buddha’s fingers, the overblown ‘mind monkey’ is reduced to finite proportions, and his rehabilitative imprisonment under Five Phases Mountain begins. The lesson demonstrates to him that, however far the ‘cloud-somersault’ can reach, it would also represent his own unbreakable boundary. The Buddha’s fingers serve as an index, revealing to the monkey that what beats him is how own self. Later this indexing role of Buddha’s hand is taken over by the Five Phases Mountain, and after that the headband. Whenever Tripitaka recites the spell, Monkey is reminded of his own limits and the impossibility of breaking them, even with his rod.

                       In the case of the six-eared macaque, one can reach an opposite explanation as to why Wukong chooses to kill him: to free himself. Just as in the submission of Wukong, Buddha beats the six-eared macaque at his forte. Although the fake Wukong is strong in taking forms of others and had succeeded in confusing everyone else, the Buddha is able to exactly identify this monkey’s original form: someone belonging to none of the ten categories in the universe, neither the five immortals (wu xian) nor the five creatures (wu chong). There are four kinds of monkeys who ‘are not classified in the ten species, nor are the contained in the names between Heaven and Earth,’ among which was the first, ‘the intelligent stone monkey (lingming shihou), who knows transformations, recognizes the seasons, discerns the advantages of earth, and is able to alter the course of planets and stars,’ and the fourth, ‘the six-eared macaque, who has a sensitive ear, discernment of fundamental principles, knowledge of past and future, and comprehension of all things.’ This recognition announces the six-eared macaque’s failure as one who has been trying to use his disguise to erase the boundary of his self while taking up the identity of Wukong. It also announces once again the failure of Wukong, who although not belonging to any of the ten species between heaven and earth, still falls into one of the in-between types that the Buddha names: the intelligent stone monkey, indeed a peer of the six-eared macaque. Therefore by killing the six-eared macaque, Wukong not only kills a monster who has tried to cross proper borders, but he also kills a self whose boundary has just been pinned down. This action of self-annihilation is in this sense an effort in defiance of any classification.”

 27: “Readers may often find it hard to tell whether the monkey is a monster or a pilgrim during any one incident: just like the rod and headband, the monster and pilgrim are indispensable sides of the character of Sun Wukong.”

           -“The narrative of Journey to the West itself also has a multivalent nature. Containing and allowing for contradictions is a central message of the book. Theses and rhetoric of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism all appear in every part of the work. For a story of Buddhist monks’ pilgrimage for Buddhist sutras, it also bears apparent characteristics of Taoist dual cultivation. While gods of Buddhist and Taoist traditions happily coexist, a Confucian emphasis on filial piety and loyalty is also prevalent. Owing to the coexistence of heterogenous factors, the text gives space for various interpretations of the metaphorical meaning of the book…In the narrative there are multiple parameters for the classification and ranking of cosmic beings, among them two basic categories—the earthly demons and the heavenly gods. At first glance the two are a pair of opposing powers, one always contradicting the other. However, a closer view of the relationship between the two reveals that the boundaries between the categories and kinds in the cosmic hierarchy are not firmly fixed. There are always possibilities of crossing the boundaries; the coexistence of all these distinctive beings is already an act of the abnegation of boundaries.”

 28: “Historian of Chinese religion Robert Campany visualizes the positions of these demons in the hierarchy, within which boundaries can be crossed upward or downward by means of transformation (hua, the phenomenon of demons assuming bodies and forms not their own), reincarnation, cultivation, conversion, or subjugation. Hierarchical distinctions are thus relative, and typological divisions appear to be mere illusion, with the pilgrim and demons both functioning as antagonists and complementing one another. Although demons and the pilgrims are similar in that both strive for cultivation of self, ‘demons have not yet realized the necessity of submitting the self to a larger Self that is the entire cosmic order.’ This insight points to another duality that is undercut by the narrative.

                       This allegorical explanation—that the pilgrims, by battling against the demons, come to realize the truth of emptiness, while Wukong, as indicated by his name, has always been aware of it—however, is too neat, as the purpose of the journey allows to multiple interpretations. While the pilgrims are moving toward a destination, ironic tension is apparent between the exuberant ease with which Monkey travels between different sphere and Tripitaka’s extreme difficulty in moving forward on his journey on earth.”

 29: Andrew Plaks argues that “the characteristic Chinese solution to the problem of duality ‘consists in the conception of a universe with neither beginning nor end, neither eschatological nor teleological purpose, within which all of the conceivable opposites of sensory and intellectual experience are contained, such that the poles of duality emerge as complementary within the intelligibility of the whole.’ This argument about the Chinese concept of complementary duality provides an interesting explanation for the coexistence of contradictions in the narrative. It may also count as one of the cultural situation ‘generative of ambivalence and contradiction’ that folklorist Laura Makarius discusses. The concept of complementary duality in Chinese culture certainly helps explain the fundamental ambiguity regarding the teachings in the journey, the most famous being the merging boundary between god and demon.”

           -“Transformation is something practiced very commonly by heavenly immortals and demons alike in Journey to the West. Besides crossing the boundary between the deity and demon, it also illustrates that all ‘forms,’ no matter how different they might look, are the same because they are all manifestations, or illusions. Forms are not the true nature of a being, and an important technique for a creature to attain in becoming an immortal through cultivation is the ability to transform itself, as well as the ability to see through forms. The Monkey King is among the most adept at seeing through the false forms of demons and monsters. In short, transformation, and the understanding of transformation, seem to have a crucial connection with a nondualist (or multivalent) understanding of the universe.”

 35: “The multistable image of the Monkey King…serves as a hyper-icon. The seemingly simple factors of the image, a monkey in human clothes with a head ring and an iron rod, together encapsulate a whole bundle of meanings, an entire episteme. It can be used as a decoration, and it can also be used to speak to power, knowledge, and representation. It is fascinating that it continues over centuries to appeal to readers/audiences of various social orders and successfully transforms them into creators of new images.”

 39: “Shihua [Full title Da Tang Sanzang qujing shihua] is the first fictional account of Xuanzang’s journey in which the monk acquires a monkey attendant who functions as his guide and protector. Following his introduction, the monkey figures enjoyed growing popularity in subsequent fictional retellings of the story, until in the hundred-chapter novel Journey to the West he becomes the protagonist of the story, overshadowing his master…Compared to Xuanzang’s historical journey, Shihua introduces two major changes to the nature of the journey that are carried through later adaptations of the story. In the first, the monk’s individual religious pursuit, a brave act that breaches the law of Tang and puts his own life at risk, is transformed into the performance of a decreed commission from the Tang emperor. Although the imperial decree seems to have given Tripitaka a more celebrated status, his choice to defy the legal order in order to undertake his religious pilgrimage is taken away from the monk. Second, realistic challenges the monk had to face are replaced by obstacles deployed by demons and deities, which Tripitaka relies on the monkey to conquer. These two changes set the stage for a transformation of the story about Tripitaka into a story about the monkey.

                       Buddhist themes and elements in the story are obvious, but there is no monopoly of Buddhist themes; instead, a variety of traditions and cults are present in the text, with popular tradition being blended into the orthodox religious material. In this sense, Shihua already begins to show what is masterfully realized in the hundred-chapter version Journey to the West: the encyclopedic coexistence of different and conflicting cultures and traditions. According to Shihua’s account, the monk is on his way to acquire scriptures because he has received an imperial commission. On his way he meets the monkey figure, Hou Xingzhe (Monkey Acolyte), who becomes his guide and assistant. This story is filled with praises of the religious pilgrimage, paying its respects to Buddha and Buddhist teaching and eulogizing the peaceful places near the Western Heaven. Unlike the later versions, it is clear in the story that the success of the pilgrimage is based on Tripitaka’s deep understanding of Buddhist texts and great strength in his belief. The Tripitaka in later versions will reply on the assistance of Sun Wukong and gods from all parts of the universe to complete his journey.”

 40: “There is little evidence to show where the monkey figure originated, but scholars have discussed the possible connections between Hou Xingzhe and the carved monkey figures at the Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou Prefecture, Fujian; monkey stories in Buddhist texts; and Hanuman of the Ramayana. Discussion about Hanuman as the influence or origin of Sun Wukong can be traced to Hu Shih’s 1923 article ‘Textual Criticism of Journey to the West’ (Xiyou ji kaozheng), but at about the same time Lu Xun, in his Brief History of the Chinese Novel (Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue), disagreed, connecting Sun Wukong with the ape-shaped Chinese mythical figure Wuzhiqi. The two scholars who built the foundation of modern Chinese literary study thus began a long-running argument in Journey to the West scholarship about the origination of Sun Wukong. Even today, the problem of the origin of the Chinese Monkey King is unresolved. For, in addition to these two sources, there are other possible origins or influences, such as the influence of Buddhist texts; the figure of Shi Pantuo, a disciple of Xuanzang at the beginning stages of his trip; the Monk Wukong of the Tang; tales about a white ape who abducts women; and the Fujian cult of Qitian Dasheng or Tongtian Dasheng….Regarding the origination of Hou Xingzhe, Zhang Chengjian’s findings generally support the notion of a greater influence from India than from indigenous myths, and in particular the influence of Hanuman or the ape-shaped guardian general in the Tantric tradition.”

 41: However, “scholars who support this view have not been able to provide a convincing theory about the paths of transmission of the Hanuman story. It would seem that the Ramayana may have been transmitted to and spread in China via the Silk Road, the marine Silk Road, or the path via Schuan and Yunnan; however, these paths do not correspond with the appearance of Hou Zingzhe and the transmission of Hanuman to China in either time or place…a foruth path for the transmission of Hanuman could be the Musk Road via Tibet, , as the Tantric tradition reflected in Shihua and the spread of Tantric Buddhism at the time from India through Tibet to China demonstrates a connection between Hanuman and Hou Zingzhe. It is worth noting here, though, that the necessary link between the transmission of Tantric Buddhism and the story of Hanuman is yet to be found. Nonetheless, the image of Hou Xingzhe in Shihua reminds us more of Hanuman and the images of the monkey protector figures found in mural paintings in Dunhuang and the stone relief in Kaiyuan Temple—these serious and godlike images bear very little resemblance to the trickster that the monkey would become in later version.

                       The role that Hou Xingzhe plays is Tripitaka’s guide through the journey. Although Xingzhe calls Tripitaka ‘my master’ (wo shi), he is the one who gives advice, and Tripitaka always follows it.”

 44: “…although Hou Xingzhe appears as a clearly synthesized figure in Shihua, bearing influences from both Indian and Chinese cultures, he is mostly an honorable and capable godlike figure. Negative features have yet to be developed in this character.”

           -The six-part, twenty-four-act Zaju Xiyou ji is attributed to the fourteenth-century playwright Yang Jingxian, who lived during the late Yuan and early Ming periods. In the few hundred years between Shihua and Zaju, the story of ‘Journey to the West’ is not only more expanded, containing many of the stories that can be found later in Journey to the West, but the monkey figure in Zaju has grown into a character strikingly different from Hou Xingzhe. If Hou Xingzhe in Shihua is depicted as an advisor for Tripitaka, as respectable albeit mysterious deity, and a brave fighter, the monkey in Zaju is pictured as a rowdy clown, an untamed demon and ill-qualified Buddhist disciple.

                       The monkey’s name in Zaju now is almost the same as in the sixteenth-century fiction Journey to the West. He refers to himself as ‘Tongtian Dasheng’ (Great Sage Reaching Heaven), only one word’s difference from ‘Qitian Dasheng,’ the title Sun Wukong receives from the Taoist heaven in the sixteenth-century book. In some versions of the Monkey King story, including the Zaju, Qitian Dasheng and Tongtian Dasheng are brothers…”

 45: “Although Tongtian Dasheng is the monkey’s title, in the drama everyone calls him ‘the monkey’ (husun), including Guanyin, even though she is the person who gave him the names Sun Wukong and Sun Xingzhe (Acolyte). When Guanyin presents Sun Xingzhe to Tripitaka as his disciple, she gives the monkey an iron fillet, a cassock, and a knife….Even with the headband’s control, Tongtian Dasheng’s behavior and language indicate that his mind remains that of an irreverent demon.

                       As in the zaju theater tradition, Sun Xingzhe introduces himself to the audience with a poem at his first appearance. Vaunting his celestial birth, his power, and the troubles he could create, in colloquial expression rather than elegant traditional terms as others’ opening poems, the monkey’s poem describes himself as a celebrated ape demon, referring to himself as the King of a Hundred Thousand Demons. In the following statement he introduces himself and his four siblings as his demon family: His elder brother Quitian Dasheng, a younger brother Shuashua Sanlang, and two sisters, Lishan Laomu and Wu Zhiqi Shengmu. This genealogy of the monkey shows that Sun Xingzhe in Zaju is already much more localized, settled into the local religious/cult culture. Unlike the monkey in other versions, this one has a wife, the abducted princess of the Country off the Golden Cauldron. He also proudly reports to the audience his famous misdeeds, which is also the reason that heaven is after him: he has stolen the Jade Emperor’s celestial wine, Laozi’s golden elixir, and the Queen of the West’s (Xichi Wangmu) peaches and fairy clothes. He also makes upfront ribald references about himself in this very first speech. The monkey’s demonic heart is indicated by his intention to eat Tripitaka immediately after Tripitaka rescues him from beneath the mountain. He never shows any seriousness about his business of pilgrimage, and his behavior does not improve during the journey. When the team arrives in India, he uses crude language in a conversation with an old lady about Buddhis ideas of the ‘heart.’”

 46: “Sun Xingzhe does not act seriously, nor does he ever speak seriously. The king of demons seems to be good only at stealing and running away.”

           -“In scenes 13-16, in the episode of Tripitaka and Sun Xingzhe’s encounter with Zhu Bajie the pig demon, who is converted into Tripitaka’s second disciple, Xingzhe offers to help fight the pig demon, but he is more interested in the Pei girl (old man Pei’s daughter) who has been abducted by Zhu. He only offers to help after old Pei tells him that his daughter is a rare beauty, and his dealings with the pig only revolve around the girl: when he visits the pig’s mountain home, he sees only the Pei girl, so his first action is to take the girl back to Pei. He then waits fo Zhu Bajie in the bridal chamber in the Pei girl’s clothing and flirts with the pig when he arrives…His sustained interest in woman and sex is demonstrated in another encounter with a demon in the Flaming Mountain episode. In this story, he seeks to borrow the Iron Fan from Princess Iron Fan (Tieshan Gongzhu) to put out the fire,…”

 47: “…but because he introduces himself using vulgar language, the princess refuses to lend him the fan and instead attacks him. Although eventually—with the help of Guanyin and other gods—the pilgrims pass the Flaming Mountains, the battle with Princess Iron Fain, which later becomes one of the most famous battles of Journey to the West, seems to be caused solely by Sun Xingzhe’s insolence.”

           -“The vulgarity of Sun Xingzhe’s language persists throughout the drama. The zaju drama during the Yuan era is distinguished from most other earlier Chinese art forms by its use of informal, vernacual, and nonsensical language. The language that Xingzhe uses is the most vulgar of all, corresponding to his role as the clown. He amuses by making crude jokes and obscene references at most inappropriate occasions throughout the story. For instance, at a crucial moment of his life when Tripitaka meets him for the first time and tries to climb the mountain to have him released, the monkey starts a conversation about love and explains that Triitaka’s motivation to save him is his lust for the monkey’s thin waistline, which resembles that of a desirable beauty. The monkey makes a reference to Agilawood Pavilion (Chenxiang Ting), a place that is known through Li Bo’s poems about the love affair between Emperor Tang Xuanzong and his consort Yang Guifei.”

           -“When asked about his heart, Xingzhe comments that he used to have a heart, but he ‘shit it out’ because his ‘asshole’ is too wide.”

 48: “From Shihua to Zaju, the monkey is transformed from a god who acts properly to a demon who uses foul language and makes suggestive jokes. In the hundred-chapter Journey to the West, Sun Wukong is turned into a multivalent figure, funny but not crude. The vulgarity of Sun Wukong seems to be peculiar to the Zaju version.”

 53: “If Hou Xingzhe is in general a god with positive qualities, Sun Xingzhe in Zaju shows the negative parts of his character coming into full bloom. He is much more associated with a buffoon and a demonic ape than with a celestial god. From Hou Xingzhe to Sun Xingzhe, the monkey figure is more localized, closely bound with popular culture. If we indeed can consider him as a figure on the way toward his Buddhist belief, he also remains the Taoist demon he claims to be and demonstrates his concern with keeping the order of Confucian values, as reflected in the Zhu Bajie sequence. Significantly, the monkey in Zaju receives the iron fillet from Guanyin, a device to control the demon in him, and which comes into use in the episode of the Land of Women. It is not until the hundred-chapter Journey to the West that the monkey also obtains his powerful weapon, the Golden-Hooped Rod, and hence completes the image of Sun Wukong that will become the most enduring version.”

           -“When Wu Cheng’en performs his creative adaptation, the sources of the journey story have been quite fully fledged. For instance, the Pak t’ongsa onhae (Pak tongshi yanjie), a Korean reader in colloquial Chinese first printed in the mid-fifteenth century, contains a list of references to mythic places and demons and gods, and brief accounts of episodes such as Sun Wukong’s rebellion against heaven (chapters 5-7, 13 in the novel), and Tripitaka and Sun Wukong’s experience in…”

 54: “…the Cart-Slow Kingdom (chapters 44-46 in the novel). One of the dialogues in this record presents a picture of ‘ordinary people going out to buy popular stories in book form,’ and Journey to the West is one of them. In the dialogue, a question arises about why people would buy popular tales instead of the Four Books or Six Classics, and the given answer is, ‘The Journey to the West is lively. It is good reading when you are feeling gloomy.’ This conversation shows that some version of Journey to the West is already circulating at the time and that for an ordinary reader this kind of popular story is preferable to Confucian classics. Wu Cheng’en’s taks is to pull together the source materials that are available for him and transform them into a fuller text, one that is reprinted, commented upon, and continued by a large number of writers who are scholars like him. Many of these later ‘adaptations’ take the story as a serious allegories of religious teachings, instead of assuming it is just for entertainment. Wu Cheng’en’s adaptation of the ‘Journey to the West’ story has accomplished its transformation from a popular-culture to an elite-culture work.

                       Compared to Zaju, Journey to the West has grown a great deal over time, both in terms of adding new episodes and through addition to the original narrative. It is the largest amalgamation of the pilgrimage sources, retold in a balanced style. Journey to the West brings the Buddhist and Taoist traditions into a new balance, despite the tensions that appear frequently in the story. Confucian principles such as the morals of loyalty and filial piety permeate the story, whether in the human world, the underworld, or the heavens. The peaceful coexistence of the three religions is pronounced repeatedly in the book and is also accepted as one of the major themes of the book by both scholars of the Ming and Quing eras and in contemporary analyses.”

           -“Printed in the sixteenth century of the Ming period, a time when the printing industry grew rapidly through commercialization and many people could buy novels to read for pleasure, the concerns of this book should be different from those of earlier vernacular narratives. It is a transformational time for the writers, publishers, and readers: whereas the readership of the manuscript culture of the earliest vernacular narratives consisted of ‘circles of literati and admirers,’ for the print culture, the reading public was no longer restricted to the learned classes.”

 55: “The idea of a general reader of the novel must have contributed to the writing. Interestingly, while earlier vernacular narratives are written to be copied and circulated among the literati, the new novels are written by the literati for a wider audience. Whatever other purposes the author might have, much attention must be paid to the readability of the book: that it tells a fun story, presents interesting characters, and uses language that is accessible and lively. During Pak t’ongsa onhae’s time, the book Journey to the West had been popular because of its liveliness, which provides a rationale for the printers’ interest in printing new adaptations, and both the publisher and the author must have made sure that these popular features would be included in order to ensure its continuing success in the market. The consideration of the reader and market thus supports the reading of the novel as a work for pleasure, an exemplary book of the low culture, even though it is written by a scholar.

                       In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong becomes a figure of more depth, someone who does not follow any prototype. He is still the guide and protector, resourceful for the journey, and knowledgeable about Buddhist teachings, but he is not the overly seriously Hou Xingzhe of Shihua. He is still funny and mischievous, creating trouble while pushing the narrative forward, but he is no longer the clown of Zaju. It seems that much of the vulgarity is redirected to the character of Zhu Bajie, which allows Sun Wukong to become a more introspective character who seeks to answer the question; Who am I?’ or, more accurately, engages the reader to ask the question.

                       Compared to the earlier versions, the most significant change of Journey to the West is the change of protagonist. In Zaju, Triitaka is still the main pilgrim on the journey and the main character in the entire play. Besides the incidents during the journey, the drama starts with Tripitaka’s legend and ends with Tripitaka’s accomplishment of the pilgrimage. In Journey to the West this structure is changed. The novel begins instead with a seven-chapter-long account of the monkey’s story, which is elaborated more than in any earlier account. It is here that Sun Wukong obtains his weapon, the Golden-Hooped Rod, which does not appear in the previous monkey stories.”

 56: “His actions, from stealing peaches from heaven, to making advances toward Princess Iron Fan, are all actions of a mischievous demon that needs to be controlled by the fillet. In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong finds his rod, and his experience—from the learning of skills, the testing of territory, the freedom of doing what he wants, to the kind of fun he enjoys no matter what he does and where he is—seems to be associated with, or represented by, the rod. Indeed, the narrative particularly makes the point that the monkey is meant to be the owner of the rod. The narrative also notes in one episode that without the rod he is no longer the monkey. The pleasure and freedom that Sun Wukong enjoys with the rod, or the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod (Ruyi Jingu Bang) is only to be met by the fillet from the Buddha, givne to him by Guanyin via the hands of Tripitaka. The fillet is not compliant to his will; instead, it controls him against his will. From the moment that Sun Wukong puts on the fillet, he is transformed from a free monkey—or a demon from the viewpoint of the Taoist and Buddhist deities—to a disciple of Tripitaka, a ‘compliant’ good pilgrim for the journey. In a sense, he becomes the ‘compliant rod’ for his master and Guanyin, since they can use the Tightening Fillet to force him to do what they want. However, the story is told mainly from the monkey’s point of view, as is established in the beginning chapters. Thus, the conflict between the rod of free will and the fillet that constrains the will becomes fundamental for the character Sun Wukong, providing the exigencies for his behavior. The narrative makes sure that the power of the fillet is exercised later, too, for instance in the episode where Sun Wukong fights against the White Bone Demon.

                       The conflict between the rod and fillet is also the conflict between a god and a demon. Sun Wukong represents both god and demon in one body. Unlike previous vernacular narratives where the monkey may have different titles, which are self-made titles that qualify him as a demon in the mythical hierarchy, in Journey to the West, Monkey is twice given official titles by the Jade Emperor: the Supervisor of the Imperial Stables (Bimawen) and Great Sage, Equal to Heaven (Qitian Dasheng). The reason that he creates the trouble in heaven is because he sees the contradiction between his two identities: the god and the monkey, in contrast to Sun Xingzhe in Zaju, who steals because he wants to enjoy the treasures at his demon home with his wife. Sun Wukong of Journey to the West wants to be treated as a Great Sage, but unfortunately when he is seen as a monkey, he cannot possibly be…”

 57: “…treated like the other gods. When his rod is reaching so far that he creates turmoil in the Jade Emperor’s palace and even wants to create a new order, it is time for the fillet to let him know the boundary of his power.

                       The conflict of the rod and fillet provides a kind of interior conflict that resonates with reader who must balance freedom and responsibility in their own lives. This conflict earns readers’ sympathy for the monkey figure and possibly contributes to their identification with him…Journey to the West provides ‘liveliness’ of writing, encyclopedic content, and most importantly, it focuses on the monkey’s identity quest. Therefore, besides the lively incidents between the pilgrims and demons, it provides above all a story of a monkey who seeks to understand who he is and his position in the world, a monkey who refuses to accept his limits but in the end has to accept the tragic solution of his life—all of which can be wrapped in the contradictory bundle of the rod and the fillet. In other words, Wu Cheng’en’s work establishes the protagonist as a ‘self’ that can be identified by the reader. This concern with the self and the communication between the writer and the reader begins with the addition of the monkey’s story at the outset of the novel.

                       My discussion of the inward interest of the Monkey King image corresponds with the trend of the ‘inward turn’ in the Ming cultural milieu. This trend is manifested by the interest in the mind/heart (xin) by the three religions in the Ming and culminates in the xinxue (learning of the mind/heart).”

 58: “Yu’s reading of Monkey as the heart/mind of the pilgrim team also relies heavily on the Neo-Confucian understanding of the mind. In fact, the term xinyuan (mind monkey) is generally accepted by analysis today as representing Sun Wukong’s crucial role for the journey.”

           -Journey to the West becomes an example of how popular culture and elite culture merge in a literary vehicle. Having been rewritten within ‘low’ culture, the story is taken over by an elite scholar and made into a classic, a work that is recognized by elite literati and exceptionally well written. The novel has established itself as the ‘original’ for future adaptation, both by elite scholars and by popular culture. In late Ming and Qing periods, there appeared sequels (xushu) to Journey to the West, in which the journey either continues or episodes are added in the middle. According to literary scholar Qiancheng Li, these sequels demonstrate an increasingly ‘inward turn,’ in which the journey is internalized.”

 60: “The contemporary images of Sun Wukong have been so overwhelmingly positive that to me—and to millions of other Chinese readers—the Monkey King is a hero, a role model, and one who is not only fearless and willing to challenge authorities but also loyal to his master Tripitaka and devoted to the goal of the band of pilgrims. Although he had been a trickster figure who embodied contradictory values as portrayed in Journey to the West, or a monkey who made funny moves and demonstrated opera skills in the late Qing dynasty, the Monkey King in the new China epitomizes positive and progressive values for the proletarian revolution and socialist construction.

                       The early twentieth century was a time of turmoil in Chinese history, particularly the years between the 1930s and 1950s. This period was marked by the Japanese invasion, and occupation of China (1931-45), the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), and the Chinese Civil War (1945-48). During the transformation Communist Revolution, with 1949 as the watershed year, the connection of the Monkey King image with the idea of revolution was established.”

 61: “The reshaping of the Monkey King image is so powerful that it changed the position of Sun Wukong in literary tradition and made him one of the most popular literary and cultural figures for both old and young readers. Sun Wukong was transformed from a trickster, a figure whose role in the play is more for humor and stunts than serious conversation, to a sublime and honorable protagonist. This trajectory sheds light on the power of the political discourse of the state, which remodels images not only of historical figures but also of popular folkloric and mythical figures such as Sun Wukong.”

 63: “The trend of portraying the Monkey King positively as a hero continues in Mao’s era. One episode that receives special attention and is crucial in the Monkey King’s transformation into a hero is Havoc in Heaven (Da’nao tiangong; or Nao tiangong), which first stands out as an important title in Peking Opera and is later adapted as a milestone animated feature film in China. All of the adaptations that take place after Mao’s rise to power are under the direct influence of his 1942 speech at the Yan’an Forum of Literature and Art.”

 64: “Mao emphasizes that literature and art should serve both the people (including the worker, the farmer, the soldier, the working class, and the intellectual) and the purposes of the Revolution. The legacy of literature and art from the past should be inherited but only when it serves the revolutionary end of the people after necessary reform in both form and content.

                       To meet the end of ‘serving the people,’ the dominant form of literature and art in post-Revolution China is socialist realism, a form and genre that does not leave room for most classical works…[but] creating uproar in the celestial palace is a revolution and…Sun Wukong represents the class of the farmer rising up against the ruling class.

 65: “The discussions about the nature of the opera accompany the transformation of the Monkey King onstage from a naughty troublemaker into a brave, rebellious, and heroic figure representing the revolutionary classes of the new China. The 1950s see a major revision of the ending of the ‘Havoc in Heaven’ story. The subjugation of Sun Wukong is replaced by his victory, and his reasons for creating the uproar (nao) in heaven are also rendered more justifiable.”

 68: “In the setting of an unjust and oppressive heavenly court, Sun Wukong is transformed into a soldier who is full of hatred for oppression. Even the little monkeys in his kingdom are also presented as highly aware of the political importance of their battle…In this light, Sun Wukong’s battle with heaven becomes the battle between the monkey class and the celestial lords, thereby allowing the Monkey King’s victory in the end to belong to all monkeys. After battling with the generals and then breaking free from Laozi’s furnace, the Monkey King reunites at the Flower-Fruit Mountain with the little monkeys. The story here ends with the monkeys’ celebration of their victory over the heavenly troops, singing in ensemble: ‘Paean all over the Flower-Fruit Mountain! Paean all over the Flower-Fruit Mountain!’ Aside from creating a victorious Monkey King image instead of a monkey loser as portrayed in earlier versions in popular culture, this note also offers a finishing touch for the new image of the Monkey King as a revolutionary: the hero does not fight alone and for himself. He is the leader and a representative of the entire monkey class, representing the oppressed, and his battle is the battle between the mountain and heaven.”

 69: “In contrast to the previous plays, which are about the subjugation of the Monkey King, this new play is a very loud celebration of the voice of the monkeys.

                       In transforming the mischievous into the righteous, Sun Wukong’s drunken misconduct is repackaged as conscious rebellion…stealing the pills becomes a righteous actions against the oppressive privilege that the Jade Emperor enjoys…This version of the Monkey King is not indulging in the hedonism of mischief—rather, he is portrayed as a fearless and angry fighter, a strong-willed crusader against evil.”

           -“Both a welcomed witness and a most prominent passenger, the Monkey King travels like an emissary, representing Chinese art and Chinese culture.”

 81: “Havoc in Heaven celebrates the established glory of the Monkey King as an indomitable rebel and invincible warrior. In [this] film the Monkey King does not seem to have any human faults. Reminding us of Weng’s Peking Opera version, even the actions of stealing celestial wine and elixir here are presented as acts of rebellion, not as mischief or mistake.

                       The most conspicuous revision aimed at the glorification of the Monkey King image appears again at the ending of the film. As with the Peking Opera script and Liang and Chen’s picture book, the animated film ends with Sun Wukong’s victory over the celestial court. But in this version, animation as the medium enables a more striking visual depiction of the Monkey King breaking Lingxiao Hall into pieces.”

 85: “Havoc in Heaven has travelled to many other countries and has been well-received ever since the release of the first part in 1961. In Wan’s own words, it served as an unofficial diplomatic envoy through its screenings. The establishment of a Chinese style was so closely tied to the political task—representing the Chinese people for both the Chinese and the international audience…”

 96: “In the novel Journey to the West, themes of the body and sexuality are sublimated due to the nature of the story as a religious allegory. Sex is a formidable sin from which all of the pilgrims except Zhu Bajie abstain. The only one who shows weakness toward the temptation of sex, Bajie is repeatedly tested, warned, and punished. In contrast, Tripitaka has sustained his pure virgin body for ten reincarnations, and it is believed that because of this his flesh has magic power: eating one piece of it is sufficient to grant the consumer longevity.”

 97: “If Tripitaka has to constantly work against the idea of sexuality and make an effort to abstain from it, for the Monkey King sex has never been an issue. In his own words, he was born without xing. When Patriarch Subhuti asks him about his xing (surname), he took it as a question about his xing (temperament/nature) and responded that he did not have any temper (xing), and had never lost his temper (yisheng wu xing). This statement also holds true if we take the liberty of relating the pun of xing to sexuality. When it was clarified that the question was about the surname that he would have received from his parents, Monkey responded that he did not have any parents, since he was born from a piece of stone on top of the Flower-Fruit Mountain. Subhuti was much delighted upon hearing this, saying that the monkey was born of heaven and earth. Although the narrative of Journey to the West never explains the ways in which Monkey’s birth from stone function as an asset, it is clear that his parentless birth (a birth that is not as a result of sexual activity) distinguishes him as a model for religious practice. Quite relatively, throughout the journey sex simply never constitutes a temptation for him, as if his mind cannot fathom the idea of sexuality.”

                       The correspondence of the five members of the pilgrimage group with the Five Phases of Chinese philosophy is widely accepted, with Monkey related to Metal (Jin) and Heart/Mind (Xin). Metaphorically Monkey functions as the mind/heart of the group, who is focused on defeating demons and directing the group toward the religious holy land. This is probably why the narrative of Journey to the West constantly refers to Sun Wukong as the ‘heart monkey’ (xinyuan). If the heart/mind of the pilgrims should be directed toward attaining Buddhist sutras for the world or attaining Buddahood for themselves, the body that is attached to the worldly pleasures constitutes obstacles for the heart. For Zhu Bajie, the obstacle of body is significantly greater than it is for Tripitaka. But for Sun Wukong, his body does not stand in the way—born from stone and smelt in Laozi’s elixir furnace, his body is built for battles and transformational magic, not for the sin of desire.”

 102: “In the sixteenth-century text, Sun Wukong himself goes through the identity transformation from a demon (a king of monkeys who occupy a mountain and claim it as their territory without recognition from authorities), to a deity recognized by the Taoist authority (first as the imperial horse keeper, then as the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven), and finally a Buddhis pilgrim who eventually attains Buddhahood. This upward transformation from an outlaw to a recognized deity was deliberately overlooked by the socialist adaptations, who downplayed the importance of social recognition either from the Taoist or the Buddhist order but only emphasized the idea of rebel and the metaphor of the journey. Hence the Monkey King was simply represented as a heroic rebel of oppression or a devoted follower of the path of socialist construction.”

 103: “Joker’s plan eventually has to yield to divine intervention. Before his story reaches a happy ending, his life is taken by the spider demon, and subsequently his spirit faces Guanyin’s master plan: the Monkey King’s golden headband and golden rod are waiting for him. Although taking on the mantle of the Monkey King is presented as a matter of choice, there really is no alternative, and the film portrays this transformation as the saddest moment. Solemnly and ceremonially, Joker raises up and puts on the headband, repeating the lines he once insincerely spoke to Zixia: ‘Once there was a genuine love devoted to me, but I took it lightly. When I have lost it, I know it is too late to regret.’ It is as if he uses the last moment as Joker to redeem the lines that he performed badly before, but this time with complete sincerity. This sincerity in his last words about love proves the tragic nature of the unwilling transformation into Sun Wukong. Among all the Journey to the West adaptations, A Chinese Odyssey is probably the one that most emphasizes the tragedy of being the Monkey King.”

 108: “The term ‘postsocialism’ was coined by historian Arif Dirlik before the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 and since then has been adopted by academics in various disciplines and has been defined in several ways…The postsocialist nature of the image of Sun Wukong is evident from the relationship between the people and the system. If a socialist system means people have faith in the socialist discourse, it becomes postsocialist when this faith is lost, even though ideological control from the leadership is still strong and is currently getting stronger. There exists a discord and discrepancy between the expectation from above and grassroots-level practice. Instead of the kind of collective identification with common ideals established in the socialist period, the postsocialist hero is interested in his individual agenda, which often includes focusing on his personal struggle to challenge the authorities that want to control him.”

           -“major adaptations of Journey to the West almost always present the Monkey King as a postsocialist hero”  

 111: “The division and confrontation between demon (yao) and deity (shen) becomes a major driving force of the narrative of Story of Wukong. The journey to fetch sutras in Journey to the West is turned into a scheme by Buddha and Guanyin to deal with their uncontrollable agents, Tripitaka and Sun Wukong. This again is a predestined deal that leaves no opportunity for Monkey to win. Instead of following a chronological order, the narrative presents the two fiercest disorders that Monkey creates side by side: the havoc he creates in the sequence of ‘Havoc in Heaven’ and the chaos raised by the true and fake Monkey in the sequence of the battle between Sun Wukong and the six-eared macaque. In Journey to the West, the six-eared macaque is another capable monkey demon that has transformed into an image of Wukong. His masquerade is so real that no one except Buddha can tell the real from the fake. Story of Wukong presents the six-eared macaque as another Wukong, the part of Wukong that is ‘evil,’ to fight with the Wukong that is recognized as ‘good’ while controlled by Buddha’s headband. This means that Wukogn the rebel has to defeat the deities as well as himself in order to win. This conflict appears to guarantee the victory of Buddha: after Wukong kills the other half of himself, he is left no choice by to succumb to Buddha, who announces htat Wukong is actually the six-eared macaque and extends to him the opportunity to become his student once he accepts this identity. However, at this point Wukong has already recovered his memory of who he is. With his last breath, he declares war against Buddha and proclaims his real identity as the invincible Sun Wukong. His actions surprises Buddha himself, who admits that it is Wukong who has won—he has done something out of Buddha’s expectation and therefore has jumped out of Buddha’s control. In claiming his rebel identity, Wukong dies, but he also wins.”

 112: “Both of the Wukongs in A Chinese Odyssey and Story of Wukong fit the model for a postsocialist hero: on the one hand, the ‘post’ of postsocialism is reflected in the spirit of rebellion, the lack of belief in authoritarian control, and the challenge to authority; on the other hand, the ‘socialist’ ideology and the government that represents it still maintains a strong presence. In contrast to the socialist revolutionary Monkey King produced during the 1950s and 1960s, who celebrates his victory in the end, both of the postsocialist Monkeys are doomed to lose.”

 113: “…deals with the trouble of life the only way [Sun Wukong] knows: to endure until reality becomes history.”

 114: “…the major contradiction of Journey to the West: why would Monkey, once a brilliant rebel, become a model Buddhis pilgrim? It is the ways in which the readers approach this contradiction that determines to a large extent their understanding of Journey to the West.”

 115: “Monkey’s failure and dejection at the beginning and his ultimate transformation into a rebellious hero earns the audience’s sympathy, and their identification with him ensures interest in the project of such revision.”

 116: “The 2015 animation film Monkey King: Hero Is Back (Dashen guilai, hereafter Hero is Back), directed by Tian Xiaopeng, was a success both at the box office and in critics’ review. Audiences were excited by the prospect of a quality animation film after a long stagnant period for Chinese animation, and they also liked the image of Sun Wukong created by the film. The film focuses on the moment when Monkey has just been released from the mountain after five hundred years of imprisonment. A dejected Monkey who cannot find his power throughout the film, he is irritated, instigated, and finally inspired by a little boy named Jiangliu (Tripitaka’s boyhood name), who believes in the greatness of the Great Sage he knows from legend. At the very last moment, Monkey rediscovers his magic power and defeats the demon Hundun. The short moment of Monkey regaining his magic in the end, lasting for only two minutes, wins the audience’s heart. Many popular reviews note Monkey’s repeatedly yelling throughout the film, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it,’ a frustration that aligns his character with normal human beings, in contrast to the radiant hero he finally becomes. The most popular review on douban.com states: ‘Every Chinese will fall in love with Sun Wukong. Each generation has its own Sun Wukong. I think this film can serve as a good first Monkey King film for children of the new century.’

                       Why does the audience respond to the Wukong in this 2015 film Hero is Back so positively…the Great Sage in Hero is Back…does not just accept. He searches, he questions, and he fights against his limits…Significantly, although the animated Hero Is Back is adapted from the sequence when Sun Wukong meets Tripitaka, it is not about how Monkey pledges allegiance to his Buddhist master. What it highlights is Wukong’s struggle against the seal from Buddha that still controls him, preventing him from using any magic power.”

           -“…the ‘spirit of Wukong’ (Wukong jingshen): rebelliousness, variability, optimism, and persistence…”

 118: “These few lines represent the major theme of the postsocialist Monkeys: engaging with this major conflict, Sun Wukong tries to use his rod to break free from the limitations of the headband. This is a clear contrast to the socialist Wukong: the revolutionary who is invincible, and the loyal party supporter who does not complain about the golden band. After all his failures and frustrations, the postsocialist Monkey in the end manages to find something the celebrate, a sense of accomplishment for himself, as Dai Quan indicated in his statement: ‘In the end, every monkey can become Sun Wukong.’ The monkey becomes Sun Wukong when he finds his lost ability to use his rod again.

                       New adaptations of Journey to the West in recent years thus share several common features. The first is a clear individualist bent, as Wukong invariably goes through a personal struggle, the solution for which lies in himself, not in any external agency. Second, Monkey is no longer the filial protector of Tripitaka or true follower of Guanyin’s teaching. The once-suppressed rebellions spirit is back. And third, although Monkey still has to submit to heavenly authority, he is allowed to think, to search, and even to challenge. His signature headband, which is transformed into a bracelet in both Hero is Back and ‘Wukong,’ reflects this change.”

 142: “A few points in this part of Journey to the West should be underscored for the purpose of comparison. When the Monkey King declared his battle against heaven, his purpose was no less than attaining the highest seat in the heavenly empire. Although the heavens did not want to give the Monkey King real power, they had been quite generous when assigning him titles, first ‘Supervisor of Imperial Stables’ and then ‘the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.’ Though demanding to be no less than the Jade Emperor himself, Sun Wukong also admitted, in good humor, that he was an ‘old monkey.’ In other words, he was at the same time the Great Sage and a monkey. Although the Great Sage is a self-proclaimed ‘hero,’ the style of his speech is humorous and lighthearted, which is in agreement with the style in which the whole story is narrated.”

 143: “The human-versus-monkey division and confrontation is much sharper in that in Journey to the West, where Monkey’s dissatisfaction in heaven is based on his social status rather than his monkey identity itself. In the Chinese classic, the upheaval that he produces in heaven is more an unintended mistake than a purposeful action, all beginning from the mischievous theft of the celestial wine and food from the banquet and then of Laozi’s elixir when he was drunk. Waking up from his intoxication and realizing the severity of his mistakes, he returns to his Flower-Fruit Mountain but nevertheless continues his drinking party there with his guests, apparently planning to continue as Monkey King in style while giving up the position of ‘Great Sage.’”

 145: “In chapter 7 of Journey to the West, two short paragraphs state matter-of-factly how the Buddha put the monkey under the mountain of his palm, and how he put up a sign with the mantra ‘Om mani padme hum’ on the mountain to secure the monkey’s imprisonment.”

 149: “As with other ethnic groups in the United States, such as Irish immigrants, the Chinese image was simianized and demonized in propaganda cartoons, fiction, and other popular media.”

 159: “When speaking of Orientalism, a study of the semiotics of stereotypes, Said argues that orientalism is ‘a form of radical realism,’ in that anyone who is employing orientalism talks about the objects in ways as if what they are speaking and thinking about is the truth. Relevant to Said’s discussion of stereotypes, Bhabha observes that colonial discourse ‘employs a system of representation, a regime of truth, that is structurally similar to realism.”

 160: “Although many aspects of society have gone through development and changes, the stereotype remains the same and the connection between the signified and the signifier has not been severed.”

 161: “Transformation in the Journey to the West tradition is appreciated as an ability to shift freely between various forms, whereas in many other mythical traditions it can also mean a one-dimensional switch from one form to another, or the loss of the original form. Besides Sun Wukong, many other beings in Journey to the West are able to transform freely, without being locked into one form and losing avenues to others. In contrast, some transformation stories in Greek and Latin traditions focus on metamorphoses of a rigid kind, wherein a being after transformation is permanently locked in the adopted form, unable to return to the original. This form of transformation is seen as a loss, or a suffering.”

 162: “When relating colonial discourse to fetishism, Bhabha describes the stereotype as ‘a form of splitting and multiple belief,’ and because it contains these contradictory elements, it requires being continually repeated and also ‘a continual and repetitive chain of other stereotypes’ for its significance to be successful.”

 164: “Multivalence, then, is a crucial quality for maintaining transformability. A transformation with integrity is the one that remains fluid, in which an identity may transform itself back and forth freely. Instead of making a choice among different forms, it contains all. The multivalent and dynamic transformation is an answer to the split and contradiction of the stereotype.”

 166: “The trickster image of the Monkey King is self-deconstructive, disallowing its own image to solidify, which results in fundamental multivalence and the capability for positive transformation.”

 167: “The Monkey King image suggests that ‘identity’ does not have to negate plurality; it offers an option of enriching the meaning of ‘identity’ as an alternative to giving up on the concept or using concepts such as ‘unification’ instead.”

 169: “Like all trickster characters and despite the best efforts of researchers like myself to analyze him, the Monkey King remains a footloose figure, and one who will leave his mark on cultural texts that reflect the ever-changing and flowing multiplicity of global cultural currents. Moreover, he serves as a mask for the performance of diverse politics, bodies, and identities, yet simultaneously remains a character that is distinctly and indelibly Chinese.”

           -“The aim of this book has been to provide a renewed understanding of the Monkey King character as a trickster, as well as to demonstrate the link between the Monkey King character and the Chinese self-conception of national identity.”

 170: “Other narratives of transformation—such as that of the butterfly lovers, Lady White Snake, Mulan, Avalokitesvara, and Guan Gong—reveal their own patterns as they travel across time and culture.”

           -“The original plan for this work included a cross-cultural comparative study of the Monkey King from China and Hanuman from India. Although both originated as monkey figures in the traditional legends and beliefs, Sun Wukong turned into a trickster figure, whereas Hanuman remained a hero with serious and upright values. The difference between the two monkeys is especially interesting when the possible genealogical connection between them is considered as a transcultural experience of one monkey and its rewriting.”

           -“Journey to the West has become ‘part of the rich background texture of Chinese thought, speech, and behavior; it is to the present day an inexhaustible archive for role modeling, argumentative wit, and political innuendo.’ Beyond that, it is also worth our attention that the ‘Journey to the West’ has increasingly become a trope for East-West relations.”

 172: “In the retelling and rewriting history of the Monkey King, performance brings history and the mythical/fictional together. The historical journey of the monk Xuanzang is brought into the fictional realm through oral performances. Although how the Monkey King has joined the journey is never clearly explained, it is agreed that it is the result of the Indian and/or Chinese religious or legendary figure(s) joining the ‘Journey to the West’ narrative via performances.”

 173: “The Monkey King is thus found in real life and written in history, such as in the records of the Boxer Rebellion. One can also argue that the popularity of the Monkey King in real life and the popularity of ‘Journey to the West’ have promoted each other. In our recent examples, when Sun Wukong is linked to real historical figures such as Mao Zedong and to national or social groups such as the Chinese or Asian Americans, the connection between history and myth is made evident. It is through this connection that this project of the Monkey King becomes a vehicle, its moving window enabling us to observe the history of various periods.”

#hongmei sun #transforming monkey #xiyouji #journey to the west #jttw #sun wukong #monkey king #i definitely encourage anyone who's interested and who can to buy the book #it is pretty pricy though... #still! it's the best overview of the monkey king in english i've ever found

[artlimited]

Portraits of Taoist and Buddhist Figures | Three Thousand Boundless Universes in Paintings https://www.artlimited.net/agenda/portraits-of-taoist-and-buddhist-figures-three-thousand-boundless-universes-in-paintings/en/7585298

[deng-yi-deng]

a quick note on my feelings about the ending of Till the End of the Moon. A counterpoint to those who were unhappy with it (which it seems like many were) - under the cut for the spoilers

Was it a sad ending? Yes it was. Did I cry? Yes I did. I do not usually cry for dramas, but I'm still tearing up over six hours later. Also, I won't be comparing anything with the original novel since I didn't finish and consider them to be totally different beasts.

Some of the critiques of the ending that I'm seeing are along the lines of 'TTJ deserved a HE because he suffered so much' another is 'we don't watch fantasy/xianxia to have to see the terrible suffering we know is happening in the world'.

Those are also things I said going into this drama - and that it sets a bad precedent to always have BE to be 'memorable' or 'profound' and that we could all use a HE these days. But I changed my mind, and therefore was satisfied (broadly) with the ending. (Yes, I have quibbles with some of the editing, but I have for many of the episodes.)

The reason I'm ok with the ending is twofold - one, though it is sad, I don't think it qualifies as a Bad Ending because the hero(es) achieved their aims. Li Susu did change Tantai Jin's heart, and she killed the Devil God. And Tantai Jin had an end to his suffering, and found love - not just from Susu but also from a father figure in Immortal Zhaoyou and from his sect brothers. TTJ's happiness was very short-lived and yeah, that really sucks. But he had the most amazing character arc ever.

His life was filled with cruelty and misery, and he had every reason and opportunity to choose to reflect that back into the world, but he didn't. His love for Susu led him to also love the world. Every good thing he did was a reflection of her, and to try to impress her. He managed to outsmart the Devil God, thanks in part to Ming Ye, and he died knowing that he had won! He had not totally fulfilled Devil God's prophecy, he had taken as much control of his life as he could, and he turned it around - he destroyed the All-in-Distress-Way instead of unleashing it on the world. He also died knowing that Susu understood what he had sacrificed, that he loved her and she loved him and even though she wanted to die with him he was also able to save her!

The other reason I feel this isn't a BE is that unlike some xianxias which are mostly romance focused, TTEOTM was at its heart not a romance. That played an important part, but the main story was about the struggle to save the world from certain destruction. This changes the nature of what qualifies as a BE vs HE. In the Bo're dream arc, we see the 12 gods sacrifice their lives to stop the Devil God. In the end it was Susu and TTJ trying to save the world, together. Their love is an important element, but it's not the story. TTEOTM is high stakes, it's gods vs. demons good vs. evil - and good wins, the world is saved. One individual's life is important, but they are just part of something greater. To focus on a typical married+kid HE for one character seems out of balance.

The drama articulates this point when Susu the goddess and TTJ are on the Celestial Pillar looking out on the world. Everything looks small, mountains are like peas. Only the gods get that view, and even the gods are finite. They are both part of something larger, something infinite. TTJ dies with a peaceful look on his face, knowing he's chosen this end, and that Susu and the rest of the world will go on without him.

The message is also part of the particular aesthetic that TTEOTM cultivates. With the Dunhuang look, they've also introduced Buddhist moral and philosophical concepts into what is normally the Taoist space of xianxia. Suffering is everywhere, the result of karma. The only way to break out of this cycle of suffering is to see and understand the nature of the cycle- at which point you can choose to leave it or stay to save others. (I am condensing an entire religious system into one sentence very badly don't at me). TTJ tricks Susu into following the Heartless Path again and become a god so that she can kill him and end the All-in-distress Way. He chooses to save others by destroying himself. His suffering is ended, along with the future suffering of the people. And it won't happen again. This is huge! 500 years later, the world is peaceful.

I'll agree there are other ways they might have done the end, but I'm personally satisfied with it. And since a little of TTJ's consciousness is in the scale, he could eventually come back. I guess in one version of the script he does, and so some are rightfully upset that was cut.

#till the end of the moon meta #about the ending #i'm not sure i really want to debate it here - was just seeing a lot of anger and thought i'd give a counterpoint

[zaheersblog]

Exploring the Art of Meditation: A Pathway to Inner Peace and Self-Discovery

Introduction:

In the hustle and bustle of modern life, finding moments of tranquility and self-reflection can seem like an elusive dream. However, amidst the chaos, there exists a timeless practice that has been embraced by cultures worldwide for millennia – meditation. Often depicted as a serene figure sitting cross-legged with closed eyes, meditation is more than just a physical posture; it is an art form that unlocks the gateway to inner peace, self-discovery, and spiritual growth. In this article, we delve into the depths of the art of meditation, exploring its rich history, varied techniques, and profound benefits.

The Origin and Evolution of Meditation:

The roots of meditation can be traced back to ancient civilizations such as those in India, China, and the Middle East. In India, the practice of meditation finds its origins in the Vedas, ancient scriptures dating back thousands of years, where it was primarily used as a means to attain spiritual enlightenment and self-realization. Similarly, in China, Taoist and Buddhist monks practiced meditation as a tool for cultivating inner harmony and achieving a deeper understanding of existence.

Guidance books has been attached with link

As meditation spread across different cultures and continents, it underwent various transformations, giving rise to a multitude of techniques and approaches. From the mindfulness-based practices of Zen Buddhism to the focused concentration of Vipassana meditation, each tradition offers a unique perspective on the art of stillness and introspection.

The Essence of Meditation:

At its core, meditation is about cultivating awareness and presence in the present moment. It is a practice that invites us to observe our thoughts, emotions, and sensations without judgment or attachment. By quieting the mind and turning inward, we create space for inner clarity and insight to emerge.

One of the fundamental principles of meditation is breath awareness. By directing our attention to the rhythmic flow of breath, we anchor ourselves in the present moment, allowing the mind to settle and the body to relax. This simple yet powerful technique forms the foundation of many meditation practices, including mindfulness meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and transcendental meditation.

Techniques of Meditation: While the essence of meditation remains constant, the techniques used to facilitate the practice vary widely. Some of the most common meditation techniques include:

Mindfulness Meditation: In mindfulness meditation, practitioners focus their attention on the present moment, observing thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise without judgment. Through regular practice, mindfulness cultivates a sense of inner peace and acceptance.

Loving-Kindness Meditation: Also known as Metta meditation, loving-kindness meditation involves directing well-wishes and compassion towards oneself and others. By fostering feelings of love and goodwill, this practice cultivates empathy and strengthens social connections.

Transcendental Meditation: Transcendental meditation involves the use of a mantra—a word or phrase repeated silently—to transcend ordinary consciousness and access deeper states of awareness. This technique is often practiced for stress reduction and spiritual growth.

Guided Visualization: Guided visualization meditation involves imagining a peaceful scene or desired outcome while engaging the senses. By creating vivid mental imagery, practitioners evoke feelings of relaxation and empowerment.

Guidance books has been linked

Benefits of Meditation:

The benefits of meditation extend beyond the realm of mental and emotional well-being, encompassing physical health and spiritual growth. Some of the notable benefits of regular meditation practice include:

Stress Reduction: Meditation has been shown to reduce levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, leading to decreased feelings of anxiety and tension.

Improved Focus and Concentration: By training the mind to maintain attention on a single point of focus, meditation enhances cognitive function and concentration.

Enhanced Emotional Regulation: Meditation cultivates emotional resilience and equanimity, enabling practitioners to respond to challenging situations with greater calmness and clarity.

Increased Self-Awareness: Through self-reflection and introspection, meditation fosters a deeper understanding of oneself and one's inner workings.

Spiritual Growth: For many practitioners, meditation serves as a pathway to spiritual growth and enlightenment, facilitating a sense of connection to something greater than oneself.

Conclusion:

In a world filled with distractions and noise, the art of meditation offers a sanctuary of stillness and self-discovery. As we journey inward, we uncover the depths of our being and awaken to the inherent peace and wisdom that reside within. Whether practiced for stress relief, spiritual growth, or simply as a means of finding moments of tranquility amidst the chaos, meditation holds the transformative power to enrich every aspect of our lives. So, let us embrace the art of meditation and embark on a journey of inner exploration and awakening.

Disclaimer:

Affiliate link has been attached for your easy access to books, which benefit me when someone buy books through this link

[yamayuandadu]

How many Buddhist characters are there in Touhou, and which branch of Buddhism do they represent?

Putting aside the explicitly Buddhist Byakuren and the other Myouren-adjacent characters, who are presumably either Shingon or Tendai (I'm fairly sure I've seen both claims made regarding the semi-historical Myouren; I cannot check this right now, I'm sorry), the characters at the very least based on something Buddhism-related include: Yuyuko: her name is an allusion to Saigyo, who was a Buddhist monk, based on his reverence for Kukai’s teachings belonging to the Shingon school. Keine: hakutaku is hardly Buddhist, but her school is a terakoya, which is ultimately a (derivative of a) Buddhist institution, hence the frequent use of “temple school” in translations. I do not think ZUN ever addressed if there is a Buddhist temple in the village though, let alone what Keine has to do with it. Akyuu: while we know nothing about the personal beliefs of the semi-historical Hieda no Are, the term referring to Akyuu’s ability in Touhou, gumonji, is actually a real Buddhist ceremony belonging to the Shingon tradition. Ashiyama’s “officially unofficial” Gensokyo of Humans went all out with this. Eiki: while not exclusively Buddhist, the concept of kings of hell and related imagery did enter Japan in a Buddhist context. And her backstory is pretty explicitly based on the Buddhist notion of equivalence between Enma (Yama) and Jizou. Neither of these is exclusive to a specific school. Tengu, collectively: while the matter of tengu origin is complex, the notion of tengu living in an organized society, publishing own literature, etc. is rooted in so-called tengu scrolls from the Kamakura period, which are best understood as Buddhist political cartoons of the “I drew myself as the Chad and you as the tengu” sort. Arose due to rivalry between old establishment schools, Tendai and Shingon, with new ones like Nichiren in the Kamakura period. Tojiko: while nothing in the game really points at Tojiko herself being a Buddhist, I feel like it’s worth mentioning the Soga clan was the most firmly pro-Buddhist in the period when this was still a novelty not yet firmly rooted in Japan. The first schools established in Japan by Korean and Chinse missionaries are known collectively as Nanto Rokoshu. Miko: as we learn from the game itself, the semi-historical crown prince Shotoku was very much invested in spreading Buddhism, Miko's professed Taoist beliefs notwithstanding. I’m pretty sure ZUN’s idea is partially based on the Honchou Shinsenden, where Shotoku is presented as the Buddhist version of a Taoist immortal. Narumi: while Narumi’s in-universe status is sort of its own unique thing, Jizou is a firmly Buddhist figure as already discussed above, and she keeps the distinct iconography. Once again, not really tied to a specific school. Mai and Satono: directly based on Matarajin’s attendant deities, Chōreita Dōji and Nishita Dōji. Exclusively Tendai, and limited to genshi kimyodan rites at that, basically one of the deepest cuts in ZUN’s repertoire so far. Okina: based on Matarajin, probably the single most Buddhist character in Touhou in that her inclusion opened many doors (heh) for adapting irl materials for Touhou wholesale. Pretty firmly Tendai. Eika: the Ebisu theme is certainly there, and I do wish more was done with it, but her whole gimmick is largely based on Sai no Kawara, which is pretty explicitly Buddhist and ties into the Jizou and ten kings-related beliefs. Not really connected to a specific denomination though. Megumu: at the very least named after Iizuna Gongen, who is a Buddhist deity - not exclusively, but still. Ultimately associated with Shugendo more closely than any Buddhist school. Tsukasa is based on a youkai associated with practicioners of shugendo too. Bitten: sarugami are associated with multiple strictly Tendai deities like Sekizan Myojin and Sanno. Zanmu: based on legendary Zen monk Zanmu Nichihaku who according to a legend was actually a different, earlier Tendai monk, Kaison Hitachibo. Zun seems to focus on the Zen connection.

PC-98 only has the dubiously Buddhist example of Konngara, who is clearly named after Kongara-douji, but I frankly do not see much of a reason to assume the name isn’t used randomly in this context.

All around, Touhou pretty heavily skews towards Heian and Kamakura Buddhism, ie. more towards a time period rather than a specific school. I do think it is notable Zanmu is pretty clear Zen though. We'll see if that will lead to introduction of Nichiren and Pure Land characters eventually.

#touhou #long post

[anueutsuhos-touhou-profiles]

Mamizou Futatsuiwa:

Tanuki are a species of raccoon-dogs native to Japan. Yet another of the most famous youkai in Japan is the bake-danuki, the youkai tanuki. They're notorious pranksters and shapeshifters, who often utilize their... massive testicles. You may have seen them in the movie Pom Poko.

Their representative in Touhou Project is Mamizou Futatsuiwa. (As far as I know she does not have the testicles. That's never brought up at all) She actually lived on the island of Sado in the Outside World for the longest time, being a famous folklore figure there, capable of both good and bad deeds. She came to Gensokyo by swimming all the way there, apparently.

Nue Houjuu is her long-time friend, and invited her to Gensokyo to assist the Myouren Temple in fighting against the Taoists. As such, she fights the protagonist as the Extra boss of Touhou 13: Ten Desires. She's kinda the subject of a bait and switch gag where everyone's expecting a more physically imposing youkai, like the giant skeleton gashadokuro, especially with how freaky Nue looks.

Since then, she's become a major recurring character in the series. She's a playable character and opponent in Touhou 13.5: Hopeless Masquerade, 14.5: Urban Legend in Limbo, and 15.5: Antinomy of Common Flowers. She's one of the main characters of the manga Forbidden Scrollery, and then of the manga Lotus Eaters, as well as making recurring appearances in Wild and Horned Hermit, giving her perhaps more manga screentime than any other character besides Reimu and Marisa.

Mamizou is basically a grandma. Sorta. She talks in a very "old-person" manner of speaking, wears old people clothing, and tends to act like a grandma around the more immature and innocent characters, giving them hard candies and the like. But she insists she's a young lass, of "only around a thousand years old."

Mamizou is a cunning schemer, trying to raise the status of tanuki in Gensokyo any way she can. She'd like nothing better than to rule over all of Gensokyo with an iron fist. Still, almost all her appearances have been on relatively peaceful terms with the cast. She's taking the slow route with all this. Mamizou has made many enemies, especially with the other youkai races who also wish to dominate Gensokyo, like the tengu or kappa. But she's also gathered a small army of followers, and seems to have already gathered all the tanuki in Gensokyo to her side. She's often found in the Human Village, disguised as a human, either for one of her schemes or just to hang out. Reimu knows full well about this, but thinks that if she exposed Mamizou, all that would happen is people getting mad at her for allowing Mamizou to infiltrate in the first place.

Generally Mamizou is willing to act nice to get people to do what she wants, or give her what she wants. When she's unable to manipulate people she resorts to intimidation to get what she wants. She's also incredibly prideful of her abilities, to the point of being a detriment, as she often plans half heartedly, assuming incorrectly that this is enough for a powerful genius such as herself.

That said, she's got a few friends: Nue, as said earlier, and a frenemy relationship with Suika Ibuki and Kasen Ibaraki. Her grandma-esque behavior towards younger characters seems also completely legitimate, and she's even helped at least one youkai girl gain a sense of self-worth with no ulterior motives.

Tanuki are traditionally portrayed as arch-rivals to kitsune, and Mamizou is no exception. It's said she made certain that not a single kitsune lives on the island of Sado. She despises kitsune on principle, but sadly she's never interacted with Ran to actually demonstrate this.

While Mamizou was summoned to Gensokyo to fight on behalf of the Myouren Temple, she has no real love for the place. She's by no means a devout Buddhist, or even tries to be. At best she hangs around the entrance giving advice to anyone coming in. Byakuren, in fact, cannot stand her, saying things like "why don't you turn into a rock or something- and then never change back."

She has quite the whacky spellcards. All of her bullets take the form of differently colored simplistic figures of people and animals. She's also able to summon her tanuki minions to aid her, or just to give emotional support. Her shape-shifting abilities are unparalleled in Gensokyo, with her only caveat being that she cannot remove her long tanuki tail or the leaf on her head. When shapeshifted into an opponent, she's able to flawlessly copy their attacks. She debuted this ability by turning into Reimu for her spellcard "Pseudo-Exorcism of the Stupid Shrine Maiden". She's even able to transform other people into animals! This changes depending on the person's personality and motifs.

Examples:

Reimu becomes a fox

Marisa becomes a crow

Miko becomes an owl

Koishi becomes a cat

Tenshi becomes a catfish

Yukari Yakumo becomes an axolotl (My personal favorite)

Oh yeah, and she also uses her transformation abilities to rip people off by turning leaves into money, paying with them, and then turning them back into leaves once she's safely away.

#touhou project #touhou #ten desires #mamizou futatsuiwa

[smolcrimegoblin]

JTTW au, but it's just the gang getting transported to the modern era and not wanting to go back because they like air conditioning and running water.

Same au, but Sun Wukong is the voice of reason (his reoccurring nightmare that wakes him up in a cold sweat) and telling them they have a fucking journey to complete-! And everyone just collectively saying "fuck the journey, I like this" and they point to a microwave.

Same au, but everyone is either fascinated by modern tech, thinks it's magical in nature, thinks it's fucking weird alchemy, or thinks it is a man-made living thing- ex. Siri.

Still the same au, but the gang learns of religions and pantheons that aren't in their version of China (everything that isn't Buddhist, Taoist(Daoist?), or Confucianist) and have to deal with the figures from those religions too.

#jttw au #my jttw au idea #idk what to call it #smol speaks

[thedepartmentofdiscoveries]

Jiang-Shi from the 1985 Hong Kong Action Comedy "Mr. Vampire" directed by Ricky Lau.

"If you meet a vampire, don't breathe." This is the sage advice that Master Kau, the Taoist priest played by Lam Ching-ying, gives to his bumbling apprentices, Man-choi (Ricky Hui) and Chau-sang (Chin Siu-ho), in the 1985 Hong Kong action comedy "Mr. Vampire."

Forget everything you know about bloodsuckers; the undead specimens in "Mr. Vampire" are breath-suckers. They have a very deliberate way of hopping with their arms stretched out in front of them, legs also stiff and straight from rigor mortis. In Chinese, these zombie-like revenants are known as the jiangshi; in Japanese, it's kyonshi, while in English, they're sometimes referred to as "Chinese hopping vampires."

Stirred up by the disinterment of a parent who was buried with bad feng shui, the jiangshi of "Mr. Vampire" are a comedic answer to the unsettled ghosts of subsequent Asian horror films like "Ringu" and "The Eye." They're the reanimated corpses of people who died "with grievances or stress," suffocating to death yet holding one last breath in their throat, which enables them to come back and prolong their existence by sinking their sharp blue nails into humans and sucking the breath out of them.

At a certain point, the tropes of Western vampire films lose their power and become cliches we've all seen done to death on celluloid. If you enjoyed the Asian zom-com flavor of "One Cut of the Dead" and are looking for something a little more off the beaten film path, "Mr. Vampire" draws from Chinese folklore to offer a fresh, hilarious take on vampires, one that jumpstarted a whole franchise and jiangshi genre, complete with four sequels and an 8-bit Nintendo video game ("Reigen Doushi," which became "Phantom Fighter" in the U.S.)

Directed by Ricky Lau, "Mr. Vampire" found a way to uproot the undead from European folklore and Eurocentric cinema and make them work within the context of Eastern religions and Asian cultures. How do you make bloodsuckers scary and/or funny for audiences with a background in reincarnation traditions, ancestor worship, and hungry ghosts? For a Buddhist or Taoist, death and rebirth (or "undeath") would be part of a natural cycle, and for a Shintoist, a vampire might elicit sympathy as a tragic figure, trapped between worlds like the spirit of a family member who couldn't find their way back down the lantern river to heaven.

This goes back to Richard Matheson's idea of vampires not fearing crosses if they weren't Christian in life. Drawing from legends known and recognized by other names across East Asia, "Mr. Vampire" and its jiangshi enjoyed further regional popularity outside Hong Kong. Taiwan quickly followed suit with its own kid-friendly hopping vampire film "Hello Dracula," and Japan embraced both movies, making "Mr. Vampire" board games and televising "Hello Dracula" as a popular miniseries, "Yugen Doshi Kyonshizu."

In his essay, "Enter the Dracula: The Silent Screams and Cultural Crossroads of Japanese and Hong Kong Cinema" (collected in the book "Dracula, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms," edited by Caroline Joan Picart and John Edgar Browning), Wayne Stein wrote of how kids in Asia "found themselves with a new likeness to imitate by copying the hopping movements of these zany vampires," the jiangshi. I can confirm that my own spouse and her classmates were among those kids. To them, the hopping vampires of the 1980s were as much fun to emulate as the dancing zombies of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video.

To appreciate the full significance of "Mr. Vampire" and its unprecedented local popularity as a homegrown Asian vampire movie, it's helpful to understand that it was not the first eastward voyage of the Demeter, so to speak. An early attempt at combining vampires with martial arts came in 1974 with "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires," which marked Peter Cushing's final outing as a vampire hunter (and now, guest lecturer in China) Van Helsing in Hammer Horror's Dracula series. The film was an international co-production between Hammer and Hong Kong's biggest production company, Shaw Brothers Studio, which was ready to capitalize on the kung fu success of the late Bruce Lee, whose posthumous hit, "Enter the Dragon," had overtaken theaters the year before.

"The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" proved to be a financial failure, perhaps in part because — beneath the foreign-market masquerade — its inner workings were still Western and imperialist. At the time, Hong Kong was a crown colony, and the film's opening scene sees Kah (Chan Shen), the Chinese "High Priest of the 7 Golden Vampires," kneel before the very British Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson), asking for his help back home. Dracula tells his "minion" that he doesn't roll like that; he then proceeds to spell out in no uncertain terms how he plans to appropriate Kah's culture. "I need your vile image," he says. "I will take on your mantle, your appearance."

Before the title card comes up, Dracula turns Chinese, using Kah as his host body, cackling at how "beneath the image, the immortal power of Count Dracula" still lurks. "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" wore the cape of a Hong Kong vampire film, but "Mr. Vampire" tossed the cape in favor of authentic Chinese burial clothes.

"Mr. Vampire" imparts useful skills for what to do when you're beset by hopping vampires. Forget holy water; you need sticky rice to deal with these things. Just make sure local merchants aren't cheating you by mixing in long-grain rice with the sticky rice. That will render it less effective in preventing the "vampirification" of friends who are wounded and poisoned in the acrobatic scuffle with hopping vampires.

One surefire method of stopping a hopping vampire is to pin a Taoist talisman to its forehead. They can even be controlled and sicced on other vampires this way. Be careful not to sneeze, as this could blow the talisman off, and then you'll be s*** out of luck, as the French say.

If you yourself begin turning into a stiff-legged hopping vampire, keep active! Dance it out the way you would if you suspected you had restless leg syndrome but had never been officially diagnosed.

Mirrors, as we see in "Mr. Vampire," do repel the jiangshi, more forcefully than their Western counterparts even, so you've got that going for you, at least, if you've been weaned on the rules of Western vampire films. It is possible to plug up the nostrils of hopping vampires so they lose the scent of your breathing.

A separate peril of places in the countryside overrun by hopping vampires is the possibility of ghosts with the face of "Pauline" Wong Siu-fung enchanting you and leaving you with "love bites." As vampire attacks mount, the last resort is to try warding them off with raw poultry, saying, "Big brother, eat the chicken!" Good luck, and remember the most important rule of vampire hunting: just have fun with it.

Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/976576/year-of-the-vampire-hold-your-breath-for-the-hopping-undead-in-mr-vampire/

#jiang-shi #jiangshi #chinese vampire #hong kong #mr. vampire #vampire #chinese cinema #vampires #ricky lau #1985 #80s films #80s action #80s comedy #1980s #80s #the 80s #chinese folklore #buddhism #taoism #shintoism #buddhist #taoist #shintoist #slash film #slasher films #supernatural slasher film #the legend of the 7 golden vampires #hammer horror #shaw brothers