Sun Wukong's Journals
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Meihou Wang 美猴王 Treasure Cave
General
| The Monkey King had a fabulous time flying around visiting every home on the tour, so much so that my cloud became utterly exhausted and needed to rec... |
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The Monkey Kings Oriental Adventures
General
| Preah Khan is just up the road from Angkor Thom and is a great place at which to spend quality time. I fell in love with this place once I saw the Aps... |
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Welcome to my Home
Here at the Water Curtain Cave you'll find anything and everything about Sun Wukong the Monkey King and his Journey to the West.
* Browse through the Monkey Staff Courtyard if youre in the mood for some of Wukongs fave music or want to know more about him.
* Head to the Library if you want to watch movies of Journey to the West. There are a number of videos and different series with complete episodes to choose from as well as the full length movie: The Forbidden Kingdom.
* And if youre looking for a spot of Reading, Monkey king Art or Poetic Enjoyment, visit Five Elements Mountain the place where Sun Wukong was trapped alone for 500 years.
* Finally, a visit to Wukongs property Monkey Fist Temple in Chang'an is a must if youre into Monkey Wushu and Eastern philosophy. You'll find tons of fun and interesting stuff about Daoism, Buddhism, the Chinese Pantheon and Monkey Style Martial Arts as well as any other possible Wukong tidbit to be found.
So have a good wander around while youre here and enjoy your adventure into one of ancient China's greatest ever tales
Journey to the West
Let me know if you enjoyed your visit
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The Monkey King
I am Sun Wukong 孫悟空 immortal Monkey King, born of a stone and great sage equal of heaven. I am my own master and being a rebellious and mischevious soul I crashed the Jade Emperor's peach banquet and ate all the peaches of immortality. Afterwards I fought with the Jade Warrior and his army on five elements mountain defeating them all.
I possess incredible strength, being able to lift my 13,500 jn (8,100 kg) Ruyi Jingu Bang with ease. I have superb speed, traveling 108,000 li (54,000 km) in one somersault and I know the 72 transformations, which allow me to transform into various animals and objects using my hairs.
I am very tricky as well as handy at disposing of demons and I like to poke fun at my enemies before I beat them with my magickal wishing staff. Laughing at their inability to harm me I fight and play with them for fun.
I ride a cloud and know the spells to command wind and water, to conjure protective circles against demons, and to freeze humans, demons, and gods alike. And unlike most gods, I earned my immortality through battling both heaven and earth.
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Sun Wukongs Plaque Collection
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XuanZang 玄奘
XuanZang, a renowned Chinese buddhist monk of the Tang dynasty, was born around 602 or 603 CE in Henan province. Known as a brilliant scholar and translator from a young age, he was one of only a few people in China adept in reading sanskrit. During the social unrest of the fall of the Sui dynasty, he left for Xingdu in Sichuan where he was ordained at age 20. From there he spent some time journeying throughout China in search of sacred texts on buddhism until finally reaching Chang'an which was under the then peaceful rule of Emperor Taizong of Tang. It was from here that his desire to visit India was kindled and his journey to the west took place.
His route took him along the silk road and he passed over many mountains and rivers and wherever he went he recorded in detail the social, political and cultural aspects of the kingdoms he passed through. His journey took him through the Gobi desert to Kumul, then Turfan, Yanqi, and the monasteries of Kucha and across into Kyrgyzstan. From there he visited the great Khan of the western Turk in Tokmak. After a lavish feast, he departed and journeyed on to Tashkent in modern day Uzbekistan. From here, he crossed the desert further west to Samarkand. In Samarkand, which was under Persian influence, the party came across some abandoned Buddhist temples and Xuanzang impressed the local king with his preaching. Setting out again to the south, Xuanzang crossed a spur of the Pamirs and passed through the famous Iron Gates. Continuing southward, he reached the Amu Darya and Termez, where he encountered a community of more than a thousand Buddhist monks.
XuanZang Wild Goose Pagoda Chang'an
Further east he passed through Kunduz, where he stayed for some time to witness the funeral rites of Prince Tardu, who had been poisoned. On the advice of the late prince, he continued on to Balkh, modern day Afghanistan, where he obtained the Mahāvibhāṣa text which he later translated into Chinese. Turning southward he travelled to Bamyan meeting both the king and seeing the Bamyan Buddhas carved in the rockface and afterwards crossing the Shibar pass and descending to the regional capital of Kapisi just north of modern day Kabul. This was part of the fabled old land of Gandhara and here he came across many thousands of monks and hundreds of monasteries and participated in a debate with other monks revealing his great knowledge on buddhism.
Pushing on to Jalalabad and Laghman he passed on through Hunza and the Khyber Pass to the east, reaching the former capital of Gandhara, Peshawar around 630 CE. He noted the decline of buddhism in this area and travelling on throughout Pakistan he crossed the Indus River at Hund on the way to Taxila, a Mahayana Buddhist kingdom that was a vassal of Kashmir which was also his next destination. Having arrived in India, he spent his time travelling and studying his way across the breadth of the sub continent from Punjab to Gujarat to Bengal. On the way he crossed both the Yamuna at Mathura and Ganges Rivers. He journeyed through Ayodhya homeland of the yogacarin school and sacred place of the Monkey god Hanuman. From there he turned northwards and journeyed into southern Nepal visiting Kapilavastu, his last stop before Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. In 637, Xuanzang set out from Lumbini to Kusinagara, the site of Buddha's death, before heading southwest to the deer park at Sarnath where Buddha gave his first sermon, and where Xuanzang found 1,500 resident monks. Travelling eastward, at first via Varanasi, Xuanzang reached Vaisali, Pataliputra (Patna) and Bodh Gaya. He was then accompanied by local monks to Nalanda, the great Buddhist university of Bengal, where he spent at least the next 2-5 years studying logic, grammar, Sanskrit, and the Yogacara school of Buddhism.
Tang Emperor greeting XuanZang on his return to China
After his return to China he became famous and was honoured by the Tang Emperor for his seventeen year overland trip to India and back, which was recorded in detail in his autobiography and a biography, and provided the inspiration for the epic novel Journey to the West published sometime in the Ming dynasty around the 1590's and attributed to Wu Cheng'en.
Its a fascinating account of his travels to collect Buddhist scriptures and his adventures with royalty, bandits, avalanches, being lost in the desert and other disasters rivals even that of the story of the Monkey King. To read more about the monk XuanZang's real Journey to the West in 629 CE click here.
History of XuanZang
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Come visit
Me in Germania
Images & Avatars:
Wikipedia
Jet Li - The Forbidden Kingdom
Dicky Cheung - Journey to the West 1
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All Posts (415) Messages posted by Sun Wukong
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Sun Wukong's 11 Properties
Sun Wukong's 3 Groups
Feng Shui
Position: Master 2IC
Level 5
The Art of Placement.
A simple change of picture, color or moving the furniture around can change one's outlook on life and could possibly increase your luck!
What does your room say about you?
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Roof Of The World
Position: Chipay-Public
Level 2
the history, culture, religion and art of Tibet
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The Bodhi Tree
Position: Deva
Level 5
Spirituality East and West
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Complete List of Sun Wukong's 3 Groups
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