Journey To The West 《西游记》

“Journey to the West”  is a well known Chinese classical novel, known as one of the four great classical novels. Its popularity, and influence in Asia, can be compared to that of Greek Mythologies in the west. There are frequent adoptations of plays, movies, novels, and Japanese comics and animation, based on this work.

As a historic Chinese novel, Journey To The West is a combination of myth parable and comedy. It is a story about a Buddhist monk and bunch of animals with human characteristic. The animals actually in the story are a very fairy tale type of mood and they traveled west to India to find Buddhist scriptures. The animals themselves are celestial being in mortal forms and they have magical powers that protect them from the goblins and the evil spirits. 

Author Wu Cheng-en writings create an imaginary world that creates a life like with the absurd giving us a glance of the different sides of human nature.

Monkey was created out of a rock. He not only has the sharp wit and an unruly nature of a monkey but also extra ordinary powers that he uses to overcome demons and monsters. Pig sets off his pig like clumsiness with the disposition that is the epitome of honesty and directness. He is always making a mess out of things and generating a lot of humor in the process.

Before the monk can find the scriptures he must surmounts 81 obstacles including overcoming such supernatural beings as cow demon the spider beast and a living skeleton. These obstacles symbolize the difficulties and challenges that people meet in the course of ideals.

The character is the main reason that journey to the west keeps reader in thrall. The book gets more then and uproars comedy. It gives us readers an unforgivable insight into life itself. 

As for the historical record of journey to the west let's go back to the Tang dynasty. History actually recalls the Buddhist monk master Shan-chang or master Xuan Zhuang who crossed he mighty desert to reach the India continent during the Tang dynasty. 19 years later he came back to china with over 600 Buddhist scriptures. So the factual basis of journey to the west was born. However master Xuan Zhuang actually was a little bit different from master san tong. Who was actually a fictional character created by the author?