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Sun Wukong
Sun Wukong (Chinese: 孫悟空, Mandarin pronunciation: [swə́n ûkʰʊ́ŋ]), also known as the Monkey King, is a literary and religious figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West. In the novel, Sun Wukong is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven, he is imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha. Five hundred years later, he accompanies the monk Tang Sanzang riding on the White Dragon Horse and two other disciples, Zhu Bajie and Sha Heshang, on a journey to obtain Buddhist sutras, known as the West or Western Paradise, where Buddha and his followers dwell.
Sun Wukong possesses many abilities. He has supernatural strength and is able to support the weight of two heavy mountains on his shoulders while running "with the speed of a meteor". He is extremely fast, able to travel 108,000 li (54,000 km, 34,000 mi) in one somersault. He has vast memorization skills and can remember every monkey ever born. As king of the monkeys, it is his duty to keep track of and protect every monkey. Sun Wukong acquires the 72 Earthly Transformations, which allow him to access 72 unique powers, including the ability to transform into animals and objects. He is a skilled fighter, capable of defeating the best warriors of heaven. His hair has magical properties, capable of making copies of himself or transforming into various weapons, animals and other things. He has partial weather manipulation skills, can freeze people in place, and can become invisible.
The supernatural abilities displayed by Wukong and some other characters were widely thought of as "magic powers" by readers at the time of Journey to the West's writing, without much differentiation between them despite the various religious traditions that inspired them and their different and varied functions, and were often translated as such in non-Chinese versions of the book.
As one of the most enduring Chinese literary characters, Wukong has a varied and highly debated background and colorful cultural history. His inspiration might have come from an amalgam of influences, generally relating to religious concepts.
One source for inspiration came from differing ways gibbons were venerated during the Chinese Chu kingdom (700–223 BC), and various legends about gibbons and monkeys in Chu and its successors. These legends and religious practices, alongside doctrine from Taoist organizations that reinforced them and combined elements from all five kinds of traditional religious Taoism gave rise to stories and art motifs during the Han dynasty, eventually contributing to the Sun Wukong figure.
According to Journey to the West, Sun Wukong is born from a strong magic stone that sits atop the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. The stone is said to receive the nurture of heaven (yang), which possesses a positive nature, and earth (yin), which possesses a negative nature, and thus is able to produce living beings, according to Taoist philosophies. The stone develops a magic womb, which bursts open one day to produce a stone egg about the size of a ball.
When the wind blows on the egg, the egg becomes the stone monkey. As his eyes move, two beams of golden light shoot toward the Jade palace and startle the Jade Emperor. When he sees the light he orders two of his officers to investigate. They report the stone monkey, and that the light is dying down as the monkey eats and drinks. The Jade Emperor believes him to be nothing special.
On the mountain, the monkey joins a group of other wild monkeys. After playing, the monkeys regularly bathe in a stream. One day, they decide to seek the source of the stream and climb the mountain to a waterfall. They declare that whoever goes through the waterfall, finds the stream's source, and comes out again will become their king. The stone monkey volunteers and jumps into the waterfall.
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Sun Wukong
Sun Wukong (Chinese: 孫悟空, Mandarin pronunciation: [swə́n ûkʰʊ́ŋ]), also known as the Monkey King, is a literary and religious figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West. In the novel, Sun Wukong is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven, he is imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha. Five hundred years later, he accompanies the monk Tang Sanzang riding on the White Dragon Horse and two other disciples, Zhu Bajie and Sha Heshang, on a journey to obtain Buddhist sutras, known as the West or Western Paradise, where Buddha and his followers dwell.
Sun Wukong possesses many abilities. He has supernatural strength and is able to support the weight of two heavy mountains on his shoulders while running "with the speed of a meteor". He is extremely fast, able to travel 108,000 li (54,000 km, 34,000 mi) in one somersault. He has vast memorization skills and can remember every monkey ever born. As king of the monkeys, it is his duty to keep track of and protect every monkey. Sun Wukong acquires the 72 Earthly Transformations, which allow him to access 72 unique powers, including the ability to transform into animals and objects. He is a skilled fighter, capable of defeating the best warriors of heaven. His hair has magical properties, capable of making copies of himself or transforming into various weapons, animals and other things. He has partial weather manipulation skills, can freeze people in place, and can become invisible.
The supernatural abilities displayed by Wukong and some other characters were widely thought of as "magic powers" by readers at the time of Journey to the West's writing, without much differentiation between them despite the various religious traditions that inspired them and their different and varied functions, and were often translated as such in non-Chinese versions of the book.
As one of the most enduring Chinese literary characters, Wukong has a varied and highly debated background and colorful cultural history. His inspiration might have come from an amalgam of influences, generally relating to religious concepts.
One source for inspiration came from differing ways gibbons were venerated during the Chinese Chu kingdom (700–223 BC), and various legends about gibbons and monkeys in Chu and its successors. These legends and religious practices, alongside doctrine from Taoist organizations that reinforced them and combined elements from all five kinds of traditional religious Taoism gave rise to stories and art motifs during the Han dynasty, eventually contributing to the Sun Wukong figure.
According to Journey to the West, Sun Wukong is born from a strong magic stone that sits atop the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. The stone is said to receive the nurture of heaven (yang), which possesses a positive nature, and earth (yin), which possesses a negative nature, and thus is able to produce living beings, according to Taoist philosophies. The stone develops a magic womb, which bursts open one day to produce a stone egg about the size of a ball.
When the wind blows on the egg, the egg becomes the stone monkey. As his eyes move, two beams of golden light shoot toward the Jade palace and startle the Jade Emperor. When he sees the light he orders two of his officers to investigate. They report the stone monkey, and that the light is dying down as the monkey eats and drinks. The Jade Emperor believes him to be nothing special.
On the mountain, the monkey joins a group of other wild monkeys. After playing, the monkeys regularly bathe in a stream. One day, they decide to seek the source of the stream and climb the mountain to a waterfall. They declare that whoever goes through the waterfall, finds the stream's source, and comes out again will become their king. The stone monkey volunteers and jumps into the waterfall.