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Journey to the West (Monkey) Discussion Thread
Topic Started: Apr 22 2011, 09:45 PM (1,180 Views)
Yeung Hong
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Tudi (徒弟)
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Do we have any fans of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West (AKA Monkey) by Wu Cheng'en here?

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ghostexorcist
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Yeung Hong
Apr 22 2011, 09:45 PM
Do we have any fans of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West (AKA Monkey) by Wu Cheng'en here?

I've been a big fan since I read it in the military around 2002. I've got all sorts of statues and wall hangings of the Monkey King. I am currently writing a paper for CHF's Hanlin Journal that traces the literary connections between Sun Wukong and Song Dynasty General Yue Fei. Sun takes Yue Fei as his master in a sequel to the Xiyouji called the Xiyoubu (Supplement to the Journey to the West, 1640). I have also found evidence that the author of Yue's popular 17th century novel borrowed elements from the Xiyouji (and possibly the Xiyoubu). I will also touch on their indirect connection in religious literature from India. This has to do with their own literary antecedents or avatars.

By the way, there are some scholars who doubt Wu Cheng'en is the author. It was originally published anonymously in 1592. It wasn't until the early 20th century when it was attributed to Wu. The only evidence is that Wu's own verified writings state he was interested in stories about ghosts and monsters as a child, and a compendium from the 16th or 17th century lists him as being the author of an unspecified work called the Xiyouji in its geography section. This Xiyouji could have been some type of a geographical work. I don't have the sources explaining the argument in front of me, so I can't go into it any further than this.
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Yeung Hong
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Tudi (徒弟)
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What versions/translations of Journey to the West do you own? I've heard the Waley translation is radically different to the Jenner translation and I'm wondering if I should give it a read some day. (I have this unabridged version published by the FLP and this abridged version of the Jenner translation published by the Commercial Press, which I happen to prefer to the unabridged version.)
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I am currently writing a paper for CHF's Hanlin Journal that traces the literary connections between Sun Wukong and Song Dynasty General Yue Fei. Sun takes Yue Fei as his master in a sequel to the Xiyouji called the Xiyoubu (Supplement to the Journey to the West, 1640). I have also found evidence that the author of Yue's popular 17th century novel borrowed elements from the Xiyouji (and possibly the Xiyoubu). I will also touch on their indirect connection in religious literature from India. This has to do with their own literary antecedents or avatars.

Sounds interesting, could you post a copy here when you're finished?
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I've been a big fan since I read it in the military around 2002. I've got all sorts of statues and wall hangings of the Monkey King

I don't have any wall scrolls or posters, but I do have one porcelain statue of Sun Wukong. Here's mine:

Posted ImagePosted Image
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ghostexorcist
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I have both the FLP green box edition of Jenner's translation and the University of Chicago Press edition of Anthony Yu translation. Yu's translation has scholarly footnotes throughout. I've never read Waley's version before. Other than leaving out many of the chapters, I've heard his translation is extremely faithful to the original. I took the FLP edition with me when I went overseas in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. When I told Anthony Yu this in an email, he replied, "the fact that you read JW even on the battlefield moved me to my depths." He is a very nice elderly gentleman.

If I win the scholarship I applied for, I won't have the time to finish the paper. I'm still in the planning phase. I will definitely be sure to post it here once I finish it, though.

I love your statue. Here is my favorite statue. I believe it is made out of brass. It is about 10 in. (25.4 c) tall not counting the cudgel, and it is extremely heavy!

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And here is my wall scroll. It is roughly 6.5 ft. (198.12 c) tall including the scroll. You can see a size comparison with my cat.

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I notice a theme here. Your statue and all of my stuff have the same pose. Interesting.
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Yeung Hong
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ghostexorcist
Apr 23 2011, 06:24 AM

I have both the FLP green box edition of Jenner's translation and the University of Chicago Press edition of Anthony Yu translation. Yu's translation has scholarly footnotes throughout. I took the FLP edition with me when I went overseas in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. When I told Anthony Yu this in an email, he replied, "the fact that you read JW even on the battlefield moved me to my depths." He is a very nice elderly gentleman.

I've never even heard of the Anthony Yu translation before, what's it like compared to the Jenner translation? or are the footnotes the main difference between the two (if i recall correctly, the Jenner translation had hardly any).
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I've never read Waley's version before. Other than leaving out many of the chapters, I've heard his translation is extremely faithful to the original.

Yeah, I've heard similar things myself. One of the reasons I want to give it a read is because I enjoyed the abridged Jenner translation so much.
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I notice a theme here. Your statue and all of my stuff have the same pose. Interesting.

I noticed that too! The two statues in particular look almost identical from a design point of view. I love that huge wall scroll, where did you get it?
Edited by Yeung Hong, Apr 24 2011, 04:04 AM.
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ghostexorcist
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Quote:
 
I've never even heard of the Anthony Yu translation before, what's it like compared to the Jenner translation? or are the footnotes the main difference between the two (if i recall correctly, the Jenner translation had hardly any).

It is really faithful to the Chinese text. The original version calls Monkey "Pilgrim" (行者), so Yu uses this moniker when he is referred to as such. The footnotes point to scholarly books and papers written by experts in religion and history. Volume one has a 50 page introduction explaining the background and influences of the novel. I haven't a had a chance to read the full four volume set yet. I'm bouncing around to my favorite spots. The only fault I've found so far is Yu's description of a lion demon from chapter 74-77. This lion is said to be the mount of the Bodhisattva Manjusri, and is traditionally depicted with a blue mane. Yu, however, describes it as green. But this is really a matter of taste since 青 is rather ambiguous. The famous literary critic C.T. Hsia gave it a thumbs up, so that is saying a lot.

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I noticed that too! The two statues in particular look almost identical from a design point of view. I love that huge wall scroll, where did you get it?

All of them are so similar that I can see a scenario happening in the past where one particular company came out with a highly popular statue. All other companies wanted to join in on the cash flow, so they modeled their own products off of it. I bought the scroll on ebay around 2004. There were several similar pieces available at the time, but I haven't seen anything like them since then. It was really cheap considering the quality.

Eastern and western scholars have tried to catalog Monkey's literary antecedents. For the most part, there are two main camps: 1) those that believe Monkey is an entirely Chinese invention; 2) Those that think he was derived from Hanuman from the Indian epic Ramayana. Oddly enough, it was a Chinese scholar who first mentioned the Ramayana connection. I tend to fall in between. This paper explains how he is derived from both native and foreign sources:

Indigenous or Foreign? A Look at the Origins of the Monkey Hero Sun Wukong

Monkey's relationship to Hanuman ties in with the section of my paper that talks about the indirect connection between Sun Wukong and Yue Fei in religious Indian literature. Hanuman is the servant of Rama, an avatar of Vishnu. In The Story of Yue Fei (1684), Yue is cast as being the celestial bird Garuda reborn on earth. In the Indian epic the Mahabharata, Garuda is the mount of Vishnu. Both Garuda and Hanuman are cast as being extremely loyal, just like Monkey and Yue in their respective novels (and real world records).

There is also a book by Glen Dudbridge called The Hsi-yu Chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese (1970). It's on my bookshelf, but I haven't had the time to read it yet.
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ghostexorcist
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This is the only wall scroll I've been able to find recently. The measurements are a little smaller than mine.

Since I'm done with school for the summer, I want to catch up on all of the books I bought. I'm starting to read Dudbridge's study on the literary antecedents of Xiyouji. I wouldn't advise it for the average person, even the back cover states "This is a study for experts." Anyway, in my short time reading, I've learned a couple of interesting things. The first is that the oldest editions of the earliest cycle of the story (13th century) are housed in Japan. The second was the origin of Sha Wujing, a.k.a. Friar Sand. He is basically the end result of embellishing a figure mentioned in the Monk Hui Li's (慧立) 7th century biography of Xuanzang. According to the biography, Xuanzang spilled his surplus of water while in the deserts near Dunhuang. After several days without water, Xuanzang had a dream where a tall spirit wielding a Halberd chastised him for sleeping on such an important journey to get scriptures from India. He immediately woke up and got on his horse, which took off in a different direction than what he wanted to go. They finally came to an oasis with green grass and fresh water. A later Chinese (possibly Tang Dynasty) work appearing in an 11th century Japanese collection states Xuanzang was magically provided food and drink in the Moving Sands (liusha, 流沙) desert by a deva. According to Dudbridge, 流沙 was a common term for the desert area of the northwestern territories. You may recognize the name from when Sha Wujing is introduced. He is the monster of the Flowing Sands River (liusha he, 流沙河). The deva's name is said to be the Spirit of the Deep Sands (Shensha shen, 深沙神). Shensha shen describes himself like this:

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“I am manifested in an aspect of fury. My head is like a crimson bowl. My two hands are like the nets of heaven and earth. From my neck hang the heads of seven demons. About my limbs are eight serpents, and two demon heads seem to engulf my (nether-) limbs…” (Dudbridge, The Hsi-yu chi, p. 30)

The earliest version of the Xiyouji from the 13th century transforms this yaksha-like deva into a full on demon. The skulls hanging around Shensha Shen’s neck are said to be from the previous lives of Xuanzang. He had tracked him down and eaten him several times over. Anyone who has read the full 100 chapter version will recognize the head like a crimson bowl and the necklace of skulls. But those skulls belong to some unlucky monks who met Sha Wujing before he became a Buddhist.
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