Religous interretations of Wu Chengen’s novel "Journey to the West"

“Journey to the West” from ecological perspective

Modern anthropologist F.D. Burton tries to analyze the image of Monkey King from anthropological perspective, as a manifestation of Chinese nation's consciousness. Then of a sudden the image of Monkey Kings becomes to him a symbol of complex relations - no, not within a human society, but relations between humans and monkeys. Humans after all perceive themselves as part of Nature, so Monkey King tells people what it means to be a human within and out of the realm of Nature. Burton says: “Nature has been a deity and nature has been construed a matrix - the mother in which all else resides. Nature has been interpreted as friendly, wild, the original, unadorned state; the true essence within all beings, honest, naive, ingenuous. Humans in the natural state are sometimes pure, and guileless. Conversely, humans in the natural state are unprincipled, devious, disobedient - without laws” (Burton 2002, 140)

Placing his subject as both human and animal figure firmly inside the world of Nature, Burton even tries to figure out what species of monkeys Sun Wukong belonged to, and in all seriousness compares the description of the hero's appearance with the features of different species. Monkey King had red soft hair, long limbs and a long tail. Was he a gibbon? A macaque? And which exactly: a Tibetan macaque or a rhesus? Or did he change his monkey identity as his mythological image travelled from India to South China? The scholar finds Monkey King an embodiment of humannature relations: both an anthropomorphic and zoomorphic deity, who serves as a model of human spiritual development from wildness to culture. A wild and uncontrolled force at the beginning of the novel, he becomes “the monkey of the mind” by the middle of it.

Both Taoism and Confucian writers used the image of a monkey - now a beast now a human - to convey the idea of positive transformation. Both teachings profess principals of holistic unity and organic balance (Cheng 1976, 18), therefore the Monkey King can teach people reverence for life. Hence the conclusion Burton comes to: since the image of Monkey King is so dear to the Chinese people it can and should be used as a tool of conservation or protection of Asian monkeys - aren't they the descendants and minions of Monkey King, his “monkey children monkey grandchildren” he cares so deep about?

The remarkable qualities of Monkey King, according to Burton, “seem eminently suited to become the basis to evoke conservation” (Burton 2002, 162). Actually the whole article is written with ecological purposes - to analyze what makes Monkey King so special in Chinese culture - “an ancient theme profoundly attached to core values, opinions, and assumptions on how the world works” (Burton 2002, 162) - and how to use it for animal protection.

Though this approach seems very odd, it is perhaps based on the text of the novel too. The characters of the medieval Chinese novel are certainly not ecologically minded in the modern sense of the word, yet they are keenly aware of nature. There are many episodes in the novel where the characters pause on their way simply to admire the beautiful scenery. They exchange remarks about the beauty of landscapes. In one episode monk Tang, this stern nonchalant adapt of Buddhism who never allows himself to be carried away by beauty of women, good tastes of food or temptations of wealth is so lost in the admiration of nature and poetry eulogizing the scenery, that spirits of trees and bushes literally carry him away and his disciples rescue him not without a little admonition (Chapter 64).

In another episode Monkey King travels to Heaven to find help against demons who have captured his teacher - yet he pauses to admire the beautiful views of mountains in front of him. In the episode where Monkey King temporally returns to his former abode, Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, first thing he does is planting trees and restoring flora and fauna of the place (Chapter 28). In that very chapter Monkey King learns about humans who would often come in his absence to terrorize and hunt monkeys, his subjects. The hero is so enraged that he kills hundreds of them and even laughs looking at the bloody massacre:

“The Great Sage clapped his hands and roared with laughter, saying “Lucky! Lucky! Since I made submission to the Tang Monk and became a monk, he has been giving me this advice:

`Do good a thousand days,

But the good is still insufficient;

Do evil for one day,

And that evil is already excessive.'

Some truth indeed! When I followed him and killed a few monsters, he would blame me for perpetrating violence. Today I came home and it was the merest trifle to finish off all these hunters” (JtW 2012, Vol. 2, 57).

Monkey King gets away with the murder, he is neither punished nor rebuked for the death of a few hundred humans - the reader is left with the impression that the victims totally deserved their death by hunting and killing innocent animals.

“Journey to the West” as a Christian allegory

In 1913 Timothy Richard, a highly influential missionary in China, published his abridged translation of “Journey to the West”. Richard was not only a Christian preacher - he published a journa“WangboGongbao” (Imperial Bulletin, in English it had a different name - “A Review of the Times”) that discussed political, cultural and religious matters and had a remarkable influence on Chinese reformers and intelligentsia. Richard, himself a first-rank official at the Chinese imperil court, was not an ordinary preacher - he was a believer in the benevolence of technological progress for China and was also an ecumenist who firmly believed that Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism professed similar truths. He saw basic ideas of Christianity in the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism and therefore found them in the novel about Monkey King (Wu 2008). In all seriousness this remarkable man asser ted that “Journey to the West” is a Christian allegory and even precedes XX century technological progress (he believed certain episodes in the book to be describing telescope, electricity and such).

The variety of Christianity Richard found in the novel was Nestorianism, which, as BorbalaObrusanszky shows in her article in this volume of Journal of Frontier Studies, was introduced to China many centuries before the “Journey” was written and it enjoyed patronage of a few Chinese emperors (Obrusanszky 2019). In fact, the very founder of Tang Dynasty Li Shimin (Tang Taizong) who in the novel welcomed monk Xuanzang back to China with his newly obtained sutras and even built a tower for translation and housing of them (See Photos 16-17)- this emperor officially recognized Nestorianism in the year 635.

But apart from Richard, nobody else ever saw any connections between Nestorian Christianity and the story of Monkey King. Richard was criticized for this view by more orthodox priests. Yet despite public criticism Richard insisted that “Mahayana Buddhism was consonant with Christian teaching, and that recognition of this would lead to more rapid evangelization of the millions of Buddhists in China” (Kane 2008, 24). Richard even claimed that the author of the novel , Wu Chengen, was a hidden Christian. But why would anyone seek and find Christian motives in the novel? Is there anything Christian in it?

The answer to this question is not as obvious as one might think, nor Richard's point of view is so bizarre as to di sclaim it on the spot. I dare think the book does have a certain elements that are not inconsistent with Christianity. First of all, the emphasis on mercy and forgiveness, which the author presents not as stages to self-enlightenment as a classical Buddhist

philosophy would have, but a great value in itself. Whereas for traditional Buddhism the restraint from killing leaving creatures is a tool to an end, a stage on the way, the positive personages of the novel, especially monk Tang Xuanzang, attach great importance to mercy as it is, mercy for the sake of mercy, not for the sake of attaining nonchalance. The monk would again and again try to teach his disciples mercy, forgiveness and readiness to help other people. He would often repeat that “Saving a perso n is more important than building a seven-storey pagoda” and would send his followers on all sorts of rescue missions, like saving children from death, returning captive women to their families, stopping famine and drought etc.

A clear similarity between central motives of “Journey” and a Christian work of fiction, Dante's “Comedy”, was pointed out by Anthony Yu. Yu, a renowned Chinese scholar and author of the best translation of the “Journey” (the one I chose for citation) notices that the central religious issue of both masterpieces is atonement for sin and personal redemption (Yu 1983, 219). To begin with, both works describe religious pilgrimage. While Dante's lyrical hero is implicated by birth by original sin - and also he has to cleanse the sins he has committed in his life, the pilgrims of the Chinese novel have to atone for the sins committed in their previous incarnations -and again, the sins of their present lives too.

One more feature that connects “Journey” with Christianity is perhaps the image of Buddha who is described as almighty and all-merciful Deity, in fact, a God, to whom Taoist spirits and Buddhist saints resort for the supreme authority. He punishes and he forgives, he restores order and he actively interferes in the fate of Mankind. He is the one to impose terrible punishment on Monkey King - yet to him would Monkey King come in tears in his hour of despair to get help and consolation. Buddha is supposed to be in the state of nirvana, a state of perfect quietude and cessation of all actions - yet he is a very active agent of the narration, the one who gives impetus to the adventurous mission and keeps it under control. In short, this Buddha resembles much more Christian God than an abstract Buddha-in- the-heart of classical Buddhist philosophy. If not inspired by Christianity, this Buddha is a production of ordinary people's hope for a merciful, forgiving, benevolent Heavenly Helper.

The ideas of repentance, mercy and forgiveness in their Christian understanding are even more clearly expressed in Hong-Kong TVadaptations of the novel. Unlike the text of the novel where the characters, if necessary, briefly apologize for their misbehavior, Hong-Kong versions demand clear manifested tokens of repentance. In Hong-Kong series “Monkey King Sun Wukong” for instance, the teacher is ready to forgive Monkey King his cruelty if the latter sheds tears of repentance, for “one tear would wash all your sins” - the demand which later Monkey King would address to a defeated demon. The tears of repentance would be shed again in the episode when a Snake-demon who has two times attacked the travelers and has been two times defeated and forgiven sacrifices herself to save the monk.

The characters of Hong-Kong TV-series not only atone for their misdeeds as they do in the novel - they contemplate on their sins and ways of remedy. Thus, in one more Hong-Kong series called “Journey to the West” Monkey King, closer to the end of their travel, kneels in front of his teacher and proclaims that he accepts the torture of golden hoop as a rightful punishment and a way of control over his passions. He even says he is willing to carry it on his head forever for the sake of salvation. Such ascetics suggested by Hong-Kong movies, obviously influenced by European Christian culture, are alien to the Monkey King of the novel, a rebel to the end, who instead of wearing the hoop till the end of his days would rather “smash it to pieces, so that Bodhisattva can't use it anymore on other people” (JtW 2012, Vol. 4, 671).

As we can see, none of these interpretations, including the most exotic ones, can be ignored. All of them, one way or another, are based on the spirit and letter of the great novel, emphasizing its various sides. It shows, first of all, true, profoundly religious and mystical nature of the "Journey to the West". While the meaning of religious symbolism can be understood in different ways, depending on the interpreter's own beliefs, the basic ascetic and soteriological truths of this story are understood by all reader s in the same way. "Journey to the West" is a story of a soul seeking truth and salvation. This search leads it through trials, temptations and internal conflicts, but at the same time harmonizes the whole personality of a human, strengthens them in mercy and courage, and ultimately leads to self-awareness and immortality.

References

1. Tang Yue (2000) The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: a Supplement to Journey to the West; translated from the Chinese by Shuen-fu Lin and Larry J. Schulz. Michigan: Michigan University Press.

2. Yu Anthony (trans.) (2012) The Journey to the West. Vol. 1-4. Translated and edited by Anthony C. Yu. Revised edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

3. Wu Cheng'en (2008). Journey to the West: the Monkey King's Amazing Adventures.Translated by Timothy Richard. North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing.

4. Commentary to the True Meaning of the “Journey to the West”. Beijing: Religion and Culture Press.

5. ХА (1992) (Wang Wencheng.

6. The full works of Wang Wencheng. Shanghai: Ancient Books).

7. Bantly F.C. (2013) Buddhist Allegory in the Journey to the West. In The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Aug., 2013). Pp. 512-524.

8. Benkert L.E. (2014) Monkey's Journey West: The Trickster goes on a Quest. In Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature (April 5, 2014). Pp. 1-17.

9. Burton F.D. (2002) Monkey King in China: Basis for a Conservation Policy? In Primates face to face: conservation implications of human-nonhuman primates .Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology.Vol. 29. Pp. 137-162.

10. Cheng Chungying (1976). Model of Causality in Chinese Philosophy: A comparative Study. In Philosophy East and West. Vol. 26, Pp. 12-18.

11. Cozad L. (1998) Reeling in the Demon: An Exploration into the Category of the Demonized Other as Portrayed in The Journey to the West. In Journal of the American Academy of Religion.Vol. 66, No. 1 (1998). Pp. 117-145.

12. Hui A. (2015) Wordless Texts, Empty Hands: The Metaphysics and Materiality of Scriptures in Journey to the West. In Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Jun., 2015). Pp. 1-28

13. Kane Daniel (2008) Introduction.Richard's Translation. In Journey to the West: the Monkey King's Amazing Adventures.Translated by Timothy Richard. North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing.

14. Liu Xiaolian (1991) A Journey of the Mind: The Basic Allegory in HouXiyouji. In Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews . Vol. 13 (Dec., 1991). Pp. 35-55.

15. Obrusanszky B. (2019) Nestorian Christians in Frontier History.In Journal of frontier studies Vol. 3 (September 2019).

16. Ronan C.A. (1992) The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China. An abridgement of Joseph Needham's Original Text. Vol. I. London: Cambridge University Press.

17. Schulz L.J. (2000) Introduction. In The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: a Supplement to Journey to the West; translated from the Chinese by Shuen-fu Lin and Larry J. Schulz. Michigan: Michigan University Press.

18. Wang R., Xu Dongfeng (2016) Three Decades' Reworking on the Monk, the Monkey, and the Fiction of Allegory.In The Journal of Religion Vol. 96 No. 1. (Jan. 2016) Pp. 102-121.

19. Yu A.C. (2014) The Formation of Fiction in the “Journey to the West”. In Asia Major Vol. 21, No. 1. Star Gazing, Firephasing and healing in China: Essays in Honor of Nathan Sivin. Pp. 15-44

20. Yu A.C. (1989) The Quest of Brother Amor: Buddhist Intimations in The Story of The Stone. In Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Jun., 1989). Pp. 55-92.

21. Yu A.C. (1983) Two Literary Examples of Religious Pilgrimage: the “Commedia” and the “Journey to the West”. In History of Religions Vol. 22, No. 3 (February 1983). Pp. 202-230.

22. Zhou Zuyan (2013) Daoist Philosophy and Literati Writings in Late Imperial China: A Case Study of the Story of the Stone. Hong-Kong: Chinese University Press.

Список литературы

1. Tang Yue (2000) The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: a Supplement to Journey to the West; translated from the Chinese by Shuen-fu Lin and Larry J. Schulz. Michigan: Michigan University Press.

2. Yu Anthony (trans.) (2012) The Journey to the West. Vol. 1-4. Translated and edited by Anthony C. Yu. Revised edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

3. Wu Cheng'en (2008). Journey to the West: the Monkey King's Amazing Adventures. Translated by Timothy Richard. North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing.(2008) 18pieces of Buddhist studies.Jiangsu: The Jiangsu Art Press)(2017) (Liu Yiming.TheCommentary to the True Meaning of the “Journey to the West”. Beijing: Religion and Culture Press.Wang Wencheng. Shanghai: Ancient Books).

4. Bantly F.C. (2013) Buddhist Allegory in the Journey to the West. In The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Aug., 2013). Pp. 512-524.

5. Benkert L.E. (2014) Monkey's Journey West: The Trickster goes on a Quest. In Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature (April 5, 2014). Pp. 1-17.

6. Burton F.D. (2002) Monkey King in China: Basis for a Conservation Policy? In Primates face to face: conservation implications of human-nonhuman primates .Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology.Vol. 29. Pp. 137-162.

7. Cheng Chungying (1976). Model of Causality in Chinese Philosophy: A comparative Study. In Philosophy East and West. Vol. 26, Pp. 12-18.

8. Cozad L. (1998) Reeling in the Demon: An Exploration into the Category of the Demonized Other as Portrayed in The Journey to the West. In Journal of the American Academy of Religion.Vol. 66, No. 1 (1998). Pp. 117-145.

9. Hui A. (2015) Wordless Texts, Empty Hands: The Metaphysics and Materiality of Scriptures in Journey to the West. In Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Jun., 2015). Pp. 1-28

10. Kane Daniel (2008) Introduction.Richard's Translation. In Journey to the West: the Monkey King's Amazing Adventures.Translated by Timothy Richard. North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing.

11. Liu Xiaolian (1991) A Journey of the Mind: The Basic Allegory in HouXiyouji. In Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews. Vol. 13 (Dec., 1991). Pp. 35-55.

12. Obrusanszky B. (2019) Nestorian Christians in Frontier History.In Journal of frontier studies Vol. 3 (September 2019).

13. Ronan C.A. (1992) The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China. An abridgement of Joseph Needham's Original Text. Vol. I. London: Cambridge University Press.

14. Schulz L.J. (2000) Introduction. In The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: a Supplement to Journey to the West; translated from the Chinese by Shuen-fu Lin and Larry J. Schulz. Michigan: Michigan University Press.

15. Wang R., Xu Dongfeng (2016) Three Deca des' Reworking on the Monk, the Monkey, and the Fiction of Allegory. In The Journal of Religion Vol. 96 No. 1. (Jan. 2016) Pp. 102-121.

16. Yu A.C. (2014) The Formation of Fiction in the “Journey to the West”. In Asia Major Vol. 21, No. 1. Star Gazing, Firephasing and healing in China: Essays in Honor of Nathan Sivin. Pp. 15-44

17. Yu A.C. (1989) The Quest of Brother Amor: Buddhist Intimations in The Story of The Stone. In Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Jun., 1989). Pp. 55-92.

18. Yu A.C. (1983) Two Literary Examples of Religious Pilgrimage: the “Commedia” and the “Journey to the West”. In History of Religions Vol. 22, No. 3 (February 1983). Pp. 202-230.

19. Zhou Zuyan (2013) Daoist Philosophy and Literati Writings in Late Imperial China: A Case Study of the Story of the Stone. Hong-Kong: Chinese University Press.

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