Dragon Ball, Saikyuki, and the Adventures of Monkey

The Adventures of Monkey is another one of those timeless tales that have spawned a myriad of manga, movies, and media. A few of these tales are Dragon Ball, Saiyuki, Naruto, and the recent film by Jet Li and Jackie Chan called the Forbidden Kingdom.

The source of all these stories is called Journey to the West, a classic Chinese tale that pulls heavily from Chinese traditions and mythology. The story is about a Buddhist monk that travels to India to bring back the Sutras. The monk travels with three protectors, one of which is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.

Journey to the West starts out with the tale of Sun Wukong. He is born from a rock and shortly afterwards becomes the Monkey King because of his bravery. After being King for awhile, he decides to go on a quest for immortality.

On his long journey to find a teacher, the Monkey King learns to act like a human being and finally finds a teacher that teaches him the art of shape shifting, cloud travelling, and a way to transform all the hairs on his head into clones of himself.

Before the Monkey King completes his training, he is kicked out of his teacher’s home for his growing arrogance. The Monkey King travels back home and is greeted happily by his subjects, but he becomes dissatisfied. He decides he wants a powerful weapon and visits his neighbor under the sea, the eastern Dragon King. He bullies the eastern Dragon King out of a magical staff that is very heavy and can increase and decrease in size. When the eastern Dragon King calls his brothers in the West, South, and North for help, the Monkey King defeats them and makes them give him chain mail, a phoenix feather cap, and cloud walking boots.

From here on, the Monkey King basically makes a nuisance out of himself. He erases his name out of the book of Life and Death. When the Lord of Hell complains to the Jade Emperor, the Monkey King proclaims himself the Great Sage, equal of heaven. The Jade Emperor of heaven decides to bestow upon the Monkey King the title of the Protector of Horses. The Monkey King spurns it when he discovers that it’s the lowest position in heaven and goes back to his home in fury.

He successfully meets and defends against the forces of heaven attack and again the Jade Emperor decides to give Monkey another post, this time protector of the Heavenly Garden. Again the Monkey King realizes that his new post is not considered important when he’s excluded from a banquet where all the important gods and goddesses attend.

The Monkey King triggers a war when he steals the Peaches of Immortality, the Pills of Longevity and the Wine of the Jade Emperor to take back home with him. After a long battle, the Monkey King is subdued and imprisoned under a mountain. Centuries later, the Monkey King joins the priest in the story Journey to the West.

The full story of Journey to the West is long and has four translated volumes by Wu Ch'eng-en that I found in my local library. Just reading through the initial part about the Monkey King in a translation by Arthur Waley made me smile. There were many familiar elements that I remembered from many manga stories I’ve read throughout the years.