The Monkey King: The Edge of the Earth

When we left off last week, the Monkey King's actions had become too much for the Jade Emperor and his court. The gods had attempted to stop Sun Wukong, but he had handily bested their armies and escaped. Unable to do anything through their own actions, the gods appealed to the mightiest being of all...Buddha.

(Religion in ancient China is very similar to that of Rome, or Japan, or any number of non-Judeo-Christian countries. New gods were often brought to the country through trade routes. Rather than getting rid of the old gods, they were shuffled around to make room for the new religion's joining them. When Buddhism arrived in China, the old gods remained – but Buddha was added to many of the stories as the supreme power.)
 

When he heard the dilemma of the gods, Buddha set out to help. He approached the Monkey King and offered him a bet. Buddha challenged Sun Wukong, saying that the Monkey King couldn't stand in the palm of his hand and leap off of it. The Monkey King laughed and took up the challenge.

 

He leapt into the palm of Buddha. He sprang into the air, somersaulting as he did so. It was a truly impressive leap – Sun Wukong traveled thousands of miles in one bound. When he finally landed the Monkey King found himself standing next to five massive pillars rising from the mists. It looked like the edge of the earth, with nothing visible beyond the pillars. That showed Buddha! The Monkey King had traveled so far he'd nearly jumped off of the world!

 

Sun Wukong signed his name upon one of the pillars, to prove he had been there.

Then he jumped back the way he had came, once again soaring for thousands of miles. When he landed, he was back in the Buddha's palm.  But when the Monkey King declared that he had won the bet, Buddha only laughed at him.

The mighty Buddha declared that Sun Wukong had never even left his hand. He told the monkey to look closer at his fingers. When the Monkey King did so, he discovered writing on one of them – the same marks the Monkey King had made upon the “pillar”!  It had been the Buddha's finger all along!

Having lost the bet, Sun Wukong was imprisoned beneath a mountain for five hundred years. The Buddha had solved the Jade Emperor's problem.
 

We'll talk about what happened to the Monkey King after his 500 year sentence was complete next week. See you then!