The Monkey King: Journey to the West

Hey guys! Today I'm going to be wrapping up my series of posts about the Monkey King.

When we last saw Sun Wukong, things were looking pretty rocky for the Monkey King (pun fully intended). He had angered the heavenly host so much that they had gone to war with him. Unfortunately, the monkey proved to be a competent adversary, and was able to handily defeat the armies of heaven. At this point the Jade Emperor called upon a higher power, begging the Buddha to come and stop the Monkey King. When Sun Wukong failed to best the challenge of Buddha, he was imprisoned under a mountain for five hundred years.

Today's post is going to focus on what happened when those five hundred years were up. Unfortunately, it'll be a very brief overview. The entire adventure embarked upon by Sun Wukong can be read in the book Journey to the West, and is much too long for me to cover in a day (or even in a few posts). The entire history of the Monkey King I've discussed so far is basically just the prologue to the story. Still, I'll do my best to provide a rundown here so as to provide some closure to the story of the Monkey King.

 

Five hundred years after Sun Wukong was imprisoned, it was decided that the holy sutras of Buddhism needed to be retrieved from India and brought to China. Guanyin, the bodhisattva of mercy, chose a monk by the name of Xuanxang to make the pilgrimage to the west. (Xuangxang was actually a historical monk who did set out on a pilgrimage to India, and returned to China with holy teachings.)

 

However, Guanyin knew that the journey would be dangerous. Many demons and monsters would seek to stop Xuanxang from completing his task. To this end, she also found several noble guardians to ally with the monk. One of these guardians was the Monkey King.

It is telling that it is Guanyin who chooses the traveling companions, because she represents mercy. The whole story focuses upon compassion, mercy, and redemption. Each individual chosen to aid Xuanxang is flawed.

As my other posts about him showed, Sun Wukong was wild, rebellious, and possessed of both ego and temper. He had been imprisoned for these flaws by the Buddha himself.

Zhu Bajie was another of the companions, and he was both lazy and gluttonous. He had flirted with a major goddess, and been banished for his insatiable lust.

Sha Wujing had been exiled for angering the Jade Emperor by breaking a precious object, and reincarnated as a man-eating demon. He wore the skulls of a group of holy men he murdered.

The last companion was Yulong, the son of a mighty dragon king. Yulong had destroyed his father's pearl (a symbol of longevity and wisdom among the dragons) in a fit of anger, and had been sentenced to death for his crime. He spent most of Journey to the West transformed into a horse to aid the others.

(A very unlikely group of heroes, to be sure. I'm reminded of the DC/CW tv show Legends of Tomorrow: “We are a team of outcasts and misfits. So please, don't call us heroes. We're legends.”)

 

 

In an epic journey spanning dozens of chapters, Xuanxang and his companions set out for India. They were constantly set upon by monsters and demons, who sought to kill the monk and devour his flesh. Each time Xuanxang's co-travelers managed to save the monk. Their journey took over a decade, but after much fighting (and some bickering betwixt one another), the group arrived at the temple in India and claimed the sutras. They then returned to China, delivering the sutras into the hands of the temple.

Each of the individuals were rewarded for their efforts. Yulong became a naga, a magical being who was a combination of dragon and man. Zhu Bajie was granted the status of altar cleanser, meaning that he got to eat all of the scraps of food left at altars – a wonderful holy position for someone with such a great love of eating. Sha Wujing achieved nirvana, attaining a position similar to that of a saint in Catholicism.

But the greatest rewards were for both Xuanxang and Sun Wukong. Sun Wukong's impetuousness had been tamed, and he had given his life into service to a higher power. The monk and the Monkey King were both given the gift of enlightenment, and were raised to the positions of Buddha. Ironically, this meant that the monkey finally achieved his goal – he was given a rank equal to that of anyone in heaven.
 

And so ends the tale of the Monkey King.

 

I hope you guys enjoyed it!

 

 

(Overwatch did a series of skins based on Journey to the West for their Lunar Festival event.  They also did an animated comic, which can no longer be found on their website.  However, some wonderful person uploaded it to YouTube, so you can watch it here.  It's adorable.)

I'll see you guys next week!

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!

Mythology in Pop Culture

Hey guys! So tomorrow I'm going to be doing a panel on mythology at my local community college. I needed to type up all of my notes for it, and it struck me as I was doing so that my presentation would make a pretty good blog post. Because of that, you get to read what I'm talking about tomorrow – which is the way that mythology influences pop culture.

Let's start by taking a look at comics, shall we?

Obviously, there's Thor. I wish I could quote Stan Lee and say “ 'nuff said”, but there's actually more to talk about. In both the comics and the myths, Thor is the Norse god of war and storms; Loki is a trickster trying to bring about the downfall of the gods; the Bifrost is a rainbow bridge; and Odin is the king of the gods. Odin is also the god of wisdom. In the myths he has two ravens who fly around the world and tell him everything that they see. One of my favorite parts about Marvel's movie is that in the first Avengers, two ravens fly by when Thor and Loki are arguing – a very nice reference to the original myths!

Although the comics and movie adaptations are awesome, there are quite a few differences between them and the original myths. For one thing, the mythological Thor isn't all that bright. He mostly just wants to hit things with his hammer.

 

Then you have Sif, who is a goddess of fertility and the harvest – she's definitely not a warrior. Perhaps the biggest difference is that Thor and Loki aren't actually brothers! In the myths, Loki is the sworn blood brother of Odin.

Thor may be the most obvious representation of mythology in modern comics, but he's not the only one. Let's move away from him and take a look at the DC comics.

First, you have Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is an Amazonian princess. Some of her origin stories say that Wonder Woman is the daughter of Zeus, king of the Greek gods and lord of the skies. That's right – Wonder Woman is a demigod.

 

Then you have Superman. His story has close ties to the Christian and Jewish faiths – and those ties were written deliberately. There's a story in the book of Exodus about a baby named Moses. During the time period in which Moses was born, the Pharaoh of Egypt had enslaved the Jewish population. Their numbers kept growing, and the Pharaoh feared revolt, so he ordered all baby boys to be killed. To save Moses, his mother put him in a basket and sent him floating down the river. He was adopted by the Pharaoh's daughter and raised by a family not his own. Eventually, Moses grows up to save his people.

Now let's look at Superman's origin story. He was born on a world that's about to be destroyed. His parents put him in a little space-cradle and sent him away to save his life. The cradle carries him to Earth, where he is raised by an adoptive family. Superman goes on to save the world – many, many times.

(This photo was just too hilarious to not share!)

There's definitely some similarities between the two stories – and, like I said, they were put there deliberately. The writer and artist of the original Superman stories were both Jewish. The character of Superman first appeared around the time of World War II, when Jews were facing horrific persecution. Superman's creators wanted to create a figure of hope for their people, so they wove the story of Moses into the character of Superman. Pretty cool, right?

Let's turn away from comics and take a look at another aspect of popular culture. I'm a huge fan of video games – how about you? Do any of you guys play World of Warcraft?

Mythology has influenced a lot of video games, but WoW is a treasure trove of mythology. I can think of about half a dozen different mythologies that show up in World of Warcraft, and that's just off the top of my head – I'm sure there are a lot more. One of those mythologies appears as soon as you go to make a character – the druid.

 

Druids have their origins as sort of priests in Celtic mythology. In the myths they have close ties to nature, and are often depicted as shapeshifters. In various stories druids turn into wolves, bears, boars, swans, and a myriad of other things.

In World of Warcraft the druid class' powers are tied to nature – sun, moon, and plants. Like their mythological counterparts, druids are shapeshifters. These are a few of their various forms.

 

 

Another mythological influence in WoW can be seen heavily in the race of the Trolls. The religion and culture of the Trolls are based on myths from Latin America. An area in WoW called Zul'Drak provides the best example of this. Take a look at the architecture: This is a temple in Zul'Drak.

 

This is the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, found in the Aztec city of Teotihuacan.

 

 

One of the most prevalent figures in Latin American mythology is the god Quetzalcoatl. He appears in the pantheons of several different Latin American cultures, including the Aztec. Quetzalcoatl translates to “the plumed serpent”, meaning a snake covered in feathers.

 

 

Creatures that match this description appear in many places in WoW.

 

 

Let's travel from Zul'Drak and Latin America to the Storm Peaks and the Norse.

 

 

This zone is perhaps the most obvious portrayal of mythology in World of Warcraft – they barely even changed the names! First you have the val'kyr, servants of the Lich King who raise the dead to join his evil army. In Norse mythology the valkyrie are choosers of the slain. They raise worthy dead warriors to a hall called Valhalla, where they have a huge drinking party until the end of days.

Perhaps the most amusing nod to mythology in this zone are the characters of Loken and Thorim. Loken is a nefarious trickster trying to bring down Thorim. Thorim has a hammer named Krolmir.

 

(Thorim with Krolmir)

 (Thor with Mjolnir)

Hmm.

I'd like to look at another genre influenced by mythology: Fairy tales.

How many of you have seen or read Sleeping Beauty? You know the story: a girl is cursed and falls into a 100-year sleep; a wall of roses grows up around her; a dashing prince finds her and wakes her up with a kiss.

Now let me tell you the story that I think inspired Sleeping Beauty – an old Norse saga called the Story of Sigurd.

I mentioned valkyries when I was talking about WoW. In addition to being choosers of the slain, valkyries were also able to influence the outcomes of mortal battles. When the Story of Sigurd begins, a young valkyrie named Brynnhilda has been ordered by Odin, king of the gods, to let one specific side win a battle. Instead, she allows the other side to win.

Not a good mistake to make when your boss is king of the gods.

To punish Brynnhilda, Odin locks her away in a castle and curses her to sleep until a man comes along and wakes her up. She will then marry this man. Odin does take some pity on Brynnhilda – he raises a wall of fire around the castle, so that only a truly brave man will be able to reach her.

That's right. Odin is Maleficent.

 

 

(They even have matching birds!) 

Brynnhilda is eventually woken up by a man named Sigurd, and the two fall in love. Unfortunately, unlike in Sleeping Beauty, the duo do not live happily ever after. Sigurd is given a potion that makes him forget about Brynnhilda. He marries someone else, and his brother-in-law finds and marries Brynnhilda. The jealous valkyrie talks her husband's brothers into killing Sigurd. She then kills herself by jumping onto Sigurd's funeral pyre.

Yeah, Norse stories aren't really known for their happy endings. If it makes you feel any better, a horse was found missing from the stables and a stablehand said he saw Sigurd and Brynnhilda riding off into the sunset together.

But I digress. The Story of Sigurd differs vastly from Sleeping Beauty in its ending, but the core concepts are pretty darn similar.

 

 

Let's look now at one of my favorite parts of modern pop culture: Star Wars.

Is anyone else totally psyched for the new movie? Because I sure am!

Anyway, Star Wars has some of its roots in Arthurian legend. You have a bunch of knights running around trying to save the galaxy from evil. They help the innocent, protect the weak, and are generally seen as virtuous – at least, until they turn evil themselves. That's pretty similar to King Arthur and his knights, right?

Well, Star Wars also has heavy ties to Buddhism. Let's take a look at the Jedi Code, which states:

There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no death, there is the Force.

In Buddhism there is a concept called The Four Noble Truths. These truths state that:

1. There is suffering.
2. Suffering is caused by desire and ignorance.
3. Suffering can be ended by putting aside one's desires.
4. The fourth noble truth details an Eightfold Path to enlightenment, which leads to the end of suffering and desire. This path includes moral conduct, meditation, and wisdom.

I see a lot of Buddhism in the Jedi Code. If you give up emotion, you will not suffer, so you will be at peace. Ignorance can cause suffering, so it follows that knowledge can prevent suffering. Without passion, one will not desire, so one will not suffer from their desires.

So...I guess the Jedi are a sort of Knight/Buddhist monk hybrid?

 

I hope you guys found this interesting! I really love seeing how mythology influences pop culture, and the way that pop culture adapts mythology to suit its own needs. What have you watched (or read, or played, or heard) that you can see mythological ties in?