Sun Wukong, also commonly known as the Monkey King, is a trickster god in Chinese Mythology. He originated from the classic novel “Journey to the West”, which is known as one of the four great pieces of Chinese literature.
Story
Wukong was born from a stone on top of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit (which I’ll call Flower Fruit Mountain, for convenience). In the novel, it is stated that the rock was empowered by both Heaven and Earth, which caused the creation of one of four spiritual primates, which I’ll touch on in a bit.
As soon as he was born, he bowed to the four cardinal directions, which accidentally caused lasers to shoot from his eyes all the way to the palace of the Jade Emperor himself. However, Heaven chooses not to investigate the monkey further for now. Wukong lived his life worry-free with his monkey friends until they decided to follow a stream to see where it led. They soon found themselves at the base of a large waterfall and decide that whoever is brave enough to jump through and see what’s on the other side, they’d made them the Monkey King. Wukong, ever one for compatition, immediately did so. On the other side was a large palace, big enough for all of them. Wukong quickly jumped back out and told the others and he was soon crowned the Monkey King.
As years went by, Wukong started to worry about his mortality and decided to leave Flower Fruit Mountain in search of immortals to teach him their ways. After a long journey through several continents, he found himself at the home of Master Subodhi. There, he is taught the ways of immortality through the Dao, as well as skills like his 72 transformations and summersault cloud. But eventually, he’s kicked out and goes home.
However, in his absence, the mountain had been taken over by a demon. After quickly defeating it, Wukong decides that he needs a weapon so something like this doesn’t happen again. So he went down to the palace of the Dragon of the West. The dragon offered him several weapons, but Wukong refused them all until he found a large pillar. He shrank it down to create his famous staff, stole some fancy clothes, and returned to Flower Fruit Mountain.
One day, Wukong’s soul was taken from his body in his sleep and taken to the underworld. Enraged at this, since it was techically death, he stormed through the underworld until he was face to face with the ten kings. They assumed there was a misunderstanding and allowed Wukong to look through the Book of the Dead to check. Instead, Wukong crossed out his name as well as any other monkeys he could find before he woke up.
The Jade Emperor was told about this Monkey King causing trouble and was advised by the Gold Star of Venus to give Wukong a position in Heaven so they could keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t cause trouble. Wukong was named as the caretaker of the heavenly stables (or Bimawen). Wukong was happy for a while until he was told that his rank was actually the lowest rank in Heaven. Pissed off, Wukong went back to Flower Fruit Mountain to sulk and gave himself the title of “The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven”. Heaven sent down several gods to subdue him, including Prince Nezha, another famous god. Eventually, Heaven decided to just give him his empty title and had him watch over the immortal peaches in the Queen Mother’s garden.
As time went by, Wukong became bored and started to eat all of the peaches. By the time the Jade Emperor’s daughters went to fetch them, they were gone. Wukong overheard them talking about a festival being held that day and decided that he wanted to go too. He freezes the girls in place and takes on the form of an immortal who was invited. Once there, he decided to drink all of the heavenly wine, which also made one immortal. In his drunken haze, he found himself is Lao Tzu’s alchemy lab and ate some of his pills if immortality. Realizing what he did, he quickly went back to Flower Fruit Mountain.
Everyone was enraged at him, and the Jade Emperor ordered his soldiers to take him out. With every god they threw at him, Wukong quickly defeated them, at least until they sent Erlang Shen out. After a long battle, Erlang subdued Wukong and took him back to Heaven. They tried everything in order to kill him, with no success. They even stuck him in Lao Tzu’s furnace for 49 days in order to drain his immortality, but that only enraged him and gave him firey red eyes with golden pupils.
Wukong attacked the Heavenly Court with the intent to overthrow the Jade Emperor until the Buddha himself was sent to deal with him. Buddha makes a deal with Wukong: If Wukong could successfully jump out of the palm of his hand, he could rule Heaven. Wukong quickly accepted the bet and jumped out of his hand all the way to the pillars of the universe. Naturally, he decided to put graffiti on one of the pillars and peed on it for good measure. Wukong assumed that he won, only to see his graffiti on the Buddha’s hand. Since he was one with everything, the palm of his hand literally was the universe. Wukong panicked before a mountain was placed on him, sealed so that he couldn’t escape.
Wukong was stuck under there for 500 years. One day, Guanyin, the goddess of Mercy, visited him and asked him to guard a monk tasked with gathering Buddhist scriptures from India to bring Buddhism to China. Wukong quickly agreed and was soon freed once the monk, Tripitaka, removed the seal from the mountain.
Once freed, Tripitaka was horrified to witness Wukong’s violent nature as he killed two bandits attempting to rob the monk. So, to subdue him, Guanyin gave Tripitaka a golden headband that would tighten around Wukong’s head when the monk recited a certain spell.
Throughout their journey, three other demons join their adventure. Bai Longma, the dragon of the east, who acts as Tripitaka’s horse, Zhu Bajie, the celestial swine, and Sha Wujing of the flowing sands river. I won’t summarize the whole book since it’s more of an anthology at this point in the story, but by the end, Wukong was able to earn forgiveness for his past actions and became a Buddha alongside Triptiaka.
Powers and Abilities
72 Transformations – Wukong is able to turn his body into any shape he chooses. He can also transform items like his staff.
Cloud Walking – Also called the Summersault Cloud, this allows Wukong to fly by riding on a nimbus cloud.
Hair Transformation – Similar to the 72 Transformations, Wukong can use pieces of his hair to make objects or even clones of himself.
Strength and Speed – From his years of training, Wukong is known for his superhuman strength and speed (especially from his nimbus cloud).
Fun Facts
Other Monkeys – Like I mentioned before, Wukong is one of four spiritual primates. These beings do not fall in any particular category of mortal or immortal. Wukong is known as the Intelligent Stone Monkey, but the other three are the Long-Armed Gibbon, the Red-Butt Baboon, and the Six-Eared Macaque. We only see the Six-Eared Macaque in Journey to the West, and he is often portrayed in adaptations as Wukong’s friend before he is forced to kill him.
Name Origin – Wukong’s name was given to him by Master Subodhi, since he didn’t have a family to get his name from. “Sun” roughly translates to “monkey”, “Wu” translates to “awakened to” and “kong” translates to “emptiness”. So Wukong’s full name roughly translates to “Monkey Awakened to Emptiness”. In fact, Wukong’s name translates to Son Goku in Japanese, which the Dragon Ball character of the same name was based on.