Xiyouji (西游记)
Chinese. ‘Record of travel to the West’, usually referred to as
‘Journey to the West’, a
classical Chinese story based on real events. It describes the adventurous pilgrimage of a
Buddhist monk to India in order to obtain a copy of the
sutras. On his long and dangerous
trip into the unknown the monk,
called
Xuanzang or
Tripitaka (fig.), is accompanied by three
powerful disciples and a
dragon-horse (fig.), all of whom
joined as a penitence, since they had originally behaved in a manner contrary to
the precepts of
Buddhism. The monk's traveling
companions aid and protect the vulnerable monk in return for forgiveness of
their sins committed in an earlier life. Since they hope to also receive
Enlightenment after the fulfillment of
their task, their journey is often seen as an allegory for a person's individual
journey towards Enlightenment. The three disciples are
Sun Wukong, who is also known
as the Monkey King (fig.);
Zhu Bajie, a half-man half-pig character
who is also called Pigsy (fig.); and
Sha Wujing,
a fallen general who was exiled to the mortal world as a hideous figure, also
known as Friar Sandy
(fig.). Besides these three there is also
Yulong Santaizi (fig.),
the third son of the Jade Dragon, who usually appears in the transformed shape
of Xuanzang's horse. The 700 meters long wooden corridor
in the Beijing Summer Palace (fig.) has several paintings depicting scenes from this classical Chinese story.
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