In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned.
Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown.
The four worlds formed again and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed.
Time and the pure essences of Heaven, the moisture of the Earth,
the powers of the Sun and the Moon all worked upon a certain rock old as creation,
and it magically became fertile.
That first egg was named Thought.
Tatagatha Buddha, the father Buddha said
"With our thoughts, we make the world."
Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch.
From it then came the powerful creature we know as Sun Wukong!
Today’s the day people, we continue our January to the West
Man, I’m a backlogged ok?
Anyway it’s time to take a look at story of Sun Wukong.
As I mentioned before Sun Wukong was born from a stone egg
that was created at the dawn of time
and after emerging from his rock, Monkey
traveled down the mountain, meet a whole tribe of monkies
and quickly becomes their king.
This is why Sun Wukong is known as the Monkey King.
He was also super vein,
so he ordered that everyone call him the handsome Monkey King.
After ruling the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit for a few hundred years,
it dawns on Monkey that one day he might die.
He decides to leave his home in search of Taoist monk
who can teach him the secret to immortality.
He encounters the supreme immortal monk Subodhi
who eventually agrees to teach him and gives him the name “Sun Wukong”.
Subodhi teaches Wukong various magic skills
including his famous 72 methods of transformation,
cloud jumping, martial arts
and method of internal breathing said to grant immortality.
After being exiled from the school for his inability to be humble
He returned back to his mountain but found it was taken over by Demons.
He managed to defeated the demons,
but decided that he needed a stronger weapon
He travelled under the ocean and was able to procure
his iconic “as-you-wish gold banded cudgel”
a staff that was super heavy and had the power to grow and shrink at will.
OK. Extra credit quiz time
The cudgel was said to belonged to the great King Yu…
anyone remember him?
Correct. The guy who had the power to control water and banned the consumption of Baijiu,
A+ and a gold star for our subscribers who got it right!
After that Monkey returns home
but is soon dragged to hell
and learns that despite learning a method for immortality
the ledgers of life says it’s time for him to die.
Wukong is understandably pretty pissed off about this
and begins whooping ass until they agree
to take not only his and all his monkey friends’ names off the ledgers.
By this point the Jade Emperor and the Heavenly Kingdom
were growing a little worried about how powerful and wild Wukong had become
and thus appointed him to the position of Keeper of the Heavenly Horses
in hopes that this responsibility would calm him down.
He accepts the job, but learns that it doesn’t mean he is a real god,
so starts whooping again until Heaven agrees to name him
the Great Sage Equalling Heaven.
They also give him a better job
which involves protecting the immortal peaches.
Wukong starts his new job by eating all but one of the peaches
that grant immortality and is then enraged to find out
that he wasn’t invited to an immortal peach banquet...
Despite the fact that, you know, he ate like 90% of the peaches already.
So he crashes the party, drinks all the wine,
eats all of the food, as well as special immortality pills
that further increases his level of invincibility.
For his crimes, the Jade emperor sends a huge army to capture him.
He is eventually defeated and sentenced to death,
but because he has such a high power level
conventional weapons have no effect on him.
They decide to throw him in a mystical furnace,
which instead of killing him accidentally makes him even stronger.
He starts whooping ass in heaven again,
until Buddha himself shows in his giant form and makes Wukong a bet.
The bet is that if Wukong can jump out of the Buddha’s palm
he will become the new ruler of heaven.
Wukong takes the bet and leaps a massive distance
before finally landing in front of five pillars
which he believed marks the edge of the universe.
He writes his name on one pillar
pees on another and then returns back to the Buddha.
Once he returns he sees that the five pillars
were actually the buddha's fingers and that he failed the bet.
Wukong was about to start whooping Buddha ass,
but Buddha over tuned his hand and crushed Wukong into the earth
imprisoning him in a mountain.
About 5 hundred years later,
Xuanzang passes by WuKong on his way to fetch the Holy Scriptures from India
when Guanyin offers Wukong the opportunity
to redeem himself by joining Xuanzang on his quest.
Wukong agrees and is outfitted with a headband
that XuanZang can make crush his head whenever Wukong falls out of line.
Together the go about their journey recruiting other disciples
and fighting demons, gods and monsters,
but it is here that I personally have the biggest gripe with Journey to West.
Throughout the beginning of the story
Wukong is practically unbeatable in almost every fight
he is in and it takes the power of Buddha to stop him,
but the moment he joins the pilgrimage he rarely,
if ever, is able to defeat a demon on his own.
Pretty much every time they encounter a baddy,
they fight for a while,
and then Wukong retreats asks for the assistance of a God
and then the god defeats the bad guy.
Seriously like 8 out of 10 times the battles end this way,
why would they build him up to the point where only the Buddha can defeat him
after that, pretty much everyone else beats him up.
It makes no sense, it just…
Ok so,
Wukong and team complete the journey
of retrieving the Holy Scriptures, achieves enlightenment,
is granted Buddhahood and is named “Victorious fighting Buddha”......
despite you know being inexplicably terrible at fighting
for the vast majority of the story….
But anyway, I digress….
From the story of Journey to the West,
Sun Wukong became the rock star of Chinese fiction.
He has been portrayed and reimagined
in thousands of different ways through every medium available.
Hell, even I reworked his name for my online persona!
There really is just something so special about the Monkey King
that makes him such a timeless character,
maybe it’s his quest to better himself,
his mischievous ways,
his ability to find his way out of any situation,
or maybe, just maybe
it’s the fact that he gets completely depowered
and becomes a chump unable to win a simple battle
So thank you for watching another one of my videos,
don’t forget to like comment and definitely subscribe.
If liked this video, why not check out this one
on the true story of Journey to the West
or this one on the Guy with the biggest Junk in Chinese History.
Once again, thank you so much for watching,
I’m WooKong and Goodbye.