Wu Ch’eng-en is thought to have written Monkey: A Journey to the West in the mid 1500’s. David Kherdian has produced a paraphrase of an abridgement in order to make the work more accessible to contemporary American audiences. While not sufficient for close reading and textual scholarship, Kherdian’s edition is valuable for introducing the narrative to western readers.
Monkey embeds, in its rollicking narrative, concepts and teachings from both Buddhism and Confucianism. Careful reading reveals that the text probably leans more toward Buddhism than Confucianism, while certainly reflecting the influence of both. Perhaps Buddhism gets more play than Confucianism in the text because, by the Ming era, Buddhism had already influenced the forms of Confucianism most common in China.
From the opening paragraphs, these two belief systems make themselves apparent. The first paragraph includes vocabulary like ‘magic’ and ‘immortal’ and ‘Heaven’ and ‘divine embryo,’ all of which are arguably more likely to occur in a Buddhist context than in a Confucian setting. But the next paragraph mentions ‘ministers’ which leads, a few pages later, to mention of characters being ‘assigned cabinet posts’ and having ‘prostrated themselves’ – showing a Confucian concern for bureaucracy and ritual.
In addition to the implicit allusions to Buddhism and Confucianism, revealed in the vocabulary noted above, there are explicit references to both belief systems in the text. The word Buddha – which can in some cases be regarded as a personal name and therefore a proper noun, and in other cases is regarded as a category or title and therefore a common noun – occurs eight times in two-and-a-half pages, and numerous other times throughout the narrative. Confucius is likewise mentioned, though considerably less often. Thus Ch’eng-en was not merely influenced by, or alluding to, these belief systems, but rather, by including these names in the text, he is announcing to his readers that these philosophies are part of the subject matter of the book.
While both ordinary vocabulary implicitly alludes to, and names explicitly cite, Confucianism and Buddhism, we can see that technical vocabulary is used to tell us that these ideologies are being examined in detail. The word ‘bodhisattva’ occurs throughout the text; ‘monk’ and ‘scriptures’ and ‘monastery’ occurred together in at least one scene; we find ‘dharma,’ ‘enlightenment,’ ‘om,’ ‘priest,’ ‘pilgrim,’ and ‘reincarnation.’ More extended phrases are used to state Buddhist doctrine: Monkey expresses his desire not “to be born again on Earth, and to live again in vain,” while the Patriarch tells him that “nothing in this world is difficult, but thinking makes it so.” Ch’eng-en is giving us no mere mention of Buddhism, but rather taking us into the Buddhist system using its technical vocabulary.
To a lesser extent, yet still significantly, technical terminology from Confucianism appears in the text: Monkey meets an incidental character, a woodsman, who is concerned about “the care of” his parents – a typically Confucian concern – and Monkey responds by citing this ‘care’ as ‘piety’ – the more seriously Confucian term. The Patriarch takes care to teach Monkey about ‘courtesy.’
Finally, there are some bits of jargon shared by Confucianism and Buddhism: Monkey laments seeing ‘people preoccupied with fame and fortune,’ meets a ‘disciple’ who tells him about ‘the Way,’ and receives ‘instruction in secret.’
Of the Confucian texts, four in particular have assumed a special role in Confucian teaching, often simply cited as ‘the four books.’ Of these four, one – the title of which is variously translated as Maintaining Perfect Balance or Doctrine of the Mean – illustrates the technical role of ‘the way’ in Confucian jargon. As translated by Daniel Gardner, the passage reads:
Thus, governing rests with men. Men are obtained by means of the ruler’s own person; his person is cultivated by pursuit of the Way; and the Way is cultivated through the practice of true goodness.
The reader understands, then, that Ch’eng-en is making no mere superficial allusion to these two belief systems. Rather, the author is familiar with them in detail, and makes references which reveal his detailed knowledge of both systems.
Having made it clear to the reader that this text would be philosophically thorough, Ch’eng-en raises the question, to which end? Whither is he going with all this complex jargon? The reader might hypothesize that this would be a serious book of reflection and piety, but the reader would in that case be wrong. Ch’eng-en shows us that, despite his detailed knowledge of the two philosophical systems, this is not a book of piety or purely technical seriousness. He shows us this by means of humor and by means of action.
The humor starts early, when the Patriarch gives Monkey the “religious name” of “aware of vacuity,” and Monkey, not realizing the insult, is happy to receive it. In another funny scene, Monkey’s sometime master, Tripitaka, also known as Hsuan-tsang, tricks Monkey by exploiting his laziness.
Action also permeates the book. A dragon surprises Monkey and his master on a journey, swooping down and swallowing their horse in a single gulp; Monkey rouses the dragon from his lair at the bottom of a river, starts a fight with him, summons local gods as allies in the fight, and finally the bodhisattva turns the dragon into a horse to replace the one which was stolen.
Ch’eng-en’s inclusion of humor and action confirm his narrative’s status as a product for the newly emerging literate middle class, a class that was purchasing books in growing numbers for entertainment. A strictly aristocratic book would not have allowed itself to be as entertaining; certainly, the Confucian texts and the Buddhist scriptures don’t. Yet this new market wanted some mix of redeeming edification into its entertainment; therefore Ch’eng-en’s sophisticated inclusion of Confucianism and Buddhism. Authors Patricia Ebrey, Anne Walthall, and James Palais note:
It was during the Ming period that the full-length novel appeared. The plots of the early novels were heavily indebted to story cycles developed by oral storytellers over the course of several centuries. Water Margin is the episodic story of a band of bandits, set at the end of the Northern Song period. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a work of historical fiction based on the exploits of the generals and statesmen contending for power at the end of the Han Dynasty. The Journey to the West is a fantastic account of the Tang monk Xuanzang’s travels to India; in this book he is accompanied by a money with supernatural powers as well as a pig. Plum in the Golden Vase is a novel of manners about a lustful merchant with a wife and five concubines, full of details about daily life as well as the quarrels and scheming of the women. In none of these cases is much known about the author. Competing publishers brought out their own editions, sometimes adding new illustrations or commentaries.
Given that the book was directed toward an emerging middle class, and given that the middle class was, in fact, emerging – i.e. growing – it stands to reason that the book became popular. If the standard imperative for authors is “know your audience,” a corollary would be to writing for that demographic segment which is growing. Ch’eng-en did so, and was rewarded with popularity.
