Monkey King

The Monkey King, or often known only as Monkey in Western translation, is a creation for the the Journey to the West (西遊記), one of the four best known Chinese novels. The novel, published in the 1590s, is a fictionalized account of the legends around the Buddhist monk Tripitaka (三藏) which means Three Baskets in Sanskrit, a Basket being a collection of sutras. The author, now accepted with little doubt, is Wu Zhengen or Wu Cheng-en (吳承恩). He gave Monkey a Buddhist name of Sun Wukong (孫悟空). Sun is a popular family name in China. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese republic, was a Sun. But the logogram has another meaning, too. It simply means “grandchild.” Wukong means “to understand the Nothingness or the Void.” It's an apt name for the king of monkeys who accepts Buddhism. The credo of anatta, denial of atman or soul, combined with that of anicca, impermanence, teaches Nothingness as Zen Buddhism does.

The inventiveness of faith founders lies in their ability to transform Monkey into a revered Buddha, who is worshiped as such, though much lower in rank than such a bodhisattva as Avalokitesvara, known better as Guan-in or the Goddess of Mercy. Monkey, at the end of Wu's novel, is made Dou-zhan-sheng-fu (鬥戰勝佛) or Buddha Fighting War to Victory by Gautama Buddha (Gautama Siddhartha or Sakyia Muni), founder of Buddhism.

There are altogether 10 temples in Taiwan dedicated to this Buddha Fighting War to Victory. Two of them are in Keelung. One in Taipei has a wood image of a monkey-like being as its chief Buddhist god. The faithful believe it is a piece of driftwood that flowed into the Tamsui River from the sea. Somebody —nobody knows who —picked it up and other faithful chipped in to build the temple, known as Sheng-deh gong (聖德宮) or Holy Virtue Palace. They are convinced their Monkey is particularly good at healing any malady they may have. The only thing they have to do to get well is to pray. There is one in Xinzhu. A miniature image of the monkey is on the altar of the small Xhinzhu temple.

The followers of Monkey mark the birthday of their god on the twenty-fifth day of the seventh moon on the Chinese lunar calendar. How the faithful came to know about Monkey's birthday is unknown. The Journey to the West does not tell when Monkey was born countless millennia ago out of a rock, which the Buddha kicked by accident, leaving a drop of blood that probably starts the fertilization process. Of course, the author did not explain why the Sakya Muni could travel all the way from India to China to fertilize the rock with a drop of his blood.

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