Increased interest in Buddhism, the Silk Road, and growing global awareness has made Xuanzang a significant figure in world history in the twenty-first century. Historically, he can also be considered an extremely influential figure: through him Buddhism, which was to die out in India, was translated to China, and a collection of confused and disconnected ideas which Buddhism was threatening to become was transformed into a profound and complex philosophical and psychological system. From China Buddhism spread to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Most of the philosophical schools of Tang Buddhism did not survive the fall of the Tang, one of the great watersheds in Chinese history. What did survive was the Pure Land School, which saw the aim of life as reincarnation in the Pure Land, where one could enjoy the blessings and avoid the sufferings of life on earth. This was to become the basis of popular Buddhism throughout China, and from there into the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia and beyond. The other school to survive was Chan, which did not rely on scriptures, but on meditation to reach enlightenment in a flash of inspiration. This was restricted to a few monasteries in China, particularly the Shaolin monastery, which combined Chan Buddhism with martial arts. Recent interest in Chinese martial arts and innumerable movies about fighting monks have attracted a certain interest in Chan Buddhism itself in recent years. Historically it flourished in Japan under the name of Zen, and it was introduced to western readers through the writings of Daisetsu Suzuki. The other schools are mainly of interest to historians and philosophers.
The most popular and enduring book which has kept the memory of Xuanzang alive for more than a millennium has been one that would have amazed the real Xuanzang. He has become one of the major figures in a novel, translated into the languages of the modern world and modified according to the tastes of the modern world, the other main characters of which were a monkey and a pig. But knowing about transformations and reincarnations, he might well have been quietly pleased that his mission to bring the true scriptures to the world outside India might still be continuing in a new form.
(2) THE JOURNEY TO THE WEST
The novel is a fictionalized account of the legends that had grown up around Xuanzang’s travels. The Record of the Western Regions and The Life of Xuanzang, a biography of Xuanzang written by a disciple, Huili, were full of stories of strange kingdoms with even stranger customs, attacks from robbers and pirates, mountains, ravines, wild animals, and dangers of all types. Even demons and devils are mentioned. Stories about Xuanzang were told by itinerant storytellers in the market places, mixed with various local folk tales and other traditions. Modified history was the stock in trade of the storytellers, other famous stories deriving from the complex history of China during the Three Kingdoms, after the fall of the Han, or the adventures of a group of outlaws living on a mountain during the Song dynasty. Historical details were not important to the storytellers, but the stories were fleshed out with all sorts of fictional embellishments to attract the interest of the listener, or later the reader. Each “round” would end on a dramatic note, with the words “If you want to know what happened next, you must listen to the next chapter.” So the next chapter would start with a brief synopsis of the story so far, before continuing it. This is the origin of the “episodic novel,” the usual form of traditional Chinese novels.
The medieval Chinese mind took it for granted that the area to the west, beyond China’s borders, was full of demons, monsters, and barbarians of every type. The earliest written version of these stories about Xuanzang himself is The Tale of the Search for the True Scriptures of Sanzang of the Great Tang Dynasty, and dates from the Southern Song, but a fragment about the Tang emperor going to hell was discovered in the Dunhuang secret library. In the Southern Song version the Monkey is already Xuanzang’s chief disciple, and their encounters involve gods, demons, and bizarre kingdoms. These stories, and others, continued to accrue and develop in various forms, mixed with local folklore and popular religion, and were collected and edited in their present form in the late Ming. The entire book is very long, and the plots and sub-plots, with their myriads of demons and other strange creatures, make very demanding reading. At much the same time abridgements were produced, about a quarter of the length of the original. During the Qing the book was usually read in abridged form, and one such edition formed the basis of the present translation.
On one level The Monkey King’s Amazing Adventures is an adventure story, and a very funny one. On another level it is an allegory in which the pilgrimage to India is a simile for the individual seeking enlightenment. On the first level, the monkey, the pig, the monk, and the sand spirit, and the innumerable demons and monsters, are characters in an adventure. On the second, they are personifications of our own inner spirits and demons: the pure, idealistic monk trying to achieve spiritual awareness, trying to keep the impetuous monkey, the lazy and lustful pig, and the mournful but reliable sand spirit under control, while all the time being confronted with internal and external demons which must be conquered to continue the way forward. One yet another level for the specialist the book presents an extraordinary range of religious folklore, both Taoist and Buddhist. There is much discussion about how much of the book is Buddhist, how much Taoist: even how much, if any, Confucianism is in it. Xuanzang was a committed Buddhist, of course, but the general theme of the book seems to be san jiao wei yi “the three religions are really one.” Each deserves to be treated equally: which as far as the Monkey is concerned, is to be treated with equal irreverence. As we shall see, Timothy Richard also saw Christian themes in the novel, an interpretation shared with no one else.
Before the story proper begins, there is a long section which has nothing to do with the monk or his mission, but deals with the exploits of the Stone Monkey, who has learnt an amazing range of skills, including the seventy-two transformations and the secret of immortality, and who claims the title of Great Sage, the Equal of Heaven. His major characteristics are his cheekiness and guts: afraid of no one, irreverent towards everyone, including the Jade Emperor of the Taoists and even Buddha himself, whom he derides as “a perfect fool” until he learns better. He causes havoc in heaven, and eventually the Jade Emperor calls on Buddha’s help. He is then trapped under a mountain for five hundred years.
The introduction is followed by the story of how Guanyin, known throughout the Western world as the Goddess of Mercy, is instructed by Buddha himself to bring the scriptures to save lost souls to China, which in the novel is portrayed as being in desperate need of such guidance (reflecting, by the way, the attitude of the Indian monks to China in The Record of Western Regions). Guanyin gives this task to the monk Xuanzang, and provides him with three protectors, a monkey, a pig, and a sand spirit. Here we learn that the monk had a past life, in which he was the Golden Cicada, a favorite disciple of Buddha, who failed to pay attention during a sermon and was punished by being reincarnated in China. His disciples are not ordinary monkeys or pigs either: they had all formerly been spirits with official positions in the Celestial Palace of the Jade Emperor, but for various reasons offended their rulers and were sent to earth as punishment. Part-human, part-something-else, they seek to regain their previous status, and agreed to help Xuanzang as an atonement for their sins. The monk undertakes this mission for a variety of reasons. One, of course, is to bring enlightenment to the lost souls of China. Another reason is also to fulfill a vow made by Emperor Taizong, who has seen Hell and ransomed himself out on condition that he would establish a Society for the Salvation of Lost Souls. This provides a secular, as well