Hello to all, especially Luo Lang
I thought I would write a little about Sun Wukong 孙悟空, especially since i finished an exam on him a few weeks ago (the results came out yesterday - they were quite OK )
First, is he a "god"? Well the offical terms for him in the book are: 弼马温, 美猴王, 齐天大圣. They translate as (loosely) Stable Official, Good-looking King of Monkeys, Great Sage of Heaven.Depending on you define a "god", you may reach different conclusions. In the novel, there are lesser gods, like god of earth, god
of the mountain, which are localised beings, that is they guard that geographical
territory around them.
As is quite clear from Sifu's books and Q&A, there is a huge difference in the concept of "God" in Western culture and in Chinese and Indian culture. The whole concept of gods in our culture is quite sacrilegous to Christians (I should know - I am for the purposes of classification, a Christian). But they generally just mean divine beings, ie, beings not within our mortal realm.
So, in my paper, I did not make a fuss of this. But in this forum, I want to explore this further. From the Christian point of view, God is omnipresent, omniscient, merciful, loving, and somewhere "up there". But the Chinese gods are not always so - they are not even always kind. And the kings of certain realms do not reside up there - they can be in the sea or down there in dark underground. Would a normal Chinese pray to Sun Wukong? Yes, why not? But a Christian may not. Because he is not the Christian idea of a God - he is destructive, violent, petty, boastful and to top it all, a monkey. I believe ancient European culture also has gods which do not seem to be role models - like the Greek gods.
And the really weird thing is, Sun Wukong may not even have existed. You know, Guangong, the heroic character in the Three Kingdoms story. He was real but many of his exploits were exaggerated in the novel. Yet, Chinese do worship him as the gof of war, especially the Hong Kong police who pray to him before they go out on operations. So, why do people pray to an imaginary figure? One theory I have is that, Sun Wukong belongs to another world, a higher one, and praying to him represents praying to those in that realm.
For the purposes of this post, I will not call him the Monkey "God". I will use "The Great Sage" because none of the official terms can translate as God.
Second,is Sun Wukong a Buddhist?
The short answer is "yes", but sometimes one can hardly believe it. His skills were all Taoist, taught by an immortal on earth, his title the Great Sage is not Buddhist, and he was rude to the Lord of all Buddhas. But there is really no doubt about it - he killed Taoist priests who oppressed monks in his journey, he was a monk's disciple and at the end of his journey, he was conferred a Buddhist title.
One possible explanation for why Wukong does not always behave like a good Buddist monk is that he is fighting against the corruption in Buddhism from the inside, yet at the same time, defending it from the evil external enemies (of Taoism) (there is a delicious irony in how he uses his taoist skills to defeat the Taoist foes). Recall that at the end of the story, Rulai Buddha's disciples demanded bribes before they would hand over the scriptures. My analysis of this led me to think about Chinese history. So many times when good men are fighting for their country, they are betrayed by evil ministers in the Imperial court, and the reason why the invaders were succeeding was the corruption of the regime. And it is true the world over that good men are not always yes-men, they are often mavericks which the powers-that-be hate to the core.
I think this is enough for now. I would like to see which other themes may be of interest. The responses to this post will help me to decide which themes to include.
I thought I would write a little about Sun Wukong 孙悟空, especially since i finished an exam on him a few weeks ago (the results came out yesterday - they were quite OK )
First, is he a "god"? Well the offical terms for him in the book are: 弼马温, 美猴王, 齐天大圣. They translate as (loosely) Stable Official, Good-looking King of Monkeys, Great Sage of Heaven.Depending on you define a "god", you may reach different conclusions. In the novel, there are lesser gods, like god of earth, god
of the mountain, which are localised beings, that is they guard that geographical
territory around them.
As is quite clear from Sifu's books and Q&A, there is a huge difference in the concept of "God" in Western culture and in Chinese and Indian culture. The whole concept of gods in our culture is quite sacrilegous to Christians (I should know - I am for the purposes of classification, a Christian). But they generally just mean divine beings, ie, beings not within our mortal realm.
So, in my paper, I did not make a fuss of this. But in this forum, I want to explore this further. From the Christian point of view, God is omnipresent, omniscient, merciful, loving, and somewhere "up there". But the Chinese gods are not always so - they are not even always kind. And the kings of certain realms do not reside up there - they can be in the sea or down there in dark underground. Would a normal Chinese pray to Sun Wukong? Yes, why not? But a Christian may not. Because he is not the Christian idea of a God - he is destructive, violent, petty, boastful and to top it all, a monkey. I believe ancient European culture also has gods which do not seem to be role models - like the Greek gods.
And the really weird thing is, Sun Wukong may not even have existed. You know, Guangong, the heroic character in the Three Kingdoms story. He was real but many of his exploits were exaggerated in the novel. Yet, Chinese do worship him as the gof of war, especially the Hong Kong police who pray to him before they go out on operations. So, why do people pray to an imaginary figure? One theory I have is that, Sun Wukong belongs to another world, a higher one, and praying to him represents praying to those in that realm.
For the purposes of this post, I will not call him the Monkey "God". I will use "The Great Sage" because none of the official terms can translate as God.
Second,is Sun Wukong a Buddhist?
The short answer is "yes", but sometimes one can hardly believe it. His skills were all Taoist, taught by an immortal on earth, his title the Great Sage is not Buddhist, and he was rude to the Lord of all Buddhas. But there is really no doubt about it - he killed Taoist priests who oppressed monks in his journey, he was a monk's disciple and at the end of his journey, he was conferred a Buddhist title.
One possible explanation for why Wukong does not always behave like a good Buddist monk is that he is fighting against the corruption in Buddhism from the inside, yet at the same time, defending it from the evil external enemies (of Taoism) (there is a delicious irony in how he uses his taoist skills to defeat the Taoist foes). Recall that at the end of the story, Rulai Buddha's disciples demanded bribes before they would hand over the scriptures. My analysis of this led me to think about Chinese history. So many times when good men are fighting for their country, they are betrayed by evil ministers in the Imperial court, and the reason why the invaders were succeeding was the corruption of the regime. And it is true the world over that good men are not always yes-men, they are often mavericks which the powers-that-be hate to the core.
I think this is enough for now. I would like to see which other themes may be of interest. The responses to this post will help me to decide which themes to include.
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