"Journey to the West" stills Sun Wukong
As one of the four famous works in China, "Journey to the West" is widely loved by people, and the character of Sun Wukong is even more well-known. But do you really know where Sun Xinger came from? Fans of the original will say that they jumped out of the cracks in the stone, but the relevant scholars will give you different answers. In the past, there were three theories for the investigation of Sun Xing's life: "local theory", "foreign speaking", and "mixed-race theory". So now, let's follow Wen Shijun to try to solve the mystery of Sun Dasheng's life!
The Monkey King is born Stills from Journey to the West
<h1>I. The Origin of the Investigation of the Great Divine Lineage</h1>
From the original Tang Dynasty's "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" to the Ming Dynasty's Hundred Returns "Journey to the West", it took eight hundred years. However, the question of Sun Xinger's life originated from Hu Shi and Lu Xun's research on ancient Chinese novels, and the earliest question of "where did Sun Wukong come from" was Mr. Lu Xun, who, as the founder and representative of the "local theory", believed that the Huaishui water monster Wuzhi Qi mentioned in the Tang novel "Li Tang" (Huaishui is flooded, and the ancients attributed it to the water monster) is the original prototype of Sun Wukong.
The image of the unsupported Qi in the frescoes
<h1>Second, the historical basis and cultural origin of the "local theory"</h1>
Lu Xun's wuzhiqi and its related historical records are from the "Supplement to the History of the Tang Kingdom": "There were fishermen in Chuzhou, who accidentally caught ancient iron ropes in Huaizhong and kept them in order to sue the officials." Thorn Shi Li Tang collected manpower to introduce it. So poor, there are green macaques jumping out of the water and dying. Later, there is the inspection of the mountains and seas through the clouds: the water beast is good for harming Yu locked under the jun mountain, and its name is Wuzhiqi. The image of the Wuzhiqi ape and its final ending of "Yu Locked Under the Junshan Mountain" have certain similarities with the later Sun Xingren.
The legend of Wuzhiqi reached the Song Dynasty and was further developed in the Taiping Guangji: "The god of vortex water, the name wuzhiqi, is good at dealing with words, distinguishing between the shallow and deep of Jianghuai and the distance of the original Kui." Shaped like an ape, with a shrunken nose and a high forehead, a green body and a white head, golden eyes and snow teeth, a hundred feet of neck extension, a force of nine elephants, a fight and a gallop, a light and sharp, and a smell and vision for a long time. The rules of Yu Zhi cannot be controlled; the ebony that is granted cannot be controlled; the rules of the Zhi Gengchen cannot be controlled; the Rules of the Zhi Gengchen can be controlled. Wuzhi Qi had the "Golden Eye Snow Tooth", which was highly skilled, and Dayu fought with it three times before he subdued it, which was similar to the scene in "Journey to the West".
Stills from The Golden-Eyed Sun Wukong "Journey to the West"
Monkey culture is very rich in ancient Chinese culture, and the connection between Wuzhiqi and Sun Xingren can be said to be empty.
As one of the twelve zodiac signs, the image of the monkey is reflected in the time chart: Wang Chong's "On Balance and Material Potential" wrote: "Shen, the monkey is also." Monkeys have the meaning of longevity in Chinese culture, and in the Book of Baopuzi by Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it is contained: "Macaques live eight hundred years old to become apes, apes to live five hundred years to become monkeys, and mullies to live for a thousand years." In addition, because "monkey" and "hou" are harmonized in Chinese characters, there is the meaning of "hou". The ancients often used a variety of allegorical art forms to express their good wishes for the title of marquis and the future. The most representative is "monkey riding", which means "immediately sealed".
Ming Dynasty Bronze Ware "Immediately Sealed Marquis"
The story of the ancient Chinese ape is not uncommon, and it can be found in Zhuangzi as early as Zhuangzi. In Zhuangzi, the ape is called a "sniper". The Zhuangzi Neibao Qiwu Theory tells a story of "Chao San Twilight Four": "The sniper gong endowed taro, that is, 'Toward the three and the twilight four.'" The snipers were angry. He said, 'Then it will be four and three.' 'Everyone is pleased. In addition, in stories such as Ouyang Qi's experience in the Taiping Guangji and the Southern Song Dynasty dialect book "Chen Patrol Meiling's Lost Wife", the apes all play an important villain role. Even in the Yuan Dynasty, in the folk legend of apes, monkeys had a large family with the nature of the underworld (the old Tongtian Dasheng, the old two Qi Tiandasheng, the old three juggling Sanlang, the old four turtle mountain old mother, the old five iron color macaques).
<h1>Third, "outside talk" and its dilemma</h1>
The first to question the "local theory" was Mr. Hu Shi, who said in his writings: "I always suspect that this miraculous monkey is not a domestic product, but an import from India. Perhaps even the myth of Wuzhiqi was imitated by Indian influences... In India's oldest chronicle poem, Ramayana, a Hanuma is found, which can probably be regarded as the back of the Great Sage of Qi tian."
The image of Noahman in the Ramayana
It is true that the monkey god Hanuman in the Hindu epic Ramayana has a high degree of similarity with the image of Sun Xing, but there are not many historical evidences and channels about the influence of the former on the latter. Coupled with the tension between Hinduism and Buddhism in India, after Buddhism became popular in Middle-earth, it was even more difficult for Hindu works to enter the Chinese cultural circle as an original opposition.
But this does not mean that the influence of external factors is completely cut off, and many of the early Buddha Bunsen stories are about apes. And in the Buddhist system, Brahmanism is usually recorded in the literature in the form of a foreign path. It must be said that the image of Sun Xingzhi is importantly related to the context in which the Buddhist system spread from India to China.
<h1>Fourth, the "mestizo theory" and new discoveries</h1>
Mr. Ji Xianlin concluded that Sun Wukong is a typical example of eclectic art influenced by multiculturalism. This statement is widely recognized by most contemporary scholars. In Ji Xianlin's book "A Preliminary Study of Ramayana", the author proposed that the image of Sun Wukong was borrowed from the Ramayana, and in the later development process, it was contaminated with some unsupported elements. On this basis, scholar Cai Tieying discovered the "stage influence theory", that is, it is believed that Journey to the West evolved and formed in a long historical period, and received different cultural influences at different historical stages.
The Ramayana book shadow
In recent years, due to the excavation of some new archaeological relics and the new interpretation of physical historical materials, the academic community has a deeper understanding of the image of Sun Xinger.
The monkey walker in the Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, Fujian and the Five Hundred Arhats in Ningbo
Two scholars, He Kuoping and Ning Qiang, compared the monkey walker relief sculpture of kaiyuan temple in Quanzhou, Fujian Province (no earlier than 1238) with the monkey walker in Ningbo's "Five Hundred Luohan Diagrams" and the monkey walker in the Dunhuang Grottoes murals.
Monkey walker in Dunhuang grotto murals
Duan Wenjie examined the six surviving "Sutra Drawings" in the Dunhuang Grottoes, all of which were painted in the caves of the Western Xia Dynasty (1038-1227) in Guazhou. Most of the monkey walker figures in these murals have several important "Western Xia" characteristics, such as the monkey head person, the "balding", the holding of a stick-like weapon, and the classic "hand-built pergola" action (some monkey monks can see the hair ring rope).
In "Journey to the West", Sun Wukong wears a tight hoop spell and holds a golden hoop stick
All the hairstyles of the monkey walkers in the Guazhou Grottoes belong to the type of hair on the top of the head, which is closely related to the folklore of the Western Xia Kingdom. The walker holds a stick in his hand, which can be traced back to the daily weapon of the nomadic people in the Western Xia and even the Western Regions. (Similar to the long stick of the god Visha mentian in the Guoguo belief, the arc of the Uighur people, and the predecessor of the Liao bone of the Northeastern people) The hair ring on the head of the walker is very characteristic of the Western Xia bundle of hair. These "Western Xia-style" characteristics have a high degree of overlap with the later image of Sun Xing (stick - golden hoop stick, hair ring - tight hoop spell).
The monkey walker in Guazhou is a heroic figure with obvious Western Xia national overtones created by the Western Xia people based on the white-clothed Xiucai (monkey walker) in the second episode of the long-standing "Poetry of the Three Tibetan Classics of the Tang Dynasty". The image of Sun Xingren holding a military stick and a hair ring on his head in the late reign of the Western Xia Kingdom, that is, the formation period of the Guanyin paradigm of the Western Xia Shuiyue, gradually gradually developed and developed continuously, and eventually became the immortal classic - "Monkey King".
<h1>Wen Shijun said:</h1>
In addition, although in ancient times there were many nicknames for monkeys (monkeys with soft and flexible bodies, good at climbing edges), snipers, mu monkeys (female monkeys), macaques, foxes, unicorns, monotony, and many other apes. But the most noteworthy is the special nickname "Maliu". It is said that apes can be raised in stables to ward off horse diseases, so they are called "Ma Liu" in Hu customs, and later in the "Journey to the West", Sun Wukong's first position in the Heavenly Court is Bow Ma Wen (that is, "avoiding horse plague"), which is probably the most secret and typical embodiment of its influence by Hu customs!
<h1>bibliography:</h1>
1. Qin Rong, "A Preliminary Study on monkey culture: The Biology and Culture of Monkeys", Fujian Forum, 2006.
2. Cai Tieying: "The Mystery of the Cultural Core of Sun Wukong's Life and Journey to the West" of the "Four Great Families", unpublished, College of Literature, Huaiyin Normal University.
3. He Jiaoping, Ning Qiang, "A Preliminary Study of the Image of Sun Wukong and the Origin of the Western Xia Nation", Dunhuang Studies Series, No. 4, 2018.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Contributor Yi Danqing)
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