Chapter Text
[My comments will be in these parenthesis underlined, I'll try to be as objective as possible and make sure to tell when it's my opinion that I'm writing.]
The book begins with a few verses:
"The Divine Root Conceives and the Spring Breaks Forth
As the Heart's Nature Is Cultivated, the Great Way Arises
Before Chaos was divided, Heaven and Earth were one;
All was a shapeless blur, and no men had appeared.
Once Pan Gu destroyed the Enormous Vagueness
The separation of clear and impure began.
Living things have always tended towards humanity;
From their creation all beings improve.
If you want to know about Creation and Time,
Read Difficulties Resolved on the Journey to the West."
There's an explanation on the Arithmetic of the Universe right after:
Every 129.600 years there's a cycle; each cycle has 12 phases, each phase amounts to 10.800 years.
The day can also be divided in 12 phases and the book goes to explain them like so:
I. The positive begins;
II. The cock crows;
III. It's not quite light;
IV. The sun rises;
V. Is after breakfast;
VI. One does business;
VII. The sun reaches noon;
VIII. The sun is slipping towards West;
IX. Is late afternoon;
X. The sun sets;
XI. Is dusk;
XII. People set down for the night;
After a cycle of Chaos, where there was nothing but darkness, a new era approached, and as the start of the first new phase approached, gradually there was light: Heaven had his first foundation.
After 5.400 years, right in the middle of the first phase, the Four Images were created: the Sun, the Moon, the Stars and the Constellations. As the first phase was close to its' end, things gradually started to solidify, and Earth began to form.
In the middle of phase II, the heavy and impure solidified (Metal), Water, Fire, Mountains, Stone and Earth came into being; these elements were called the Five Movers.
As phase III approached, living beings were created:
"The essence of the sky came down and the essence of earth went up. Heaven and Earth intermingled, and all creatures were born."
In the height of this phase, Men, Birds and Beasts were created; these are called the Three Powers.
Following the example of Pan Gu's creation, the Three Emperors* put the world in order and the Five Rulers** laid the moral code.
*Fuxi, the Jade Emperor, Heaven sovereign;
Nuwa, Earthly sovereign;
The Yellow Emperor, Human sovereign;
**Might be rivers or dragon, unclear from the research.
The world was then divided into four great continents: The Eastern Continent of Superior Body, the Western Continent of Cattle−gift, the Southern Continent of Jambu and the Northern Continent of Kuru. This book deals only with the Eastern Continent of Superior Body.
The story of the Journey to the West starts in the Eastern Continent, precisely: beyond the seas, in the country of Aolai.
Aolai is next to an ocean, and in the middle of it there's an Island, called Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. This mountain is the ancestral artery of the Ten Continents*, the origin of the Three Islands*; it was formed when the Enormous Vagueness** was divided and the clear and impure were separated.
*The 10 continents are: Zu, Ying, Xuan, Yan, Chang, Yuan, Liu, Sheng, Fenglin, Juku; the 3 Island are: Penglai, Fanghang, Yingzhou and they are habitations of immortals in the Bohai (eastern) sea.
**Period where different myths, tales and others weren't canonized, blending the myth of Pan Gu, concept like Hun Dun (primordial chaos), legendary beasts, Yin and Yang, Taoism, Buddhism and local beliefs.
Flower Fruit Mountain had many kinds of creatures: sea serpents, phoenixes, unicorns (Qilin), pheasants, dragons, deer of long life [one particular deer, I assume], magic foxes, miraculous birds, black cranes, wolves, tigers, leopards,muntjacs, river−deer, wild cats, badgers, raccoons, lions, elephants, horses, bears, stags, wild boar, mountain cattle, antelopes, rhinoceroses, little dogs, huge dogs, orangutans, monkeys and apes.
The mountain is apparently Heaven's pillar, where all rivers meet, and Earth's root, unchanged through a myriad aeons.
On top of the mountain there was a stone, 11 meters tall (to match the 365 degrees of the heavens) and 1,21 meters round (to match the 24 divisions of the solar calendar; on top of it there were 9 apertures (representing a symbolic map of the universe, the human body and pathways to spiritual development) and 8 trigrams (the combinations of the 3 Yin and Yang lines). There were no trees near but magic fungus and orchids clung to its' sides.
Ever since creation it kept receiving:
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The truth of Heaven;
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The beauty of the Earth;
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The essence of the Sun;
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The splendor of the Moon;
And this granted the stone miraculous powers; it develop a magic womb, that one day gave birth to an egg stone the size of a ball. And when the wind blew, it turned it into a stone monkey (Shi Hòu).
Shi Hou was born with 5 senses, 4 limbs, learning how to crawl and walk soon after, he bowed to the 4 quarters, and when he lift his head two beams of golden light shot towards the Pole star, startling the Jade Emperor in his palace. The beams died out as the monkey ate and drank.
After being explained by Thousand mile Eye and Wind Accompanying Ear what just happened, the Emperor said:
"Creatures down below are born of the essence of heaven and earth: there is nothing remarkable about him."
[let him find out in a few chapters]
Shi Hou was soon able to stroll around, made friends with the wolves, went around with tigers and leopards, was on good terms with the deer [maybe he wasn't funny enough to be friends with him], and had other monkeys and apes for relations.
One day, the troop wondered where does the water from their favorite spring came from, so off they went to find out. Following the river, they found a waterfall, hanging like a curtain. One of the monkeys suggested that if anyone was brave enough to jump in the waterfall, discover where is the source of the water, and coming out in one piece, they'd make him their king. [I assume the phrase is gender neutral in Chinese cause I refuse to think monkeys are sexist]
Of course, Shi Hou volunteered.
Today he will make his name; Tomorrow his destiny shall triumph. He is fated to live here; As a King he will enter the Immortals' palace.
He leap inside and found a giant bridge made of iron, beyond it a stone mansion filled with anything they'd ever need. It looked like a idyllic place, made by heaven and earth.
He saw: Emerald moss piled up in heaps of blue, White clouds like drifting jade, While the light flickered among wisps of Coloured mist. A quiet house with peaceful windows, Flowers growing on the smooth bench; Dragon pearls hanging in niches, Exotic blooms all around. Traces of fire beside the stove, Scraps of food in the vessels by the table. Adorable stone chairs and beds, Even better stone plates and bowls. One or two tall bamboos, Three or four sprigs of plum blossom, A few pines that always attract rain, All just like a real home.
He went back to tell the news, and like so he was crowned "Great King of a Thousand Years"; he made the word 'stone' a taboo and called himself The Handsome Monkey King.
He took control of monkeys, apes, gibbons and others; then divided them in rulers, subjects, assistants and officers.
They all decided to not join the rank of the birds nor the crawling beasts' one.
After centuries of living peaceful and happy lives [living la vida loca], the Monkey King suddenly wept because one day the king of Diyu (hell) would come for them all and their lives would've amounted to nothing.
One of his subjects, a gibbon, told him that thinking so far ahead was a sign of enlightenment, and that only three out of the Five Creatures* don't have to answer to death: the Buddhas, the Immortals and the Sages.
*The other 2 being Human and Ghostly.
One explanation on where to find such creatures later, the King decides to travel to the corners of the world to find someone to teach him immortality; with a raft he drifted in the sea, till he reached the Northwestern shore of the Southern Jambu continent.
He went near the first humans he saw, making faces and scaring them, then proceeded to grab one of them, stripped him, dressed himself in those clothes and went around through provinces and prefectures, learning the human customs.
He noticed that people were too busy chasing fame and fortune to concern themselves with fate.
After 8 or 9 years (the king says later that it's been 10 years??) he found himself near the Great Western Ocean, so, thinking there must be Sages and Immortals on the other side, he made another raft and went to the across it, reaching the Western Continent of Cattle-gift.
He found a fine mountain, that he climbed without issue. After admiring the beauty of it (it looked heavenly), he heard a woodcutter singing about knowing Immortals and Taoists; he went to talk to him and discovered he was in the Spirit Tower Heart Mountain and in it there was the Cave Of Setting Moon And Three Stars, where lived the immortal called Patriarch Subhuti (or Subodhi).
Not long after, the king reached the cave and an immortal child was sent to welcome him in; the Patriarch let the king introduce himself and, given he had no surname, he gave him one, along a new name: Sun Wukong, meaning monkey awakened to emptiness.