![]() ![]() The greatest challenge for the four characters is crossing the 400-kilometer-wide river to Heaven, guarded by a monster that feeds on children. He repeatedly has to be rescued by the monkey king and the water spirit. The monk Hsuan-tang Zang is kind of an anti-hero, pious but cowardly. “Journey to the West” is widely regarded as the greatest story of Chinese literature and is well known in Japan and Korea and elsewhere in Asia. Xuanzang spent 16 years in India collecting texts and returned to China with 700 Buddhist texts. In Central Asia he traveled to Turfan, Kucha, the Bedel pass, Lake Issyk-kul, the Chu Valley (near present-day Bishkek), Tashkent, Samarkand, Balk, Kashgar and Khoton before crossing the Himalayas into India. He made it to Central Asia and India despite being held up by surly Chinese guards and guides who abandoned him in the middle of nowhere. 645 to obtain Buddhist texts from which the Chinese could learn more about Buddhism. Xuanzang, the Chinese monk who inspired the story, left China for India in A.D. Together with a dragon prince - transformed into a white horse - the jolly party encounters monsters and faces many obstacles, and overcomes them through their wit and teamwork. In the story the Great Monk is accompanied on his journey by three animal spirits: Pigsy, a dim-witted, awkward, greedy and mischievous(a pig the Monkey King, a monkey possessed by an immortal, and Sha Wujing, a man-eating feminine water spirit. It is based on the 7th century wanderings of real life Buddhist monk named Xuanzang (Hsuan-tsang) who went to India in search of sacred Buddhist texts. “Journey to the West” is a 16th century novel by Wu Cheng En that some say has many similarities with “The Wizard of Oz”. ![]()
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