Hello! i dont know if youre still active on this tumblr but first of all i wanted to thank you for this blog and your website! I recently got interested in JTTW and decided that it would be a great base story for a comic - though of course i dont have any confidence in ever actually sucsess in making it but at least this story inspired me to draw again at some way. And if i ever actually do it your pages are great help especially since translate i read seems to be very incorrect - for example i was searching four chaos monkeys and i had NO idea Wukongs generals are named what kind of monkeys they are. In russian its just "monkeys" all the time, never gives specific names. So big thank you for those huge libraries of research. I always wanted to ask something - do you know if theres an actuall Buddhas deciple Golden Cicada? or who he can be based of? Or hes just made for this book? i always was wondering what exactly he did to be punished into human relm for many rebirths (10?) and what life he had before JTTW Also do you have any hints what kind of "true knowledge" is taught to Wukong so he becomes immortal? I understand its some Buddhist thing but what exactly?
Thank you for the kind words. As to your questions, you are in luck. Here is my article on Golden Cicada. It describes why he was punished and suggests that he is based on a historical disciple of the Buddha.
Last updated: 08-03-2025 The historical Buddhist monk Xuanzang (玄奘, 602-664) is famous for having traveled to India between 629 and 645 in o
And here is my article on the spiritual methods that Monkey uses to attain immortality.
Last updated: 09-22-23 Did you know that the Monkey King’s early spiritual training is connected to historical Daoist internal alchemy? In J