#sun bin

[journeytothewestresearch]

The Monkey King’s Divine Double

Here is my new article describing the appearance of the “White Ape Perfected Man” (白猿真人), a rare Taiwanese folk Taoist deity, in Chinese vernacular fiction and religious scripture. I suggest his depiction in religious statues as an armor-clad primate with long hear and a golden headband was directly influenced by the martial iconography of the Great Sage (Sun Wukong) based on a centuries-long association in Chinese literature.

https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2021/12/10/the-white-ape-perfected-man-sun-wukong-divine-double/

The images presented below all depict the White Ape Perfected Man, not the Monkey King.

[hellviaa]

[auto-design-pioneers]

Huborace Future Motorsport by Bin.

[iconsdancers]

like or credit @chandelierluxo

[journeytothewestresearch]

Sun Wukong, Guardian of the Immortal Peaches

I suggest in my recent article that the episode in chapter four of Journey to the West where Sun Wukong (孫悟空) serves as a guardian of immortal peaches might be based on a Song-era story of the Warring States military strategist Sun Bin (孫臏) guarding fruit (Ming fiction identifies it as immortal peaches).

Both stories include: 

Characters surnamed Sun (孫) (Sun Bin VS Sun Wukong) guarding special fruit. 

Supernatural primates stealing the fruit for consumption (a white ape VS Sun Wukong).   

 So the Monkey King serves as both the guard and the thief!

[highlyentropicmind]

Cool moment from Chinese history:

Sun Bin was famous for two battles: Guling and Maling

In the first one the enemy was besieging a city, but instead of going to help that city directly, he pretends he's going to attack the enemy capital, forcing them to break the siege, they expected to fight Sun Bin there, but he never arrived, he had already accomplished his goal

In the second one he pretended he was weak so the enemy would chase him, but they just ran into a trap (it's more complex than that, obviously, but when you look at the details you see he was very clever)

Fast forward some 500 years to the battle of Guandu, and Cao Cao finds one of his fortresses being besieged, so he channels Sun Bin and he pretends his gonna attack the enemy capital, they break the siege, but not entirely. Sill Cao Cao is able to defeat the remaining troops at the siege and orders his forces inside the fortress to abandon it and fall back to a more defensible position. Hearing of this retreat the enemy sends a force to chase him down, but Cao leaves a lot of loot thrown around, as if they didn't have time to pick it up before running away, and the enemy gets distracted trying to pick it up, at which point he attacks and defeats them

In one battle Cao Cao replicated both of Sun's famous strategies. It almost feels like a homage

I know that war is a stupid waste of life and resources, but I must admit there's a certain appeal in strategy. It feels like math, but also art?

I often think that successful generals would have probably been good mathematicians, and that good mathematicians would have been very successful generals

In summary: Euler could have conquered the world

[etthawitthi]

ඉන්නා බව පෙන්නා යන්න

හැඳින්වීම සුන්තුමා ගේ “යුද කලාව” පොත ගැන අපි හැමෝම වගේ දන්නවා. ඒ පොත සිංහලට පරිවර්තනය වෙලාත් තියෙනවා.

එතුමාගේ මුණුපුරෙක්‌ තමයි සුන් පින්. එතුමා – සුන් පින්, ලියපු යුද කලා පොතකුත් තියෙනවා. ඒ පොත ලියලා තිබුණු උණ පතුරු සෑහෙන ප්‍රමාණයක්‌ විනාශයට පත්වෙලා. ඉතින් ඒ පොතෙන් තවමත් කියවලා තියෙන්නේ පරිච්ඡේද 15 ක ප්‍රමාණයක්‌ විතරයි. සුන් පින්ගේ පොත නම් තවමත් සිංහලයට පරිවර්තනය වෙලා නෑ.

මේ ලිපි පෙළින් ඉදිරිපත්…

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