The Journey to the West is the first romantic chapter-and-verse novel of the ancient China. The Journey to the West, a hundred copies of the existing Ming periodicals, has no author's signature. Scholars in Qing Dynasty, such as Wu Yuqian, first proposed that The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng'en in Ming Dynasty.

this novel is based on the historical event of "Tang Priest's Learning from the Scriptures", and through the artistic processing of the author, it profoundly depicts the social reality at that time. The book mainly describes the story that the Monkey King met Tang Priest, Pig Bajie and Friar Sand after he was born and caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace. He went west to learn Buddhist scriptures, conquered demons all the way, experienced eighty-one difficult, and finally arrived in the Western Heaven to meet the Tathagata Buddha, and finally the five saints came true.

The Journey to the West has been widely circulated among the people since it came out, with various versions emerging one after another. There are six editions in Ming Dynasty, seven editions and manuscripts in Qing Dynasty, and thirteen lost editions in ancient books. After the Opium War, a large number of China classical literary works were translated into western languages.

The Journey to the West was gradually introduced to Europe and America and translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, sign language, Swahili, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Polish, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Chinese and foreign scholars have published many research papers and monographs, which have made extremely high comments on this novel.

Extended information:

Creative background

In the first year of Zhenguan of Emperor Taizong (627), a 25-year-old monk Xuanzang Tianzhu (India) traveled on foot. After he set out from Chang 'an, he passed through Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and finally arrived in India. He studied there for more than two years, and gave a lecture at a large-scale debate on Buddhist classics, which was praised.

In the 19th year of Zhenguan (645), Xuanzang returned to Chang 'an, bringing back 657 Buddhist scriptures, which caused a sensation. Later, Xuanzang dictated his travels to the west, which was compiled into 12 volumes of "Records of the Western Regions of Datang" by his disciples. But this book mainly tells the history, geography and transportation of countries seen on the road, and there is no story.

The book Datang The biography of Master Sanzang, written by his disciples Huili and Yan Cong, added a lot of mythical colors to Xuanzang's experience. Since then, the story of Tang Priest's Buddhist scriptures has been widely circulated among the people in China.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Journey to the West