The Journey to the West is a supernatural novel, which tells a fantastic world, in which gods and demons loom large and compete for hegemony. This novel begins with a series of oral and written versions, and is finally written by Wu Cheng'en (1500? -1582), a scholar-bureaucrat in the Yangtze River valley, published in 1592.

The story of Journey to the West is divided into three parts: (1) the early history of the Monkey King; (2) A pseudo-historical account of the family life before Sanzang's pilgrimage to the West; (3) The main story consists of the dangers and disasters encountered by 8 1 Sanzang and his three disciples of animal spirits-monkeys, pigs and Sandy (a fish spirit).