There were poems by Tang Sanzang in the Southern Song Dynasty, and Tang Sanzang and Pan Taohui in the Jin Dynasty, which laid the foundation for the creation of Journey to the West. It is on the basis of Chinese folk literature, scripts and operas that Wu Cheng'en completed The Journey to the West's creation through hard re-creation.
The Journey to the West author Wu Cheng'en introduced:
Since childhood, Wu Cheng'en has been reading extensively in Minhui, especially fond of fairy tales. Good at painting and calligraphy, versatile. He was repeatedly defeated in the imperial examination, and was promoted to a tribute student during Jiajing period.
In the 28th year of Jiajing (1549), he moved to Nanjing to make a living by selling documents. In the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing (1560), he served as a county official in Changxing, Zhejiang Province, and soon resigned and returned. Because of his difficult career, he never wanted to be an official in his later years, wrote a book behind closed doors and died at home.
Modern scholars generally believe that Wu Cheng'en is the last finisher of The Journey to the West, one of China's four classical masterpieces.
The Journey to the West's book mainly describes the story that after the Monkey King was born, he made a scene in the Heavenly Palace, met Tang Priest, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand and Bai Hou, went west to learn Buddhist scriptures, went through hardships and dangers, exorcised demons, and finally arrived in the Western Heaven to see the Tathagata Buddha, and finally the five saints realized their dreams.
Based on the historical event of "Xuanzang's learning from the scriptures", the novel profoundly depicts the social life of the people in the Ming Dynasty through the author's artistic processing.