#monkey prince

Happy late Valentines Day!

Have you ever wanted to give the Monkey King a wife? I believe I've found a way. It is connected to the many parallels shared between him and the Buddha (as noted in my past article). Both

Split open their maters during their supernatural births (stone vs mother)

Have a radiant splendor as babies

Spend years as royals (king vs prince)

Are student prodigies

Experience shock at the concept of impermanence

Quest to overcome said impermanence (search for and find an immortal master vs study under various sages)

Eventually achieve a means of escape (immortality vs enlightenment)

These justify borrowing other aspects from the Enlightened One's story to insert into Journey to the West. For example, according to various biographies, the Buddha fell in love with Princess Gopā/Yaśodharā, "a jewel of a woman," and won her hand by taking first place in an archery competition (Almond, 2023, p. 35). Now, imagine that Sun is born on Flower-Fruit Mountain during the reign of an already established, elderly Monkey King. The primate monarch offers the hand of his daughter to anyone who is capable of leaping through the newly discovered water curtain to learn what is hidden behind it. Emboldened by her beauty, Wukong succeeds, finding the Water Curtain Cave and earning the hand of the princess. And when the old ruler dies, he and his good lady wife serve as the Monkey King and Queen.

They live in wedded bliss for decades, but due to his longer than average allotted life span, he is forced to watch her age while he remains relatively unchanged. Her senescence, illness, and eventual death (similar to the first three of the four signs) causes him to discern "the secret sovereignty of Yama, King of the Underworld" (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 106). This ultimately kicks off his quest for immortality and fuels his spiritual training.

After becoming a celestial, Wukong might use his heavenly connections to track down her reincarnation, but when he sees how happy she seems, he lets her go. This severs any connection to his peaceful, mortal life and subsequently leads to his rebellion against heaven.

What do you think his wife's name would be? I'd love to see suggestions in the comments.

"The Buddha visits his former wife and son, c. 100-300. Pakistan; ancient region of Gandhara. Stone (phyllite). | Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection. Photograph © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco" (source).

Sources:

Almond, P. (2023). The Buddha: Life and Afterlife Between East and West. Cambridge University Press.

Author: Gene Luen Yang Illustrator: Bernard Chang Publisher: DC Format: Paperback Genre: Action Date: October 16, 2021 Number of issues: 12 Pages: 27 ASIN: B0DM4PQH5T Language: English Adaptation: Modern

Summary:

In this new tale, “Apokolips in the Heavenly Realm,” you’ll see the classic Journey to the West characters—Sun Wukong, King Bull Demon, Princess Iron Fan, Red Boy and Erlang-Shen—defending The Heavenly Realm against Darkseid and his parademons!

Introducing the newest hero in the DCU, the great sage, equal to the heavens, better than his predecessor the legendary Monkey King, even better than the Justice League-and definitely the Teen Titans-(actually, all the heroes combined), everyone put your hands together for…the Monkey Prince! Marcus Sun moves around a lot because his adoptive parents are freelance henchpeople, so this month he finds himself as the new kid at Gotham City High School, where a mysterious man with pig features asks Marcus to walk through a water curtain to reveal himself as who Marcus really is…someone who has adventured through The Journey to the West, can transform into 72 different formations, can clone himself using his hairs, and is called…the Monkey Prince!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Prince

Ape-Ril Special #01 (2024)