Wukong (full name: Sun Wukong, Chinese: 孙悟空 “emptying all desire”) was a spirit monkey (macaque) from the Tang Dynasty. His human identity was a disciple of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled west from China to India.
Wukong is one of the most outstanding martial art and spirit spell specialists in the history of Chinese spirit animals. During his journey to the west to India with Xuanzang (CE 629), he acted as his master’s bodyguard, defeating spirit animals along the way who believed in eating Xuanzang would somehow grant them immortality. During this journey, he mastered a great number of foreign spells.
After returning to China, Wukong assisted Xuanzang in translating the Buddhist scriptures they brought back from India (CE 645). In his spare time, he recompiled the “Essential Spells for Spirit Animals“, incorporating all the spells he had mastered into it, resulted in the “Essential Spells for Spirit Animals Expanded” featuring over 300 spells. This version is known as the “Sun Edition.”
In his later years, Wukong lived in seclusion on Shuilian Mountain (水濂山) in Dongguan. The spirit realm of Kongshan Valley he discovered and lived still exists today.
(This article will be expanded in the future)
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