Bringing the Monkey King to the World

By the end of 1930s, Waley had already established his reputation as a sinologist and an outstanding translator of Chinese poetry. Under what circumstances did Waley decide to translate the novel Xiyou ji into English? How does Monkey connect to social and literary realities during his time? If we follow Pascale Casanova’s application of Abram de Swaan’s “floral figuration” to her discussion on the literary world, how is this Chinese novel of the periphery linked to the center through Waley’s translation and other “cosmopolitan intermediaries”? Furthermore, if world literature, as David Damrosch proposes, is “an elliptical refraction of national literatures,” in what ways does Monkey respond to the tension between the receiving culture and its national context? By addressing those questions, this paper seeks to demonstrate Waley’s multiple relationship with Xiyou ji and highlight various factors that contribute to the canonization of the novel in a larger space of world literature.

Xuanzang

Xuanzang玄奘, the peripatetic Chinese Buddhist scholar-monk of the Tang dynasty (618-907 ce), was born into a literati family in Henan province in 600 or 602 ce. He is known by the sobriquet “Master of the Three Baskets [comprising the Buddhist Canon] .” (Skt.: Trepiṭaka; Ch.: Sanzang三藏) Xuanzang is regarded as the most prolific translator of Indic Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese—as well as the most historically significant, given that his comprehensive translations of Indic abhidharma and Yogācāra sutras and treatises (śāstras) revolutionized the study of Buddhism in East Asia. Attesting to his lasting influence on the tradition of East Asian Buddhism, all Buddhist Indic texts translated prior to Xuanzang are known as either the “ancient translations” (guyi古譯) or “the old translations” (jiuyi舊譯), while Xuanzang’s translations are termed “the new translations” (xinyi新譯). By retrieving the unalloyed teachings of abhidharma and Yogācāra Buddhist traditions from India and rendering them into fluid and readable classical Chinese, Xuanzang has left a legacy in the study of Buddhism in East Asia. Many of Xuanzang’s translations, such as the Heart Sūtra (Xinjing心經), remain the most widely used and circulated versions of these texts. Xuanzang’s long and arduous trek across the Silk Road to India is famously recorded in his travelogue entitled the Da Tang Xiyu ji (Great Tang records of the western regions). During his fourteen years in India (629–643 ce), Xuanzang collected Indic Buddhist texts hitherto not translated, studied with Buddhist masters, engaged in various religious debates, and acquired and mastered a vast and comprehensive knowledge of the Indic Buddhist texts in their original Sanskrit forms. Xuanzang returned to his native China in 645 ce to much acclaim and fanfare. Turning down a prestigious civil service appointment offered by Emperor Taizong, Xuanzang engaged in massive translation projects to render the texts he had gathered during his travels in India into Chinese. Under the lavish patronage of the second and third Tang emperors, Taizong and Gaozong, Xuanzang rose in status to become the preeminent East Asian Buddhist scholar and translator of his generation. Attracting students from Korea, Japan, and China, Xuanzang engaged the finest minds of East Asia in his translation and exegetical projects. Xuanzang has lived on in Chinese popular literary imaginary as the basis for the character Tang Sanzang 唐三藏 (Trepiṭaka of the Tang Dynasty) in the Xiyou ji西游記 (Journey to the west), one of the four great novels of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).

Journeys to the West: Travelogues and Discursive Power in the Making of the Mongol Empire

Before the Mongol conquest in 1279, numerous envoys were sent from the Southern Song court to its neighboring states. Their purpose was to evaluate and tame foreign territories and alien peoples and thereby reduce their threat to Song culture, and the travelogues resulting from these journeys were often “utilitarian” in style. The Record of the Perfected Master Changchun's Journey to the West (Changchun zhenren xiyou ji 長春真人西遊記), however, deserves special attention for its nuanced handling of a complex cultural-political power dynamics. Its compiler, Li Zhichang, was a leader in the Quanzhen sect, and his travelogue documents the journey of his master, Qiu Chuji, at the invitation of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan. Li's text illustrates the tension of competing political and cultural authorities: while the Mongols were becoming the source of political authority, the Taoists still owned the discursive power. The author argues that Li deliberately adopted a narrative strategy that conceded the Mongol claim to political legitimacy while simultaneously asserting Taoism's cultural dominance over the Mongols. The article also juxtaposes Li's work with the travel record by Yelü Chucai, a Khitan adviser to the Mongols who traveled with Chinggis Khan during his western military expeditions. Although Yelü's travelogue is often read as a rebuttal to Li Zhichang's work, a closer look reveals how Yelü appropriated Li's strategy for his own agenda: to justify Mongols' invasion of Central Asia while highlighting the cultural values shared between the Mongols and the Han Chinese. Both works employ rhetorical strategies that laid the foundation for political discourse affirming the Mongol-Yuan dynastic legitimacy.