A Comparative Study of Journey to the West and Indian Mythology

Abstract

The Monkey and the Monk: An Abridgement (2006) by Anthony Yu is a modern English translation and adaptation of Wu Cheng'en's classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. The Confucian ideology that ruled the 16th-century Ming dynasty strongly emphasised women’s responsibilities as mothers, wives, and devoted daughters. Women were supposed to follow rigid social norms and preserve family honour by maintaining their purity. Recently, scholars have started pointing out that Wu Cheng’en might have been influenced by the societal understanding of the Ming Dynasty while writing Journey to the West. Especially, the women characters were said to be the exact reflection of women in the Ming dynasty. In this paper, I propose to look at how women characters in Journey to the West were constructed through a patriarchal perspective. Additionally, to examine the societies of the respective times, this paper will explore the mythical parallels between the Hindu and Chinese societies by comparing the female characters, Wenjiao from Journey to the West, Sita from Ramayana, and Savitri from Mahabharata. This paper will also highlight the similarities and differences between Sun Wukong from Journey to the West and Hanuman from Ramayana. By drawing these comparisons, this paper seeks to provide insights into how these characters reflect the values and beliefs of their respective traditions.