Great Sage Wukong: Battle Victory

A Great Sage, Equal to Heaven: The Battle Victory of Sun Wukong retells the immortal legend of the Great Sage Sun Wukong, beginning with a celestial stone, the Heaven’s Heart Stone, left behind by Nüwa to birth an immortal monkey.

The story begins when the stone monkey is born from the shattered spiritual stone of Flower-Fruit Mountain. He storms Water Curtain Cave and becomes king, then sails across the seas to seek immortality and takes Master Bodhi as his teacher, learning earth-shaking divine arts. After mastering his skills, he returns to his mountain, causes a commotion in the Dragon Palace to seize the golden-banded staff, crosses into the underworld to erase his name from the Book of Life and Death, and shakes the Three Realms.

The Heavenly Court tries to win him over, but only grants him the lowly post of Bimawen. Furious, he rebels against Heaven and calls himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, disrupting the Peach Banquet and stealing Lord Lao’s golden elixir; even the hundred thousand heavenly troops cannot subdue him. In the end, he is suppressed under Five-Elements Mountain by Tathagata Buddha for five hundred years.

Later, guided by Guanyin, he accepts Tang Sanzang, the scripture-seeker, as his master and sets out on the journey west. Along the way he slays demons and vanquishes monsters, fighting Yellow Wind Monster, defeating White Bone Spirit three times, seizing the Plantain Fan by wit, battling at Lion Camel Ridge, and charging into Flaming Mountain... Through eighty-one trials, despite repeated misunderstandings, his loyalty never changes, and his divine powers and wisdom are fully displayed. In the end, he helps Tang Sanzang obtain the scriptures, achieves fruition, and is conferred the title Victorious Fighting Buddha.

Yet the Buddha heart never dies, and his wild nature still remains; the legend continues. Written in the traditional chaptered style, this book portrays the epic tale of the stone monkey’s journey from ignorance to enlightenment, from rebellion to responsibility, breaking fate and achieving himself.