Chapter 5: Disrupting the Peach Festival, the Great Sage steals elixir; With revolt in Heaven, many gods would seize the fiend.
In which Sun Wukong steals, gets drunk and battles Heaven itself.
Hello and welcome back to chapter 5 of Journey to the West. Remember than in last chapter, Sun Wukong got assigned his desired title, but this was an empty one (which he was ignorant of). Let’s see what he does with that in this chapter.
“At his official residence he was cared for night and day by the attending officials of the two departments”: What are these two departments? In Chinese history, from the Sui Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty (581 - 618), the government was ruled by the Three Departments and the Six Ministries. These Three Departments were three top-level administrative structures in imperial China. They were the Central Secretariat, responsible for drafting policy, the Chancellery, responsible for reviewing policy and advising the emperor, and the Department of State Affairs, responsible for implementing policy. This had it antecedent in Qin and Han Dynasty’s “Three Lords and Nine Ministers” administrative system. When our author writes in the Ming Dynasty, there is just one department that controlled six ministries. Nonetheless, this is where the inspiration for the two departments in the novel comes from. Heaven must be ruled by two distinc departments, which would have several ministries, and inside each ministries there would be attendants, secretaries, advisors and a whole lot of other people working. This is why, yet again, I recommend that you watch the Sleuth of Ming Dynasty if you want to grasp how bureocracy worked.
Huang Shen (1687-1772), A Night Banquet at Peach and Plum Garden in Spring. Source: Wikipedia. “The cries of white cranes pierced the ninefold Heav’n”: In ancient China, heaven was conceptualised to be ninefolded, having nine levels, largely to do with the eight cardinal directions and the centre.
“Dear Great Sage! Reeling from side to side, he stumbled along solely on the strength of wine, and in a moment he lost his way.” There is a kung-fu fighting style called drunken monkey inspired by this chapter of the novel. You can see a video of the style that you can watch here. It also has a Wikipedia page if you’re interested.
“The moment he saw it, he realized his mistake. “The Tushita Palace is at the uppermost of the thirty-three Heavens,” he said”: Didn’t I say that heaven was ninefold? Yes. Take in mind that Journey to the West is not an accurate description of Chinese religion(s) and so in this case, he could mean that the place he is referring to is very far. This very useful blog explains it better than I could if you want to read further.
Well, that was a lot of mischief for a chapter. I hope everyone is keeping up with the reading. Let me know if you have any question of suggestion. See you on the 30th of November.
