太上老君離恨天兜率宮 · 8
Leaf 8 of the pilgrimage · 道祖 The Patriarch of the Way
Taishang Laojun 太上老君
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a heaven-sent power who ends the fight · nicknamed 道祖 “The Patriarch of the Way”
The Taoist patriarch whose scrapes are the journey's backbone: the monkey was cooked in his furnace, and everything that ever disarmed Wukong came out of his house.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 6
Casting Down the Diamond Ring
金剛琢He drops the diamond snare from heaven and it catches Wukong on the head, which is how the capture ends up working.
- ch. 7
The Eight-Trigram Furnace
煉丹失猴He put the monkey in the eight-trigram furnace to be destroyed; the furnace is why Wukong can see through every disguise in the book.
- ch. 35
Reclaiming the Two Horned Boys
收二童He comes down for the gold and silver horns, shakes his sleeve, and the two kings become two boys again.
- ch. 39
The Nine-Turn Soul-Return Pill
九轉還魂丹He supplies the pill that restarts a king dead three years in a well, and is not thanked for it.
- ch. 52
The Plantain Fan for the Ox
失青牛He discovers his ox has gone only when Wukong's staff turns up missing too, and comes down with a plantain fan to call it back.
結局 The ending
He is the only power in the book who loses things repeatedly and remains indispensable: the furnace, the snare, the ox, the boys. His last appearance is a pill handed over without a sermon attached.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials