I will tell you all today the REAL story of the Monkey King so everyone listen up. What is referred to as India in the Monkey King lore is just a physical placecard for something deeply metaphysical. In ancient times, ppl weren't distracted by cell phones and the internet, so they looked at stars and pondered about enlightenment.
The original author of the Monkey King is a spiritualist and literary genius.
In gnosticism, they say that THREE DEMONS together form the lunar foundation of our psychology. Someone who defeats the THREE DEMONS transcends the material world and obtains enlightenment.
In gnosticism, the THREE DEMONS are said to be:
1. DEMON of DESIRE (Zhu Bajie aka Piggy)
2. DEMON of the MIND (Sun Wukong aka Monkey King)
3. DEMON of ILL-WILL (Sha Wujing)
Tripitaka making the journey to "India" together with his 3 disciples is actually the PERSONIFICATION of the average human being trying to obtain enlightenment by defeating the THREE DEMONS within himself/within his psyche. At the end of The Monkey King story, all 3 disciples became Saints/deities, meaning the spiritualist finally defeats lust, the mind, and ill-will within himself and attains spiritual bliss.
In the end, the story of the Monkey King has nothing to do with actually physically going to India to retrieve some scriptures. It's actually a metaphysical journey happening all within the psyche/internal worlds of someone.
Anyone who can actually see thru the original author's intent finally concludes that the man is a hard-core spiritualist and literary genius!
Monkey King, Piggy, and Sha Wujing aren't 3 separate ppl. Everyone has lust, a bad mind, and ill-will within themselves. Anyone who rids of them thru spiritual means or vanquishes them from their internal psyche develops a halo/ring of light around their head and becomes a Jesus-like figure... No I'm just joking!