Zhu Bajie

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Zhu Bajie (traditional Chinese: 豬八戒; simplified Chinese: 猪八戒; pinyin: Zhū Bājiè; Wade-Giles: Chu Pa-chieh; Sino-Vietnamese: Trư Bát Giới; Japanese: Cho Hakkai; Thai: Teu Poi Gai), also named Zhu Wuneng (Han-Vietnamese: Trư Ngộ Năng; Japanese: Cho Gonō; traditional Chinese: 豬悟能; simplified Chinese: 猪悟能; pinyin: Zhū Wùnéng; Wade-Giles: Chu Wu-neng), is one of the three helpers of Xuanzang in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. He is called "Pigsy" or "Pig" in many English versions of the story.

Zhu Bajie is a complex and developed character in the novel. He looks like a terrible monster, part human and part pig, who often gets himself and his companions into trouble by his laziness, his gluttony, and his propensity for lusting after pretty women. He is jealous of Wukong and always tries to bring him down. His Buddhist name "Zhu Wuneng", given by bodhisattva Guanyin, means "pig (reincarnate) who is aware of ability, or pig who rises to power", a reference to the fact that he values himself so much as to forget his own grisly appearance. Xuanzang gave him the nickname Bājiè which means "eight restraints, or eight commandments" to remind him of his Buddhist diet. He is often seen as the most outgoing of the group. In the original Chinese novel, he is often called dāizi (獃子), meaning "idiot". Sun Wukong, Xuanzang and even the author refer to him as "idiot" over the course of the story. Bodhisattvas and other heavenly beings usually refer to him as "Heavenly Tumbleweed."

[edit] Name(s)

Zhu Bajie's name is composed of three characters: Zhū (豬) which means "pig", and Bājiè, (八戒) which means "Eight Prohibitions". His name was formerly Zhū Lìujiè (豬六戒), lìu (六) meaning "six".^{[citation needed]} When he committed two more sins, however, his name was changed to Bājiè.

[edit] Story

Zhu Bajie originally held the title of Tiānpéng Yuánshuǎi (天蓬元帅; lit. "Marshall of the Heavenly Canopy, or the Marshall of the Heavenly Tumbleweed"), commander-in-chief of 7,000 Heavenly Navy Soldiers. When Sun Wu Kong was born, he was a giant demon. Tiānpéng Yuánshuǎi defeated him and he was granted his present title. He was later banished, however, for misbehaviour. At a party organized for all the significant figures in Heaven, Bajie saw the Goddess of the Moon for the first time and was captivated by her beauty. Following a drunken attempt to get close to her, she reported this to the Jade Emperor and thus he was banished to Earth. In some retellings of the story, his banishment is linked to Sun Wukong's downfall. In any case, he was exiled from Heaven and sent to be reincarnated on Earth, where by mishap he fell into a pig farm and was reborn as a man-eating pig-monster known as Zhū Gāngliè ( the "steel-maned pig").

In the earlier portions of Journey to the West, Wukong and Xuanzang come to Gao village and find that a daughter of the village elder had been kidnapped and the abductor left a note demanding marriage. After some investigations, Wukong found out that Bajie was the "villain" behind this. He fought with Wukong, but ended the fight when he learned that Wukong is a servant of Xuanzang, revealing that he had been recruited by Guanyin to join their pilgrimage and make atonements for his sins (those that had got him thrown out of Heaven, and the many he had racked up since).

Like his fellow disciples, Bajie has supernatural powers. He knows 36 transformations. Like his fellow disciple, Sha Wujing, his combat skills underwater are superior to that of Wukong. The novel makes use of constant alchemical imagery and Bajie is most closely linked to the Wood element, as seen by another one of his nicknames, Mùmǔ (木母, "Wood-Mother").

At the end of the novel, most of Bajie's fellow pilgrims achieve enlightenment and become buddhas or arhats, but he does not; although much improved, he is still too much a creature of his base desires. He is instead rewarded for his part in the pilgrimage's success with a job as "Cleanser of the Altars" and all the leftovers he can eat.

As a weapon, he wields a jiǔchǐ-dīngpá, a nine-tooth (jiǔchǐ) iron muck-rake (dīngpá) from Heaven that weighs roughly 5,048 kilos (or roughly 11,129 pounds).

[edit] Popular culture

In the manga Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z and the anime Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, there is a pig named Oolong which is loosely based on Zhu Bajie; he is greedy, ugly, stupid and has the shape-changing ability.^{[citation needed]}

Saiyuki, an anime and manga loosely based on Journey to the West, features a major character named Cho Hakkai is loosely based on Zhu Bajie; indeed, Cho Hakkai is Japanese for Zhu Bajie, as is his previous name Cho Gonou (Zhu Wuneng). Hakkai, being gentle (at least superficially) and polite, and hardly resembling anything but a human, is nothing like Bajie. However, in a team of impostors who take the party's place in a few episodes, Hakkai's counterpart is in fact a slobbish glutton.

In the anime InuYasha, Zhu Bajie's descendant is a demon named Chokyukai (Cho Kyukai "Pig with Nine Prohibitions"; if in Chinese Zhū Jiǔjiè) that abducts young unmarried women and takes them to his palace.

The Capcom arcade game SonSon, also loosely based on Journey to the West, features a character drawn from Zhu Bajie in the form of the second-player character Tonton.