The Monkey King, known as Sun Wukong (孫悟空/孙悟空) in Mandarin Chinese, is a legendary mythic figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West (西遊記/西游记) and many later stories and adaptations. In Journey to the West, the Sun Wukong is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven he is imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha. After five hundred years, he accompanies the monk Tang Sanzang (唐三藏) and two other disciples on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from the West where Buddha and his followers reside.
