Zhu Bajie
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Zhū Bājiè (豬八戒 WG: Chu Pa-chieh aka 豬悟能 Zhū Wuneng or Chu Wu-neng) is one of the three helpers of Xuanzang in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.
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 Zhū Wuneng (豬悟能) given by bodhisattva Guan Yin means "pig (reincarnate) who is aware of ability", a reference to the fact that he values himself insomuch as to forget his own grisly appearance. His master gave him the nickname Bājiè which means "eight restraints" to remind him of his buddhist diet. He is often seen as the most outgoing of the group. In the original Chinese novel, the monkey king addresses him as dāizi (獃子) all the time which means "lazy idiot". Even Xuanzang calls him idiot occasionally. Even the author referred to him as the idiot in the narratives in the novel.
Name(s)
Zhū Bājiè's name is composed of three characters: Zhū (豬) which means pig, and Bājiè, (八戒) which means Eight Sins. His name was formerly Zhū Lìujiè (豬六戒), Lìu (六) meaning six. When he committed two more sins, however, his name was changed to Zhū Bājiè (Eight Sins.)Story
Zhū Bājiè originally held the title of Tianpeng Marshal (天蓬元帅), commanding over 100,000 heavenly troops. He was banished, however, for misbehaviour. At a party organized for all the significant figures in Heaven, Bājiè 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 the downfall of the monkey king Sun Wukong. 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 pig monster.In the earlier portions of Journey to the West, Sun Wukong and Xuanzang come to a village and find that a daughter of a wealthy man had been kidnapped and the abductor left a note demanding marriage. After some investigations Wukong found out that Bājiè was the 'villain' behind this. He fought with the Monkey, but ended the fight when he learned that Wukong is a servant of Xuanzang, revealing that he has been recruited by the bodhisattva Guan Yin to join Xuanzang's 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, Bājiè has supernatural powers and since he is a former general in Heaven he is not to be trifled with. He knows 36 transformations. Like his fellow disciple the Sha Wujing, his combat skills underwater are superior to that of Wukong.
At the end of the novel, most of Zhū Bājiè'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 powerful nine tooth iron muck rake from heaven that weighs roughly 5,048 kilos (or roughly 11,129 pounds).
Zhū Bājiè in pop culture
In the manga Dragon Ball / Dragon Ball Z and the anime Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, there is a "pig" named Oolong which is loosely based on Zhu Bajie — he is greedy, ugly, stupid and has the shape-changing ability. Unlike Zhu Bajie, he is not as important to the plot, especially in the later part of the Dragon Ball manga (known as Dragon Ball Z).In the manga and anime Saiyuki, a major character named Cho Hakkai is loosely based on Zhū Bājiè. Indeed, Cho's name in kanji is same as that of Zhū. (Saiyuki is itself the kanji version of the Journey to the West.) Hakkai, being gentle (at least superficially), and polite, and hardly resembling anything but a human, is nothing like Bājiè. 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, he is a demon named Chokyukai that abducts young unmarried women and takes them to his palace.
External Links
- [Character Profile: Zhu Ba Jie] An in-depth character profile of Zhu Ba Jie.
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