Journey to the West: You Told Me to Fetch the Scriptures, So Why Am I Putting Buddhism on Trial from the Start?

Transmigrate into Journey to the West and become Tang Sanzang, who is about to embark on the pilgrimage westward to obtain the scriptures. Guanyin appears, the Buddhist sect lays the groundwork, and the civil and military officials of the entire court all assume he will kneel to receive the Buddhist decree and set out on the 108,000-li journey to obtain the scriptures. Yet Tang Sanzang publicly strikes the bell of judgment and opens by putting the case of the Jing River Dragon King on trial! “The Dragon King’s death: was it the decree of Heaven, or did the Buddhist sect pave its path with lives?” From that moment onward, Journey to the West is completely changed. At Shuangcha Ridge, he saves the mortal guards who were supposed to die horribly, then puts the Buddhist calamity behind the monsters on trial. At Five-Finger Mountain, he does not remove the Buddhist seal. Instead, he rules the seal invalid and exposes the five hundred years of suffering Sun Wukong endured, forced to eat molten copper and iron pellets. At Eagle Sorrow Ravine, he refuses to let the Little White Dragon transform into a horse and instead asks Guanyin, “If he volunteered, why did you lock his dragon sinews?” Sun Wukong does not wear the tightening fillet, the Little White Dragon does not become a mount, Tianpeng no longer resigns himself to fate, and Juanlian also wants his case overturned. They journey west while putting everything on trial. The monsters must be tried, the gods and Buddhas must be tried, Heaven must be tried, and Vulture Peak must be tried even more! By the time Tang Sanzang brings all the wronged victims along the road to the Great Thunderclap Temple, the Buddhas finally realize that this journey to the west is no longer about obtaining scriptures. It is all living beings putting the Buddha on trial! At Vulture Peak. Tang Sanzang stands against all the Buddhas of the heavens with his disciples! Tang Sanzang: “I would like to ask all the Buddhas of the heavens: why launch such a grand endeavor in the west at the cost of all living beings’ lives?” “If you cannot give this poor monk a satisfactory answer, then today I shall destroy Vulture Peak!”