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50 free Journey to the West trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Journey to the West trivia quiz covers the 16th-century Chinese novel that gave the world the Monkey King, and everything from Monkey Magic to Dragon Ball that grew out of it. The easy questions ask which monk the pilgrims escort, where they are going and why, which animal Zhu Bajie is, what Sun Wukong keeps in his ear and which manga hero is named after him. From there it moves through the plot: the stone egg, the havoc in heaven, the 500 years under a mountain, the headache-inducing golden band and the 81 tribulations. The hard end is for people who have read all 100 chapters: the disputed authorship, the earliest surviving edition, the real monk who defied an emperor's travel ban, the crystal goblet that got Sandy banished, the naval command Pigsy once held, the celestial 'Keeper of Horses' post, the sworn brothers, the banana-leaf fan, the woman who played Tripitaka on Japanese TV, the animation studio behind Havoc in Heaven and the game that sold 10 million copies in four days. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on the novel, Sun Wukong, Wu Cheng'en, Xuanzang, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing, the Bull Demon King, Princess Iron Fan, Monkey (the TV series), Havoc in Heaven, Black Myth: Wukong and Dragon Ball before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Chinese mythology, Dragon Ball and classic literature quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Journey to the West is a fictionalised account of a pilgrimage by which real Chinese monk?
Xuanzang
He spent 19 years travelling to India and back in the 7th century, collecting Buddhist scriptures.
Q 02The pilgrims in the novel travel to India to fetch what?
Buddhist scriptures
They finally receive them from the living Buddha on Vulture Peak after a journey said to take fourteen years.
Q 03The novel is traditionally attributed to which Ming dynasty writer?
Wu Cheng'en
Modern scholars doubt the attribution, since much of the material came from centuries of folk tales.
Q 04Sun Wukong is born from what?
A stone egg
The rock on Flower Fruit Mountain was formed by the coupling of Heaven and Earth.
Q 05How many transformations does Sun Wukong master?
72
He can turn into anything animate or inanimate; his somersault cloud covers 108,000 li in a bound.
Q 06What title does Sun Wukong give himself when he raises a flag in rebellion against the Jade Emperor?
Great Sage Equal to Heaven
The Jade Emperor had first fobbed him off with the lowly post of Keeper of Horses.
Q 07What lowly job does the Jade Emperor first give Sun Wukong in Heaven?
Keeper of Horses
When he realises it is the lowest post in Heaven, he storms back to his mountain in a rage.
Q 08For how long is Sun Wukong imprisoned under Five Elements Mountain after the Buddha defeats him?
500 years
He lost a bet that he could somersault out of the Buddha's palm.
Q 09Sun Wukong's staff, the Ruyi Jingu Bang, can be shrunk to the size of a needle and stored where?
In his ear
It was originally a pillar holding up the undersea palace of the Dragon King of the East Sea, and weighs 17,550 pounds.
Q 10How does Tang Sanzang keep Sun Wukong under control?
By chanting a mantra that tightens a band on his head
The disciples call the Ring Tightening Mantra the 'Headache Sutra'; only Guanyin's band can restrain him.
Q 11Sun Wukong gains a steel-hard body and fiery golden eyes after being tempered in whose Eight-Trigram Furnace?
Laozi's
He had already eaten Laozi's pills of immortality along with the peaches and heavenly wine.
Q 12Zhu Bajie, better known in English as Pigsy, was banished from Heaven for harassing which celestial figure?
Chang'e, who lives on the moon
He was supposed to be reborn human but a mix-up on the Reincarnation Wheel put him in a sow's womb.
Q 13Before his fall, Zhu Bajie held which celestial command?
Marshal of the Heavenly Canopy
Q 21At the end of the novel Zhu Bajie, held back by his greed, receives what heavenly post?
Altar cleanser
He gets to eat the excess offerings at altars; Wukong and Sanzang become Buddhas and Sandy an arhat.
Q 22What title is Sun Wukong granted on completing the journey?
Victorious Fighting Buddha
It caps a career that began with the monkeys of Water Curtain Cave crowning him Handsome Monkey King.
Q 23The earliest surviving edition of the novel was published in 1592 in which city?
Nanjing
Two earlier editions from between 1522 and 1566 are lost, and the story appears in the 1408 Yongle Encyclopedia.
He commanded 100,000 naval soldiers of the Milky Way before drinking too much at a celebration.
Q 14What is Zhu Bajie's weapon?
A nine-tooth rake
He is a reliable fighter when he can be dragged away from food and women.
Q 15Sha Wujing, the river ogre known as Sandy, was banished from Heaven for what offence?
Shattering a crystal goblet
As the Curtain Lifting General he dropped the Queen Mother of the West's goblet; he wears a necklace of skulls.
Q 16The fourth disciple, the horse Tang Sanzang rides, is the son of which figure?
The Dragon King of the West Sea
He was sentenced to death for burning his father's great pearl and saved by Guanyin to serve as Sanzang's mount.
Q 17Why do so many demons want to eat Tang Sanzang?
His flesh is believed to grant immortality
Some she-demons instead want to marry him to steal his yang energy.
Q 18How many tribulations must Tang Sanzang endure before attaining Buddhahood?
81
Near the end the Buddha orders one final disaster because the monk is one short.
Q 19Which bodhisattva, known in China as Guanyin, is sent by the Buddha to find a pilgrim and recruit the disciples?
Avalokiteśvara
Guanyin also places the golden band on Sun Wukong's head and teaches Sanzang the mantra.
Q 20Tang Sanzang's past life was as a disciple of the Buddha with what name?
Golden Cicada
The novel treats the monk as an allegory of the human heart, and Wukong of the mind.
Q 24How many chapters does the standard version of Journey to the West have?
100
Chapters 1–7 tell Wukong's origin, 8–12 introduce the monk, 13–99 the journey and chapter 100 the return.
Q 25The real monk behind the novel left China in 629 in defiance of a travel ban by which emperor?
Taizong of Tang
The same emperor welcomed him home in 646 and funded the Big Wild Goose Pagoda to house his scriptures.
Q 26The historical monk studied at which ancient Indian university during his 13 years in the country?
Nalanda
His own account of the trip, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, provided the novel's outline.
Q 27Arthur Waley's famous 1942 abridged English translation of the novel was published under what title?
Monkey
Anthony C. Yu later produced the first complete English translation, abridged in 2006 as The Monkey and the Monk.
Q 28Journey to the West is counted among the Four Great Classical Novels of China alongside Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber and which other?
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Plum in the Golden Vase is sometimes included in a wider 'six classics'.
Q 29Scholar Hu Shih suggested Sun Wukong may have been influenced by which Hindu deity?
Hanuman
The monkey god of the Ramayana shares his shape-shifting, leaping and devotion to a holy master.
Q 30Son Goku, hero of Dragon Ball, is based on Sun Wukong. What is 'Son Goku' in relation to the Chinese name?
Its Japanese reading
Goku's tail, staff and flying cloud all come straight from the novel.