Comments on: How Does Dragonball Relate to Falun Dafa?

By: derekpadula

derekpadula — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:35:35 +0000

That is very cool. I had no idea there were comics based on these ancient stories though. Makes perfect sense though. They're amazing legends. The Chinese have recently done the same thing with the Four Great Classics, which includes Journey to the West, turning them into manga.

By: LRA

LRA — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:05:13 +0000

Yeah, that explaines it. Interesting information about Chinese Buddhism. I'm more familiar with the Indian religion and folklore. And I agree that dragonball is more attractive to people in general than the older stories that it was based on, but I think Hanuman is still very popular in India. I think it's only priests and scholars that actuall read the Ramayan properly, but most people in India know the story. In fact, in India you can get comic book versions of just about every myth. The most popular comics are by the company called Amar Chitra Katha. In fact, that's how I first came across the Ramayan, because my Dad would bring these comics back for me when he visited India. There was even a comic book version of the Gita!

By: derekpadula

derekpadula — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:08:00 +0000

Yes, Hanuman is exactly who I was talking about.

Brief history of Chinese Buddhism. Buddhism is not natively Chinese, it was imported from India. It traveled north into Afghanistan and then into western China (now called Xinjiang) where it spread to the rest of China. And another sect, the esoteric Dual Cultivation method of Tantrism spread into Tibet during the Tang Dynasty. It flourished in Tibet, but was eliminated from China during the fall of the Tang Dynasty. And then there’s the [debatable] legend which says that Bodhidharma brought Chan [Zen] Buddhism along with him to the Shaolin temple. Over millenia it changed into something distinctively Chinese, where they now worship multiple Buddha’s and the cultivation system is completely different from the Buddhism of India. Daoism and folk shamanism were the largest native belief systems of China.

Buddhism and all of its legends and culture were imported along with the beliefs. It’s my understanding that Hanuman was included in those. Then, over centuries, Buddhist and Daoist beliefs intermingled, creating folk tales and bar stories of a Monkey King that had mystical Daoist powers who helped a Buddhist monk travel to India and back to recover the sacred scriptures. Eventually this tale became more solidified, and finally in the 16th century, Wu Cheng’En wrote them down into an epic tale. He is attributed as the author, at least.

So it’s true that Sun Wukong was a Chinese creation, but only because of the already existing Indian beliefs. That’s how I understand it. And then in the late 20th century Akira Toriyama built on top of that. What’s interesting is that with each variation of the character and story it has reached increasingly more people and become further embedded in pop culture. It has also become more simplified and attractive to the masses. Journey to the West is a somewhat difficult and repetitive read, but Dragon Ball is very simple.

By: LRA

LRA — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:28:51 +0000

You mention that Goku started off as Sun Wukong and progressed from an "Indian deity" to a "buddhist hero", but I was under the impression that Wukong was originally a figure from Chinese folklore. It did get me wondering though, do you think it is possible that Sun Wukong was in anyway inspired by or related to Hanuman? They are both similar in that they are both monkeys, and both have phenominal strength along with a whole load of other supernatural powers. Then again, both characters have very different personalities, so maybe not.

By: derekpadula

derekpadula — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 03:00:20 +0000

That's great to hear. I agree, it is very cool.

By: Emmanuel Ra bey

Emmanuel Ra bey — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:50:25 +0000

Thank you for answer and speaking on this subject. I am a falun dafa Practitioner as well and Recently became engulfed with the DBZ. It is wonder to seek and find others who are on the same path and find Truth within this series.

By: derekpadula

derekpadula — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 22:11:57 +0000

I had not looked at it from that angle before. But even Journey to the West was a pop cultural creation stemmed from hundreds of years of folk tales mixed with different religions. It's a hodge-podge of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism and political satire.

I think the main difference between Journey to the West and Dragon Ball is that Dragon Ball does not have a clear philosophical or spiritual message, while Journey to the West does. The meaning in Dragon Ball is one created by the individual reader or viewer, because the author does not clearly state one for you. For some people Dragon Ball means a lot, while for others it means nothing.