Chinese PantheonRealm
Crystal Palace of the Eastern Sea
The underwater palace of Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. It was here that Sun Wukong obtained his famous weapon, the Ruyi Jingu Bang, originally a pillar used to measure sea depths.
About Crystal Palace of the Eastern Sea
Ao Guang's hall, the iron staff
The Crystal Palace of the Eastern Sea belongs to the dragon king Ao Guang. Sun Wukong demands a weapon and takes the Ruyi Jingu Bang, the needle that measured the sea. Journey to the West chapter 3 is the scene. Dragon kings of the four seas are older in folk religion; this palace visit is the novel's. No separate ancient epic of the staff exists. The hall is where a monkey steals the measure of the deep.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Wu Cheng'en, Journey to the West, ch. 3
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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