On the Construction and Deconstruction of the Buddhist World: A Study of the Buddhist Thoughts in A Journey to the West

The stories concerning the journey to the west have evolved to the weakening of Buddhist thoughts and enhancement of secular features. The novel A Journey to the West of one-hundred-chapter edition has constructed a gigantic Buddhist world. From its frame, the work has not broken away from the Buddhist nature of all the stories which are around Buddhist scriptures, and it has described a complete Buddhist world and molded a series of Buddhist figures, which shows the Buddhist conceptions concerning human nature, salvation, karma, and underworld, and it preaches the Buddhist doctrine. At the same time, the novel has deconstructed the Buddhist world built by itself. The work does not describe the Xiniuhe state and ancient India as the really pure Buddhist places, and has criticized and satirized some Buddhist figures and some doctrines. Moreover, some content is even not in accordance with Buddhism. In this sense, the Buddhist content of the work is merely the means for the author to make up stores and express his ideas