![]() “You mean I haven’t got my strength back? All right. It involves the bandit Wu Song lifting a heavy stone block: I now suggest the weight of the weapon was directly influenced by a scene in chapter 27 of the Water Margin ( Shuihu zhuan, 水滸傳, c. While I still agree the great weight cements his position as a superior hero, I no longer believe the number is connected to numerology. So it’s possible the number (infinity multiplied) was meant to convey that the staff was heavy beyond comprehension, something that only a divine hero such as Monkey would be able to wield. Thirteen thousand five hundred is divisible by nine, which Chinese numerology considers to represent “infinity”. I suggested in one of my earliest articles that the weight of Monkey’s staff had a connection to Chinese numerology: Assuming the style of the Python Rearing its Body, he pointed at the bandits and said, “Your luck’s running out, for you have met old Monkey!” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. ![]() How could those bandits have knowledge of this? The Great Sage walked forward and picked up the rod with no effort at all. They could not even budge it half a whit! This rod, you see, happened to be the “As-you-will” gold-banded cudgel, which tipped the scale in Heaven at thirteen thousand, five hundred catties. Sticking the rod into the ground, Pilgrim said to them, “If any of you can pick it up, it’s yours.” The two bandit chiefs at once went forward to try to grab it, but alas, it was as if dragonflies were attempting to shake a stone pillar. ![]() ![]() The latter quality is best demonstrated in chapter 56 when human bandits attempt and fail to pick up the 8.8 ton weapon: Sun Wukong’s magic staff is famed in popular culture for its ability to grow and shrink but less so for its great weight. ![]()
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