摘要
xi You di （＂The Journey to the West＂）, popularly known as The Monkey, is one of the most important works of classical Chinese literature. Study of this fictional work has long been a point of focus for scholars of Chinese studies. To understand the origins of this sophisticated work, scholars have examined almost every detail of the extant textual evidence created before the final one-hundredvolume version of the story. This article introduces and analyzes the newly available pictorial representations of the story found in the Anxi caves and other visual materials which were made before the emergence of the one-hundred-volume Xi You Ji in the late sixteenth century during the Ming Dynasty. My study intends to reconstruct a visual tradition in its formation, and to examine the relationship between the visual tradition and the oral and textualtraditions. Particular attention is called to the contributions of minority cultures, including the Liao and Xixia cultures, in the formation of this classical work of Han Chinese literature.
