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(JTTW) Sun Wukong CRT

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A lot of the things in the poems (the single line spaced out sections of the book) are often references to other great works at the time.

The one I can tell most clearly is the "Hair can contain an ocean, a Mountain in a mustard seed".

This is a reference to a Pure-Land Buddhist work called the Avatamsaka sutra, whereby the Buddha basically expounds that general idea, for an idea, here's an excerpt:

On a point the size of a tip of a single fine hair
Are unspeakably many Universally Goods;
The same is true of all points
All throughout the cosmos.

The lands on a point the size of a hairtip
Are measureless, unspeakable;
So are the lands on every single point
Throughout the whole of space.

The lands on those points
Have innumerable different kinds of abode;
There are untold lands of different kinds,
Untold lands of the same kind.

On untold points of hairtip size
Are untold pure lands,
Their various arrays unspeakable,
Their various wonders unspeakable:
On each point in them Are recited untold buddha-names,
There being to each and every name Untold numbers of buddhas.

On the body of each buddha
Appear unspeakably many pores;
In each of these pores
They manifest unspeakably many forms.
The unspeakably many pores
Each radiate unspeakably many beams of light;
Click to expand...
This goes on for about 30+ pages repeating this kind of thing.

This is basically another way of me saying, that stripping it off it's original pretext diminishes it. The above would be closer to a real scale for what the Poem says.

Furthermore, the things like "Western Pure Land" or "Eastern Paradise" are not literally in those cardinal directions.

This is another thing taken from Pure-Land Buddhism. Basically, the Pure Lands are assigned to a cardinal, but not in a literal sense, as in "Go X distance to the East and find the Pure Land", it's more so in a spiritual way, as it in, it's assigned to the Qualities of the East.

So, the Buddha's monastery, the Thunderclap Monastery, wouldn't literally be anywhere in space or time, as it completely transcends the Maya and Samsara entirely.
 
Udlmaster said:
A lot of the things in the poems (the single line spaced out sections of the book) are often references to other great works at the time.

The one I can tell most clearly is the "Hair can contain an ocean, a Mountain in a mustard seed".

This is a reference to a Pure-Land Buddhist work called the Avatamsaka sutra, whereby the Buddha basically expounds that general idea, for an idea, here's an excerpt:


This goes on for about 30+ pages repeating this kind of thing.

This is basically another way of me saying, that stripping it off it's original pretext diminishes it. The above would be closer to a real scale for what the Poem says.

Furthermore, the things like "Western Pure Land" or "Eastern Paradise" are not literally in those cardinal directions.

This is another thing taken from Pure-Land Buddhism. Basically, the Pure Lands are assigned to a cardinal, but not in a literal sense, as in "Go X distance to the East and find the Pure Land", it's more so in a spiritual way, as it in, it's assigned to the Qualities of the East.

So, the Buddha's monastery, the Thunderclap Monastery, wouldn't literally be anywhere in space or time, as it completely transcends the Maya and Samsara entirely.
Click to expand...
Doesn't seem tierable.
 
We've never used religious texts to scale works of fiction that just reference them and we're not starting now. The "cultural nuance" isn't really relevant here at all.

If ActuallySpaceMan wishes to make said profile then he's free to do so, if he just sticks to the source material. I have no idea why "it doesn't do its cultural and religious roots justice" was ever a valid reason for not making it purely with the contents of JttW.
 
Planck69 said:
We've never used religious texts to scale works of fiction that just reference them and we're not starting now. The "cultural nuance" isn't really relevant here at all.

If ActuallySpaceMan wishes to make said profile then he's free to do so, if he just sticks to the source material. I have no idea why "it doesn't do its cultural and religious roots justice" was ever a valid reason for not making it purely with the contents of JttW.
Click to expand...
What's cultural nuance?

I see your point.
 
Can't really comment. Not like he can get to the top of any list if he's just untouchable anyway.
 
Planck69 said:
We've never used religious texts to scale works of fiction that just reference them and we're not starting now. The "cultural nuance" isn't really relevant here at all.

If ActuallySpaceMan wishes to make said profile then he's free to do so, if he just sticks to the source material. I have no idea why "it doesn't do its cultural and religious roots justice" was ever a valid reason for not making it purely with the contents of JttW.
Click to expand...
There's just one... teeny...tiny iggling...niggling little detail you're slightly forgetting...


The text is inherently religious. This is as religious as many derivative works like Satanist shit.

This isn't just "Oh, it's a new rendition of Buddha" like some Anime featuring a warped version, this is literally Siddhartha Gautama. This is literally Yu Huang Shang Ti, this is literally Ao Huang.

These are not meant to be be read in this way, it's not "it doesn't do it justice", it's eradicating what the text is and is meant to be read as. To remove the background of Journey to the West as if it's some common place anime like Record of Ragnarok where the only connection to Buddha is one character is just named such, is so intellectually dishonest it's impossible to compare and to try and reframe the discussion from the text being inherently religious and it being fallacious to create profiles from it to "doesn't do its roots right" is laughable.
 
Greatsage13th said:
Doesn't seem tierable.
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I've read the sutra multiple times, and I can't get to the end fathoming how big it is.

My recollection of how big it is usually breaks after about 2 pages at most. It's just too big, even in comparison to other incomprehensible series I've handled fine alone like WoD. It's just that big. Now, not to say I think you should use that sutra because that's what it's referencing.
 
Probably my last message for today, but if you wanted to have a version of Sun Wukong that's less religious (given that Wukong is revered as a Deity in many cultures such as Fujian and Vietnam), why not use Xiyoubu?

Because the real reason people want to make a profile for Wukong by any means, even if it strips it of what it valuable, is because it's a big name and well known book, it's about clout.
 
Udlmaster said:
I've read the sutra multiple times, and I can't get to the end fathoming how big it is.

My recollection of how big it is usually breaks after about 2 pages at most. It's just too big, even in comparison to other incomprehensible series I've handled fine alone like WoD. It's just that big. Now, not to say I think you should use that sutra because that's what it's referencing.
Click to expand...
So a single Buddha-Land within the Universe is Infinite. And if you broke that Buddha-lands down to atoms there would be infinite Atoms. There are also Infinite Buddha-lands within a single Buddha-Land and Infinite Buddha-Lands within them, going downwards reaching lower infinities. As such the Buddha-land we started with would also be contained within a Buddha-land going upwards reaching higher infinities.

Each atom of sed Buddha-Land would contain Infinite Universes and each Universe can be anything and are Infinite. They could have different, multiple, or infinite dimensions, races, powers, beings, concepts, and rules of reality hell they could even be Multiverses.

And each atom within them would also have Universes following the same rules being Infinite. And so on and so forth Infinitely up and down. And the UNiverse we started with despite being in an atom of Buddha-land could also be within an atom of a larger Universe. And at each point within those Universes, there are Infinite Buddha-Lands following the same rules as above.

And going further a rock would contain an infinite number of rocks within it, and each rock could be the size of a Universe containing atoms containing Universes or Buddha-Lands. And because every Buddha-Land can and therefore will be inside another Buddha-Land it creates an overwhelming paradox.

Because an atom of Buddha-land at any level would be as big as Infinitely possible, the one above it is impossibly more Infinite than it. And the one below it despite being every possible Infinity is still smaller.

Yes, Buddha-Lands are impossibly big even this doesn't cover the entirety of it. JTTW does mention the very scripture that this is explained in, along with a bunch of others. But unless they explain them within the context of the story they can't mean anything.
 
Udlmaster said:
A lot of the things in the poems (the single line spaced out sections of the book) are often references to other great works at the time.

The one I can tell most clearly is the "Hair can contain an ocean, a Mountain in a mustard seed".

This is a reference to a Pure-Land Buddhist work called the Avatamsaka sutra, whereby the Buddha basically expounds that general idea, for an idea, here's an excerpt:
Click to expand...
That actually looks like an interesting read.
 
Would Buddha's have potential Large Size Type 8? Their True Forms/Bodies are Dharma itself and its stated Dharma encompasses everything and subforces fill all of space.
 
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Greatsage13th said:
Just to clarify all we need now are the calcs right?
Click to expand...
Umm... I might need to redo the links for the page. I think I was using the abridged translation instead of the unabridged version. (Which is a lot more accurate.)
Also, it gives the literal meaning of things so it might change some feats around.

If I'm right then that means I gotta do that tonight or tomorrow.
 
ActuallySpaceMan said:
Umm... I might need to redo the links for the page. I think I was using the abridged translation instead of the unabridged version. (Which is a lot more accurate.)
Also, it gives the literal meaning of things so it might change some feats around.

If I'm right then that means I gotta do that tonight or tomorrow.
Click to expand...
What's the difference between abridged and unabridged?
 
Greatsage13th said:
What's the difference between abridged and unabridged?
Click to expand...
The best example I can give is this. The same text but under the different versions.

This is from the abridged.

This is unabridged.

Basically one's easier to digest for non-English readers but inaccurate and the other is harder to understand but more accurate. A lot of stuff is the same, but a lot of stuff is different. I'll have to go through and relocate the quotes for the profile.
 
Last edited:
ActuallySpaceMan said:
The best example I can give is this. The same text but under the different versions.

This is from the abridged.

This is unabridged.

Basically one's easier to digest for non-English readers but inaccurate and the other is harder to understand but more accurate. A lot of stuff is the same, but a lot of stuff is different. I'll have to go through and relocate the quotes for the profile.
Click to expand...
Ah is see. And also, in one of your previous comments, you said that the river in hell is infinitely deep, is flowery language. Why is that?
 
Greatsage13th said:
Ah is see. And also, in one of your previous comments, you said that the river in hell is infinitely deep, is flowery language. Why is that?
Click to expand...
Well, the context was really janky specifically saying Infinitely Deeper so it's definitely flowery language. Plus checking in the unabridged it says thousands of fathoms.
 
Planck69 said:
Sounds like Purification at most.
Click to expand...
It's both, in Buddhism, the Light of the Buddha ***** with everything, like in some Pure-Land Buddhist texts, they say that the Light of the Buddha can destine you for Enlightenment while in another Mahayana text, the Buddha transformed the world around him into boundless forms and shimmering formless wish stones because he became enlightened.
 
ActuallySpaceMan said:
Yes, Buddha-Lands are impossibly big even this doesn't cover the entirety of it. JTTW does mention the very scripture that this is explained in, along with a bunch of others. But unless they explain them within the context of the story they can't mean anything.
Click to expand...
I don't agree. For example, some verses are stuff like Tier 0 because they mention Cantor or allude to Set theory.

It's another reason why I say it's pointless, because you're directly contradicting the text.

If the text says "I am pulling from this, this is the background reading to parts in my story", going "Lol, death of the author, only things in the text matter" is extremely reductionist and defeats the objective of having a proper scale for the character. Again, you're better off scaling some TV show version of JTTW where they scrubbed all the Religious stuff out.
 
Udlmaster said:
I don't agree. For example, some verses are stuff like Tier 0 because they mention Cantor or allude to Set theory.

It's another reason why I say it's pointless, because you're directly contradicting the text.

If the text says "I am pulling from this, this is the background reading to parts in my story", going "Lol, death of the author, only things in the text matter" is extremely reductionist and defeats the objective of having a proper scale for the character. Again, you're better off scaling some TV show version of JTTW where they scrubbed all the Religious stuff out.
Click to expand...
Dude I would love to pull from text outside of the JTTW Novel. But literally, it's against the rules. I don't like it and I think it's stupid that people ruined Religious Profiles with their arguing and got them banned. But nothing anyone can do about it, so I'm making the profile the best I can.
 
I mean, I'm still of the opinion that uncontroversial religions/ones that aren't going to do the bad bad should be allowed.

Like, I don't think any Buddhists are gonna be upset by putting Buddha on a website with all his texts and all that.

But, those damn Monotheists ruin everything again.
 
So apparently a thousand world's isn't the right translation.


Instead, it says a chiliocosm which raw translated means a thousand world-systems, not a thousand world's as we translate it in English.
Is this usable or does it violate the rules?

Either way, a World/The World in the unabridged translation means Universe.
 
ActuallySpaceMan said:
So apparently a thousand world's isn't the right translation.


Instead, it says a chiliocosm which raw translated means a thousand world-systems, not a thousand world's as we translate it in English.
Is this usable or does it violate the rules?

Either way, a World/The World in the unabridged translation means Universe.
Click to expand...

Need to ask @Planck69
 
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