Imprisoned Under Five Elements Mountain

After wreaking havoc in the Celestial Realm, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong, defied the Jade Emperor and claimed he was fit to rule the heavens. To quell the chaos, the Buddha arrived and challenged the Monkey King to a wager: if Wukong could leap out of the palm of his right hand, the throne of Heaven would be his. Arrogant and swift, the Monkey King somersaulted thousands of miles to the very edge of the universe, where he found five towering pink pillars. To prove his success, he scribbled his name on the middle pillar and left a mark of disrespect. Returning to the Buddha, he boasted of his victory, only to be shown the Buddha’s own hand. To his horror, the pillars were actually the Buddha’s fingers, and his writing was etched into the base of the middle one. Before Wukong could escape, the Buddha turned his hand over, transforming his five fingers into the Five Elements Mountain—Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. He sealed the Monkey King beneath the massive peaks with a sacred mantra, leaving him to wait five hundred years for his eventual redemption.