Characters

Tang  Xuanzang/Sanzang/Tripika is a Chinese Buddhist monk who had renounced his family to join the Sangha from childhood. He is actually a reincarnation of Golden Cicada, a disciple of the Buddha. He is sent on a mission to Tianzhu (an ancient Chinese name for India) to fetch a set of Buddhist scriptures back to China for the purpose of spreading Buddhism in his native land. He becomes sworn brothers with Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, and the emperor sees him off from the capital Chang'an and orders two escorts to accompany him.
                                                               

Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, is a main character in the classical Chinese epic novel Journey to the West (Xīyóuji) written by Wu Cheng'en. In the novel, he is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha, he later accompanies the monk Xuanzang on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutra s from India.

 
Zhu Bajie, also named Zhu Wuneng, is one of the three helpers of Xuanzang in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. He is called "Pigsy" or "Pig" in many English versions of the story. Xuanzang gave him the nickname Bājiè which means "eight restraints, or eight commandments" to remind him of his Buddhist diet. In the original Chinese novel, he is often called dāizi, meaning "idiot". Sun Wukong, Xuanzang and even the author consistently refers to him as "the idiot" over the course of the story. Bodhisattvas and other heavenly beings usually refer to him as "Heavenly Tumbleweed", his former name when he was a heavenly marshal.
                                                           

Sha Wujing, is one of the three helpers, he was originally a general in Heaven, more specifically a Curtain-Lifting General.(卷帘大将 juǎnlián dàjiàng) In a fit of rage, he destroyed a valuable vase. Other sources mention that he did this unintentionally, and in the Journey to the West series, it was an accident. Nevertheless, he was punished by the Jade Emperor, who had him struck 800 times with a rod and exiled to earth, where he was to be reincarnated as a terrible man-eating sand demon