Liu'er Mihou- Chinese DemonDemon"One of the Four Spiritual Primates"

The Perfect Impostor

The Six-Eared Macaque appears in chapters 56 through 58 of Xī Yóu Jì (Journey to the West), erupting into the pilgrimage narrative at a moment of crisis between Sun Wukong and his master, the monk Xuanzang. After Wukong kills a group of bandits, Xuanzang drives him away in fury. The macaque seizes this rupture. He appears in Wukong's exact form, wielding an identical iron cudgel, and attacks Xuanzang, stealing the scripture bundles and scattering the pilgrimage party. He then establishes his own false version of the journey, recruiting imitations of Xuanzang, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing.

When the real Wukong discovers the impostor, the two engage in a series of battles that no authority in heaven or earth can resolve. They fight their way to the Southern Sea, where Guanyin cannot tell them apart despite her wisdom. They descend to the Underworld, where the judges consult the Register of Life and Death and find only one entry for Sun Wukong, offering no clue. They ascend to Heaven, where the Jade Emperor orders his mirror to distinguish true from false, but the reflection shows two identical monkeys. Even the golden headband spell, which should cause only the real Wukong to writhe in pain, affects both equally.

The Buddha's Judgment

Only Rúlái Fózǔ (the Tathāgata Buddha) can penetrate the deception. When the two monkeys arrive at Vulture Peak, still locked in combat, the Buddha reveals the existence of four types of spiritual primates born at the beginning of heaven and earth: the shí hóu (stone monkey, which is Sun Wukong), the chì mǎ wēn (red-bottomed horse monkey), the tōngbì yuán (long-armed gibbon), and the liù ěr míhóu (six-eared macaque). The six-eared macaque possesses the supernatural ability to hear everything in heaven and earth through its six ears, and from this total knowledge it can replicate any being's form, voice, and power perfectly.

The Buddha identifies the impostor, and when the macaque attempts to flee, it is trapped beneath the Buddha's golden begging bowl. Sun Wukong strikes it dead with his cudgel. The episode resolves both the narrative crisis and a deeper thematic one: the journey can proceed only when the pilgrim's inner division, the conflict between obedience and defiance, is confronted and destroyed. The macaque, as a perfect double, represents the part of Wukong that would abandon the quest entirely. Its destruction marks Wukong's definitive commitment to the pilgrimage.