The Incredible Story Behind the Monkey King’s Magic Staff

If you’ve seen the Monkey King in Shen Yun’s performances you’ve probably noticed the staff that he always carries as his weapon. But where did it come from?

Shen Yun Collections’ latest release, the Monkey King and the Dragon Palace Silk Scarf, transforms the staff’s origin story into an elegant work of art.

In Journey to the West, Chapter 75, the author, Wu Cheng’en, has the Monkey King clearly recount the staff’s origins:

This staff was forged from iron, nine times refined
By Laozi himself tempered and designed.
King Yu once had to use this sacred treasure
The seas and rivers of eight domains to measure.
The stars were subtly upon it stamped
And golden bands around both ends were clamped.
Its ornate patterns awe both gods and ghosts;
Dragon and phoenix motifs both it boasts.

This “nine times refined” iron is a sacred metal in Chinese mythology that existed since the primordial chaos before Heaven and Earth were fully formed. The Most High and Senior Lord, otherwise known as Laozi, refined it nine times, forging a divine weapon capable of expanding or shrinking at will. Laozi personally inscribed upon it the name and description: “Lucky Gold-Banded Staff (Ruyi Jingu Bang), weighing 13,500 jin.”

In ancient times, the monarch Yu the Great borrowed this magic staff from Laozi to control the great floods that were destroying China. Because of its immense weight and its ability to change size freely, it was ideal for measuring the depths of rivers, seas, and waterways. After Yu successfully tamed the floods, the staff was left deep within the Eastern Sea, entrusted to Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the East, as an important part of stabilizing the seas.

After thousands of years passed, the little staff lost its luster and seemed to be nothing more than a large, immovable pillar in the Dragon Palace—too heavy to lift or relocate. Everything changed the day the Monkey King returned from his studies and came to the Dragon Palace in search of a weapon. In Chapter 3 of Journey to the West, the Dragon Queen says to the Dragon King:

“Within our sea treasury lies that iron staff from the riverbed of heaven. These past few days it has glowed with radiant light and mysterious mists. Could it be destined to emerge now that this sage has arrived?”

It was as if the staff had slumbered for ages, waiting for this very moment. When the Monkey King appeared, it burst forth in dazzling golden light as though recognizing its true master. With a single touch and a mere thought—“Smaller”—the massive iron pillar obeyed instantly, transforming in perfect accord with his will.

From that moment on, the Lucky Gold-Banded Staff became the Monkey King’s rightful weapon, accompanying him while he raised a ruckus in Heaven, and later in escorting the monk Sanzang on a journey west for Buddhist scriptures, overcoming eighty-one trials and tribulations on the way.

A single divine weapon links the power of the Daoist patriarch Laozi, the achievements of the flood-taming hero Yu the Great, the Dragon Palace beneath the sea, and the spectacular career of a stone-born menace turned pilgrimaging monk—the Monkey King. The Monkey King and the Lucky Gold-Banded Staff were, without question, a match made in Heaven.

Looking back, all things in life follow destiny and fate arranged in Heaven. Appreciating this beautiful reality and seeing the grand story play out is a true treasure. So too are Shen Yun Collections’ pieces. They are not merely adornments or objects, but vessels of divinely inspired culture—destined, in their own time, to meet the owners to whom they truly belong.