Saiyûki

[opening narration]

Narrator: In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown. The four worlds formed again and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed. Time and the pure essences of Heaven, the moisture of the Earth, the powers of the Sun and the Moon all worked upon a certain rock old as creation, and it magically became fertile. That first egg was named Thought. Tatagatha Buddha, the father Buddha said "With our thoughts, we make the world." Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch. From it then came a stone monkey... The nature of Monkey was irrepressible!