Myths, Religions & Legends Power Ranking TOP100
I wrote a book ranking the most powerful gods, monsters, and heroes from world mythology, religion, and legend in order of strength! Of course, the rankings reflect a great deal of my own subjective judgment, but the reasoning behind each placement is grounded in the lore and episodes of each mythology, so I think it’s a book that will feel reasonably convincing.
This time I’d like to introduce some of the characters featured in the book’s ranking. Of course, many more characters appear in the ranking beyond those introduced here, so I think anyone interested in mythology, religion, and legend will enjoy it!
Rank 43: Sun Wukong (Chinese Mythology, Taoism, Journey to the West)
Overview
Sun Wukong is the most powerful monkey, born from a stone, and appears in “Journey to the West.” For the first several hundred years of his life, Sun Wukong lived as the king of the monkeys (the Handsome Monkey King) on his home mountain, Huaguo Mountain, but eventually set out on a journey in search of immortality and greater power.
He then became a disciple of the immortal Subodhi Patriarch, studied the immortal arts, and received the name “Sun Wukong.” Among his most famous techniques are the “Seventy-Two Transformations” (the ability to transform into any animal or insect) and the “Somersault Cloud” (the ability to fly freely through the air on a cloud).
After mastering the immortal arts, he intimidated dragon kings to collect weapons and equipment — including the “Ruyi Jingu Bang” (a telescoping staff weighing over 8 tons), the “Suozi Huangjin Jia” (tough scale-plated armor), and the “Ousi Buyun Lv” (shoes that allow walking on clouds).
As Sun Wukong’s power grew formidable, even the gods in Heaven began to see him as a threat. He was invited into Heaven once but escaped, began calling himself the “Great Sage Equal to Heaven” (meaning he considered himself equal to the heavens themselves), and repeatedly caused trouble — eating the immortal peaches and golden pills of immortality without permission, among other outrages.
Furious, Heaven declared a campaign to exterminate Sun Wukong, but he launched a counter-rebellion against Heaven.
Sun Wukong defeated all 100,000+ celestial soldiers sent against him, along with Chinese mythology’s great gods such as Nezha, but in the end was defeated and captured by Erlang Shen, the greatest divine general of Heaven.
However, nothing Heaven tried could kill him, so the Jade Emperor sought help from Shakyamuni Buddha (equated with Vairocana), who sealed Sun Wukong away for 500 years.
After the seal was broken 500 years later, Sun Wukong was fitted with a golden headband (a magic implement that tightens around the head), and he began the long journey to India as a disciple of the monk Xuanzang.
Reason for This Ranking
Sun Wukong’s body is described as “vajra-indestructible,” and he is said to be completely unharmed by swords, arrows, hammers, and other weapons.
When captured, he was burned continuously for 49 days in the Eight Trigrams Furnace (a super-heated furnace in Heaven) and still survived, bursting out and rampaging the moment the furnace was opened.
Heaven also tried fire, lightning, poison, and various other methods to execute Sun Wukong, but none of the heavenly gods could kill him.
This immortality is a recurring theme throughout the mythology: Sun Wukong is immortal because he mastered the immortal arts; immortal because he ate the immortal peaches; immortal because he secretly ate the golden pills of immortality; and immortal because he erased his own name from the Book of Life and Death in the underworld — he stacked multiple sources of immortality on top of one another.
Even in the mythology itself, it is said that no one could kill him — only seal him — which speaks to his extraordinary toughness and immortality.
His offensive power is equally versatile: he effortlessly swings the Ruyi Jingu Bang — said to weigh over 8 tons — and his Somersault Cloud can travel 108,000 li (roughly 54,000 km) in an instant, meaning he could circle the globe in virtually no time at all.
His cloning abilities are also extremely powerful: “Hair Transformation” allows him to turn his own body hair into hundreds of weaker clone bodies simultaneously, while the “Body Outside the Body” technique uses a large amount of his own energy to create a small number of clone bodies approaching his own power level.
Looking across the world’s mythologies, Sun Wukong boasts an otherworldly level of endurance and immortality, superhuman strength swinging a staff so heavy other mythology’s strongmen would scoff at, incomparable mobility with the Somersault Cloud, a cloning ability that can fill the battlefield single-handedly, immortal arts and divine powers that can adapt to virtually any situation — and the strange paradox of all this being attributed to a monkey. He is, without doubt, one of the most extraordinary beings in all of world mythology. Indeed, one could argue that Erlang Shen, who managed to defeat him, is even more impressive.
In this ranking, only the gods possessing the absolute highest-tier divine authority will be able to defeat Sun Wukong. Furthermore, even among the highest-tier gods, those with poor matchups against him may well find themselves unable to decisively defeat him — resulting in a draw.
