Patriarch Subhuti is the most important teacher in the early life of Sun Wukong in Journey to the West. Seeking a path to immortality, the Monkey King travels across the seas and eventually reaches the mountain retreat where Subhuti accepts him as a disciple.
Under the patriarch, the Monkey King studies cultivation and receives the religious name Sun Wukong. Subhuti later teaches him the Seventy-Two Transformations and the cloud-somersault technique, giving him abilities that become central to his later adventures across the Three Realms.
After Sun Wukong displays his transformations before the other disciples, Subhuti expels him from the school. He also orders Wukong never to reveal the identity of his teacher, and the patriarch consequently remains largely absent from the later narrative.
Although his direct appearances are concentrated in the beginning of Sun Wukong’s story, Subhuti fundamentally shapes the Monkey King’s powers. He is therefore an important Subject connecting Wukong’s origins, cultivation, transformations, and supernatural mobility.
