The ginseng fruit in Journey to the West bloomed once every 3,000 years, bore fruit once every 3,000 years, and took 9,000 years to mature. But why did it say that it was 10,000 years long?

The ginseng fruit in Journey to the West bloomed once every 3,000 years, bore fruit once every 3,000 years, and took 9,000 years to mature. But why did it say that there were 30 life fruits in 10,000 years? Wasn't it 9,000 years?

Answer 1

In Journey to the West, the ginseng fruit bloomed once every 3,000 years, bore fruit once every 3,000 years, and took 9,000 years to ripen. However, in reality, the Ginseng Fruit was not a real item but a fictional fantasy plant. Therefore, novels and literary works about the growing time of the ginseng fruit would often carry out reasonable imagination and play according to their own settings and needs.

In the novel, Sun Wukong and the others went through 81 difficulties in the process of going to the Western Heaven to obtain the scriptures and finally succeeded in obtaining them. During this process, they tasted the Ginseng Fruit and learned about its growth process. However, the novel didn't directly explain how long it would take for the ginseng fruit to mature. Instead, it used a metaphor to imply how precious and rare the ginseng fruit was by saying that it would take 9,000 years for it to mature.

In the novel, when Sun Wukong and the others tasted the ginseng fruit, they did not mention the actual growth time of the ginseng fruit. Instead, they estimated it based on their own experience and imagination. Therefore, novels and literary works about the growing time of the ginseng fruit often carried out reasonable imagination and play without being too entangled with the actual time and length.