We may have an answer! I sent a request to my dear friend, literary lion, Sanscrit scholar and and long-time Buddhist Charles Johnson asking him about the derivation of the term "Drunken Monkey" and he answered as follows:
and a quite reasonable Chinese gentleman wrote to say that this was not a Chinese concept at all. I was very surprised, and am wondering now if it is a legitimate Buddhist concept at all, or a fortune cookie aphorism I picked up somewhere. Can you help a brother out here?
Dear Steve:
It's Hindu (India), not Chinese. The great Indian philosopher Vivekananda discusses it at length and with much humor in his book Raja Yoga.
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So there we have it. Clearly, it is possible that someone misattributed the expression. Whether the "Drunken Monkey" concept exists in Indian or Tibetan Buddhist thought is a question that will remain for wiser minds than mine. I am, however, relieved to see that my basic thought, that this is an ancient term and not some New Age 60's psychadelic b.s., was correct. Whew!
Steve
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