Wikipedia:Tongtian River (fictional river)

The Tongtian River or River of Communion with Heaven (通天河), usually translated into English as The River that leads to Heaven by English orientalist and sinologist Arthur Waley, is a fictional river from the Chinese novel entitled Journey to the West. The episode of Tongtian River is found in the 47th to 49th episode of Journey to the West.

Tongtian River was originally a fast flowing river. As early as the time when the story of Journey to the West happened, the river was located in the Yuanhui County (元会县) of Kingdom of Tarrycart (车迟国), under the jurisdiction of a big white soft-shelled turtle (大白赖头鼋). It is said that this river one end leads to the Heaven, one end leads to the Underworld. It can also be said that one end leads to the royal court and the other to the folk.

The forty-seventh episode of Journey to the West describes that the Tongtian River is over 800 li in diameter and has rarely been traversed by people since ancient times (径过八百里, 亘古少人行).

On the journey to the West, Tang Seng and his disciples experienced two difficulties in Tongtian River. One was being caught by a monster, and the other was falling into the river and the scriptures were wet.