Chapters 74 to 77 of Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592) feature a powerful bird demon called the “Peng of Ten Thousand Cloudy Miles” (Yuncheng wanli peng, 雲程萬里鵬). He is portrayed as an ancient, halberd-wielding monster and a spiritual uncle of the Buddha. He comes to rule his own country and later teams up with two escaped Buddhist animal spirits to cause havoc on earth. The Great Peng is so strong that his nephew, the Enlightened One, has to personally intervene to trap this matchless evil in a position above his throne (this references South Asian Hindo-Buddhist architectural elements that jumped to Tibetan Buddhist religious iconography). The monster submits but stubbornly refuses to stop eating meat, showing that even the Buddha cannot fully tame him. In the end, the Enlightened One placates the Great Peng by offering him willing human sacrifices from among his countless followers.
What's interesting is that a later book titled The Complete Telling of the Biography of Yue (Shuo Yue quanzhuan, 說岳全傳, 1684), an embellished chronicle of famed Song dynasty loyalist and general Yue Fei (岳飛; 1103-1142), portrays him as a reincarnation of this bird demon-turned-Buddhist guardian. This connection is likely based on Yue's historical "courtesy name", Pengju (鵬舉). In the novel, the “Great Peng, the Golden-Winged King of Illumination'' (Dapeng jinchi mingwang, 大鵬金翅明王) becomes enraged when a bat spirit passes gas during the Buddha's sermon, leading him to jump down from his perch and mercilessly kill the offender. The Enlightened One promptly exiles him to the world below to be reborn as Yue Fei. But this is actually a preordained countermeasure against a red dragon sent by the Jade Emperor to punish the Chinese Emperor in the form of a tribal leader who comes to invade northern China. This naturally plays on the known animosity between birds of prey and snakes (e.g. Garuda vs Nagas).
Yue Fei came to be worshiped in Chinese folk religion as a Daoist protector deity. He has temples (or at least a shrine) dedicated to him throughout the Chinese diaspora, but they are most concentrated in China and Taiwan. This leads me to an interesting religious statue that I recently purchased. Labeled "Marshal Yue Fei, the Great Peng" (Dapeng Yue Fei yuanshuai, 大鵬岳飛元帥), it portrays the general astride his former incarnation. I've never seen a statue such as this, nor have any of my friends who are in the know. It appears to be quite rare.
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