We were telling you about the Great Sage Sun, who could hardly bear his headache. “Master,” he pleaded pitifully, “stop reciting! Stop reciting! Let me try to heal him.” “How?” asked the elder. Pilgrim said, “All I need to do is to go to the Region of Darkness and find out in which of the Ten Kings’ chambers his soul is residing. I’ll fetch it and he’ll be saved.” “Master, don’t believe him,” said Eight Rules. “He told me originally that he needn’t go to the Region of Darkness, that his real ability could not be seen unless a cure was found in the World of Light.” Believing in such perverse tattle, the elder began to recite the Tight-Fillet Spell once more. Pilgrim was so horrified that he had to say repeatedly, “I’ll find some means in the World of Light! I’ll find some means in the World of Light!” “Don’t stop,” said Eight Rules, “just keep reciting!” “You idiotic cursed beast!” chided Pilgrim. “You are just trying to coax Master into putting that spell on me!” Laughing until he nearly collapsed, Eight Rules said, “O Elder Brother! You only know how to pull tricks on me, but you don’t realize that I can do the same on you.” “Master, please stop,” said Pilgrim, “and let old Monkey find a cure in the World of Light for the king.” “Where would you find it in the World of Light?” asked Tripitaka. “With a single cloud somersault,” said Pilgrim, “I shall penetrate the South Heaven Gate, but I’ll not go into the Big Dipper Palace nor into the Divine Mists Hall. Instead, I shall go straight up to the Thirty-third Heaven, to the Tushita Palace of the Griefless Heaven. When I see Laozi there, I shall beg him for one pellet of his Soul-Restoring Elixir of Nine Reversions, which will certainly make this man live again.”
When Tripitaka heard these words, he was very pleased and said, “Go quickly and come back.” “It’s about the hour of the third watch at this moment,” said Pilgrim, “but by the time I get back, it’ll be dawn. The trouble with this man sleeping here like this is that the whole atmosphere seems so dull and heartless. Someone here should mourn him and that’ll be more like it.” “It goes without saying,” said Eight Rules, “that this monkey would like me to mourn the king.” “Yes, but I’m afraid that you won’t,” said Pilgrim. “If you won’t, I can’t heal him either!” “Elder Brother,” said Eight Rules, “you may go. I’ll mourn him.” Pilgrim said, “There are several ways of mourning: when you merely open your mouth to make noises, that’s called howling; when you squeeze out some tears, that’s weeping. When you mourn with both tears and feelings, then we may call that wailing.” “I’ll give you an example of how I can wail!” said Eight Rules, who pulled out a scrap of paper from somewhere and rolled it into a thin strip, which he stuck into his nostrils twice. Look at him! After sneezing a few times, tears and snivel all came out and he began to wail, mumbling and muttering protests all the time as if someone in his family had actually died. He bawled lustily, and when his passion rose to a terrific pitch, even the Tang elder was moved to tears. “That’s the sort of grief I want you to show,” said Pilgrim with a laugh, “and you are not permitted to stop. For if you, Idiot, think that you can quit mourning after I leave, you are mistaken, for I can still hear you. You’ll be all right if you keep this up, but the moment I discover that your voice has stopped, your shanks will be given twenty strokes.” “You go!” said Eight Rules, chuckling. “Once I start to mourn, it will take me a couple of days to finish.” When Sha Monk heard how stern Pilgrim’s reprimand of Eight Rules was, he went and lit a few sticks of incense to bring to offer to the dead king. “Fine! Fine! Fine!” said Pilgrim, laughing. “When the whole family shows reverence like that, old Monkey can then exert his efforts.”
Dear Great Sage! At this hour of midnight, he took leave of master and disciples, the three of them; mounting the cloud somersault, he entered at once the South Heaven Gate. Indeed, he did not go before the Treasure Hall of Divine Mists, nor did he ascend to the Big Dipper Palace. Treading on his cloudy luminosity, he went straight to the Griefless Heaven, the Tushita Palace of the Thirty-third Heaven. The moment he walked inside the door, he discovered Laozi sitting in the elixir chamber: in the process of making elixir, he and a few divine youths were tending the fires with plantain fans. When he saw Pilgrim approaching, he immediately instructed the youths with these words: “Take care, each of you. The thief who once stole our elixir is here.” Bowing to him, Pilgrim said with laughter, “Venerable Sir, don’t be so silly! Why take such precaution against me? I don’t do those things anymore!” “Monkey,” said Laozi, “when you caused great disruption in Heaven five hundred years ago, you stole and consumed countless efficacious elixirs of mine. And when we sent the Little Sage Erlang to arrest you and bring you to the Region Above, you were sent to be refined in my elixir brazier for forty-nine days and made me squander who knows how much charcoal. You were lucky to have regained your freedom when you embraced the Buddhist fruit and resolved to accompany the Tang Monk to the Western Heaven to acquire scriptures. But even then, you were still giving me a hard time when I asked you for my treasures after you had subdued the demons some time ago on the Level-Top Mountain. What are you doing here today?” “I didn’t give you a hard time,” said Pilgrim. “Old Monkey at the time gave you back your five treasures without delay. Why are you still so suspicious?” “Why aren’t you on the road then?” asked Laozi. “Why did you sneak into my palace?”
Pilgrim said, “After we parted, we proceeded toward the West until we came to the Black Rooster Kingdom. The king there had been murdered by a monsterspirit masquerading as a Daoist able to summon wind and rain. The monster then changed himself into the form of the king, and now he sits in the Hall of Golden Chimes. When my master read the sūtras during the night before last in the Precious Grove Monastery, the king’s spirit appeared to him and requested earnestly for old Monkey to subdue the fiend for him. Because old Monkey considered the problem of evidence, he went to the imperial garden with Eight Rules to look for the burial site. Within a well of octagonal marble walls, we fished out the king’s corpse, so perfectly preserved that neither his color nor his appearance had changed. When we brought him back to my master, he was moved by compassion and wanted me to revive him. The condition was set, however, that I could not go to the Region of Darkness to fetch his soul, and that I must find some means to revive him in the World of Light. I concluded that there was no other remedy available, and that was why I came especially to see you. I beseech the Patriarch of Tao to be merciful and lend me one thousand tablets of your Soul-Restoring Elixir of Nine Reversions, so that old Monkey can save the king.”
“This ape is babbling!” said Laozi. “What are you saying—one thousand tablets, two thousand tablets! You eat them like rice? You think they are kneaded with mud? That easy? No! Go quickly! I have none!” “All right,” said Pilgrim, chuckling, “how about a hundred tablets?” “I don’t have any,” said Laozi. “Just ten tablets, then,” said Pilgrim. “This wretched ape is an absolute pest!” said Laozi angrily. “I don’t have any. Get out! Get out!” “You really don’t have any?” said Pilgrim, laughing. “I’ll go somewhere to look for help then.” “Go! Go! Go!” shouted Laozi. Turning around, the Great Sage strode out at once.
Laozi suddenly thought to himself, “This monkey is such a rogue! When I told him to go, he left, but I fear that he might sneak back in and start stealing.” He ordered a divine youth to call Pilgrim back at once, saying, “You ape, you have itchy hands and feet! I’ll give you one tablet of my Soul-Restoring Elixir.” “Venerable Sir,” said Pilgrim, “if you know the talent of old Monkey, you will bring out your golden elixir at once and divide up what you have with me equitably. That’ll be your good fortune! Otherwise, I’m going to swipe them clean for you.” Taking out his gourd, the patriarch turned it upside down and poured out one pellet of golden elixir. He handed it over to Pilgrim, saying,
“That’s all I have. Take it, take it! I’m giving it to you, you know, and when that
king is revived, it’ll be counted as your merit.” Pilgrim took it and said, “Let’s not hurry! I’m going to have a taste of it first, for I’m not going to be duped by some bogus pill!” He popped it into his mouth at once. The old patriarch was so startled that he dashed forward and grabbed the skin on Pilgrim’s head. Holding high his fist, he shouted, “You wretched ape! If you dare swallow it, I’ll kill you!” “Shame on you!” said Pilgrim, laughing. “Don’t be so petty! Who’s going to eat your stuff! How much could it be worth, this flimsy stuff? Isn’t it right here?” The monkey, you see, had a little pouch just beneath his jowl, and that was where he kept the golden elixir. After the patriarch had felt it with his fingers, he said, “Go away! Don’t bother me here anymore!” Then the Great Sage thanked the old patriarch and left the Tushita Heaven Palace. Look at him!
In countless hallowed beams he left the arches of jade;
On myriad auspicious clouds he went to the world of dust.
In a moment, he left the South Heaven Gate behind and, as the sun came up, he dropped from the clouds and arrived at the gate of the Precious Grove Monastery.
Eight Rules’s weeping could still be heard when he approached, crying, “Master.” “Wukong has returned,” said Tripitaka, delighted. “Do you have any elixir or medicine?” “I do,” said Pilgrim. “He couldn’t possibly not have it!” said Eight Rules. “He would have brought back something even if he had to steal it!” “Brother,” said Pilgrim, chuckling, “you can get out of the way, I don’t need you anymore. Wipe away your tears, or you can go somewhere to weep. Sha Monk, please fetch me some water.”
Sha Monk hurried to the well in the rear where there was a bucket nearby. He bailed out half an alms bowl of water and brought it to Pilgrim. After he took it, Pilgrim spat out the elixir and placed it inside the lips of the king. Then with both hands, he pulled the jaws of the king apart, and using a mouthful of clean water, he flushed the golden elixir down to the king’s stomach. After about half an hour, loud gurgling noises came from the belly of the king, although his body remained immobile. “Master,” said Pilgrim, “even my golden elixir seems unable to revive him! Could it be that old Monkey’s going to be finished off by blackmail?” Tripitaka said, “Nonsense! There’s no reason for him not to live. How could he swallow that water if he had been only a corpse dead for a long time? It had to be the divine power of that golden elixir, which entrance into his stomach now causes the intestines to growl. When that happens, it means that circulation and pulse are in harmonious motion once more. His breath, however, is still stopped and cannot flow freely. But that’s to be expected when a man has been submerged in a well for three years; after all, even raw iron would be completely rusted. That’s why his primal breath is all used up, and someone should give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
Eight Rules walked forward and was about to do this when he was stopped by Tripitaka. “You can’t do it,” he said. “Wukong still should take over.” That elder indeed had presence of mind, for Zhu Eight Rules, you see, had been a cannibal since his youth, and his breath was unclean. Pilgrim, on the other hand, had practiced self-cultivation since his birth, the food sustaining him being various fruits and nuts, and thus his breath was pure. The Great Sage, therefore, went forward and clamped his thundergod beak to the lips of the king: a mighty breath was blown through his throat to descend the tiered towers.1 Invading the bright hall, it reached the cinnabar field and the jetting-spring points beyond before it reversed its direction and traveled to the mud-pill chamber of the crown. With a loud swoosh, the king’s breath came together and his spirit returned; he turned over and at once flexed his hands and feet, crying, “Master!” Going then to his knees, he said, “I remember my soul as a ghost did see you last night, but I did not expect this morning my spirit would return to the World of Light.” Tripitaka hurriedly tried to raise him, saying, “Your Majesty, I didn’t do anything. You should thank my disciple.”
“Master, what are you saying?” said Pilgrim with laughter. “The proverb says, ‘A household does not have two heads.’ You should accept his bow.”
Greatly embarrassed nonetheless, Tripitaka raised the king up with both hands and they went together into the Chan hall. The king insisted on greeting Pilgrim, Eight Rules, and Sha Monk before he would take a seat. The resident monks of the monastery had just finished preparing the morning meal and they were about to present it when they discovered a king with soaking wet garments. Everyone became frightened; each of them began to speculate. Pilgrim Sun, however, leaped into their midst and said, “Monks, don’t be so alarmed. This is in fact the king of the Black Rooster Kingdom, the true ruler of all of you. Three years ago he was murdered by a fiend, but old Monkey revived him last night. We plan to go with him to the city presently to distinguish the perverse from the true. If you have some vegetarian food prepared, bring it here, so that we can start our journey after we eat.” The monks then presented hot water also so that the king could wash up and change his clothes. The royal reddish brown robe was discarded, and he put on instead two cloth shirts given to him by the monkofficial. They took off the jade belt and tied him up with a yellow silk sash; after the carefree boots were removed, he was given a pair of old monk sandals. Then they had their vegetarian breakfast before going to saddle the horse.
“Eight Rules,” said Pilgrim, “how heavy is your luggage?” “I’ve been toting it every day,” said Eight Rules, “and I really don’t know how heavy it is.” Pilgrim said, “Divide one and let the king take up the other one. We should get to the city early to do our work.” Delighted, Eight Rules said, “Lucky! Lucky! When I brought him here on my back, I used up a lot of my strength. I had no idea that he could be my substitute after he had been healed.” Resorting at once to mischief, Idiot divided the luggage; he carried the lighter load with a flat pole that he acquired from the monastery, whereas the heavier load he gave to the king to pole. “Your Majesty,” said Pilgrim with a chuckle, “I hope you don’t mind our treatment, dressing you in that manner and asking you to pick up a pole to follow us?” Kneeling down immediately, the king said, “Master, you are like parents who have given me a new birth. Don’t mention anything about poling some luggage. I’m even willing to pick up the whip and hold the stirrups to look after the Venerable Father and follow him all the way to the Western Heaven.”
Pilgrim said, “There’s no need for you to do that, but I have a reason for making you do this at the moment. You can help us carry the luggage for these forty miles until we have entered the city and caught the monster-spirit. Then you can become a king again, and we will go and fetch our scriptures.” Hearing this, Eight Rules said, “In that case, he is going to pole for only forty miles. After that, old Hog will remain as a long-term laborer!” “Brother, no more foolish talk!” said Pilgrim. “Get out there and lead the way.”
Eight Rules indeed walked with the king in front to lead the way, while Sha Monk helped his master to mount the horse and Pilgrim took up the rear. Arranged in an orderly formation, the five hundred monks of that monastery followed them all the way to the gate, playing and blowing their musical instruments. Smiling, Pilgrim said, “No need for you monks to accompany us any further. I fear that if any of this is leaked to the officials, our enterprise will be ruined. Go back quickly! Go back quickly! Only see to it that the king’s clothing and belt are cleaned and prepared. Send them to the city either late tonight or early tomorrow morning. I’ll ask for some reward for you.” The monks obeyed and returned to their quarters, while Pilgrim in big strides caught up with his master to proceed with him. So it is that
The West has mystery, it’s good to seek the truth.
Wood and Metal in concord, then spirit can be refined.
The elixir mother recalls in vain a foolish dream;
The child deplores deeply how powerless he is.
You must seek at a well’s bottom the enlightened lord,
And then bow to Laozi in the Hall of Heaven.
Back to your own nature once you see form’s emptiness,2
You’re thus truly a Buddha-led man of affinity.
It did not take master and disciples even half a day on the road when they saw a city approaching. “Wukong,” said Tripitaka, “I suppose that must be the Black Rooster Kingdom ahead of us.” “Exactly,” said Pilgrim. “Let’s enter the city quickly so that we can do our business.” After they entered the city, master and disciples found the population well-mannered and engaged in a great deal of bustling activities. As they walked along, they soon came upon the phoenix bowers and dragon towers, exceedingly grand and ornate edifices for which we have a testimonial poem. The poem says:
These outland buildings are like the sovereign state’s;3
Like those of old Tang, people sing and dance.
Flowers greet jeweled fans trailed by roseate clouds;
Fresh robes, sun-lit, glimmer in jade-green fog.
Peacock screens open and fragrant mist pours out;
Pearly shades roll up as colored flags unfurl.
A picture of peace most worthy of praise:
Quiet rows of nobles but no memorials.
“Disciples,” said Tripitaka as he dismounted, “we might as well go right into the court to have our rescript certified and not be bothered by some bureaucratic office.” “That’s reasonable,” said Pilgrim. “We brothers will go in with you; it’s easier to talk when you have more people on your side.” The Tang Monk said, “If all of you are going inside, you must not be rowdy. Let’s go through the proper ceremony of greeting a ruler before we do any talking.” “If you want to go through that,” said Pilgrim, “it means that you have to prostrate yourself.” “Exactly,” said the Tang Monk, “we have to undertake the grand ceremony of five bows and three kowtows.”
“Master, you are too insipid!” said Pilgrim with a chuckle. “It’s so unwise of you to want to pay homage to that character! Let me go in first, for I know what I’m going to do. If he has anything to say to us, let me answer him. If I bow, you all can bow with me; if I crouch, you crouch also.” Look at that mischievous Monkey King! He went straight up to the gate of the court and said to the guardian official, “We have been sent by the Throne of the Great Tang in the Land of the East to go worship Buddha in the Western Heaven and to acquire scriptures from him. Having arrived in this region, we would like to have our rescript certified. May we trouble you to report this to the king so that the act of virtuous fruit will not be delayed.” The Custodian of the Yellow Gate went at once to the gate of the main hall and knelt before the vermilion steps to memorialize, saying, “There are five monks outside the gate of the court, who claim that they have been sent by imperial decree from the Tang nation in the Land of the East to go to see Buddha for scriptures in the Western Heaven. They would like to have their rescript certified, but they dare not enter the court, and they await your summons.”
The demon king at once gave the order to summon them inside. The Tang Monk then proceeded to walk inside the court followed by the king who had been revived. As they walked, the king could not stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks, thinking to himself, “How pitiful indeed! My bronze-guarded empire, my iron-clad domain, had been secretly taken over by him.” “Your Majesty,” said Pilgrim softly, “you must not show your sorrow at this moment, for we may reveal everything. The rod in my ear is getting rather restless. In a moment, it will achieve a great merit by beating a demon to death and banishing all perversity. Your empire will soon be returned to you.” The king dared not disobey; pulling up his robe to wipe away the tears, he followed them resolutely up to the Hall of Golden Chimes.
The rows of civil and military officials, some four hundred of them, all stood there with great sobriety and noble looks. Pilgrim led the Tang Monk up to the white jade steps; he then stood still and remained erect. All those officials beneath the steps became terrified, saying, “This monk is most foolish and base! When he sees our king, why does he not prostrate himself, nor does he express his praise? He does not even give a bow! How audacious and rude!”
Before they even finished speaking, the demon king asked, “Where did this monk come from?” Pilgrim replied boldly, “I am from the Great Tang nation in the Land of the East, in the South Jambūḍvīpa Continent, someone sent by imperial decree to go seek the living Buddha in the Great Thunderclap Monastery of India in the Western Territories for true scriptures. Having reached this region, I do not want to pass through it without having our travel rescript certified.”
When the demon king heard what he said, he became angry, saying, “So what if you are from the Land of the East? We are not paying tribute in your court, nor have we any intercourse with your nation. How dare you neglect your etiquette and not bow to us?” Laughing, Pilgrim said, “Our celestial court in the Land of the East was established in antiquity, and ours had been called the superior state for a long time. Yours is only a state of the hinterlands in an inferior region. Haven’t you heard of the ancient saying?
The king of the superior state
Is father and ruler;
The king of the inferior state
Is son and subject.
You haven’t even received me properly, and you dare chide me for not bowing to you?” Infuriated, the demon king shouted to the civil and military officials, “Seize this wild monk!” When he said, “Seize,” all the officials surged forward. Pointing immediately with his finger, Pilgrim cried, “Cease!” That, you see, was the magic of immobilization, which made the various officials unable to move at all. Truly
The captains before the steps looked like idols of wood,
And marshals in the palace resembled men of clay.
When the demon king saw how Pilgrim had rendered immobile all the officials, he leaped up from the dragon couch and was about to seize Pilgrim himself. Secretly pleased, the Monkey King thought, “Good! Exactly what old Monkey wanted! The moment you come near, your head, even if it’s made of raw iron, is going to have a gaping hole when my rod finds it.” He was about to strike, when suddenly a saving star appeared from one side. “Who was it?” you ask. It was none other than the prince of the Black Rooster Kingdom. Dashing up to tug at the demon king’s garment, the prince knelt before him and said, “Let the anger of father king subside.”
“What do you want to say, my child?” asked the monster-spirit.
“Let me report this to father king,” said the prince. “Three years ago I heard already that there was a sage monk sent by the Throne of the Tang in the Land of the East to seek scriptures from Buddha in the Western Heaven, but I did not expect that he would arrive this day. The honored nature of father king is powerful and ferocious, I know. But if you seize this monk and have him executed, the great Tang could be greatly angered if ever they should learn of this one day. Remember that Li Shimin4 who, since he established his throne, did succeed in uniting his empire. Still not content, he went on various expeditions of conquest to foreign lands. If he discovers that our king has murdered the sage monk, his bond-brother, he will most certainly call up troops and horses to war with us. When we realize then how small is our army and how weak our generals are, it will be too late for regrets. Let the father king approve the memorial of his son, let him make a thorough investigation of the background of these four monks. We must first establish why they would not pay homage to the Throne before we convict them.”
This entire speech, you see, was motivated by the prince’s caution, who feared that the Tang Monk might be hurt and that was why he deliberately stopped the demon. The prince, of course, did not know that Pilgrim was about to strike. Consenting indeed to the words of the prince, the demon king stood before the dragon couch and loudly asked, “When did this monk leave the Land of the East? For what reason did the Tang emperor ask you to seek scriptures?”
Again Pilgrim replied boldly, “My master is the bond-brother of the Tang emperor, and his honorific is Tripitaka. There is a prime minister before the Tang throne whose name is Wei Zheng, and who has by the decree of Heaven beheaded an old dragon of the Jing River. Because of this, the Great Tang emperor also had to tour the Region of Darkness in his dream, and after he was revived, he opened wide the plot of truth by giving a Grand Mass of Land and Water to redeem the wronged souls and damned spirits. As my master recited and performed the sūtras to magnify the power of compassion, the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin of South Sea revealed to him suddenly that he should journey to the West. Making a grand promise, my master accepted the commission freely and gladly to serve his nation, and that was when the emperor bestowed on him the rescript. On the third day before the fifteenth, during the ninth month of the thirteenth year in the Zhenguan period of the Great Tang, he left the Land of the East. When he reached the Mountain of Two Frontiers, he accepted me as his disciple. My surname is Sun, and my name is Wukong Pilgrim. Next, we arrived at the Gao Family Village of the Qoco Kingdom, where my master made his second disciple; his surname is Zhu, and his name is Wuneng Eight Rules. At the Flowing Sand River, the third disciple joined the fold; his surname is Sha, and his name is Wujing Monk. The day before yesterday at the Precious Grove Monastery Built by Imperial Command, we newly acquired a mendicant worker5 who now helps us with poling the luggage.”
After the demon king heard this speech, he found it difficult to turn up an excuse for examining the Tang Monk further, and it was even more difficult for him to try to overwhelm Pilgrim with deceptive interrogation. Glowering, he said, “You, monk! When you first left the Land of the East, you were all by yourself, but then you accepted all these four persons into your company. Those three monks may be all right, but this worker looks most suspicious. This mendicant must have been kidnapped from somewhere. What is his name? Does he have a certificate of ordination? Bring him up here and let him make a deposition.” Trembling all over, the king said, “O Master! How shall I make this deposition?” Giving him a pinch, Pilgrim said, “Don’t be afraid. Let me do it for you.”
Dear Great Sage! He strode forward and said to the fiend in a loud voice, “Your Majesty, this old worker is not only dumb, but he is also somewhat deaf. We took him on because he knew the way to the Western Heaven, having gone there himself in his younger days. I know everything about him—his background, his origin, his rise and fall. I beg your Majesty’s pardon, but let me make the deposition for him.” “Do it quickly and truthfully,” said the demon king, “lest he be convicted of a serious offense.” Pilgrim said,
Of this deposition the mendicant’s quite old;
Deaf, dumb, and dim-witted, he’s also poor!
A man whose native home was in this place,
He met defeat and ruin five years ago.
With no rain from the sky,
Folks turned shriveled and dry.
King and subjects all fasted and abstained;
They bathed and burned incense to pray to Heav’n,
But no cloud was seen for ten thousand miles.
While people starved as though hung upside down,
There came from Zhongnan a Complete Truth fiend
Who called up wind and rain to show his power,
And then took in secret the king’s own life.
The victim was pushed down a garden well;
The dragon seat was taken unknown to man.
Luckily I came.
My merit was great:
No snag it was to bring life back from death.
Willing to submit as a mendicant,
He would follow the monk to face the West.
That specious king is a Daoist in fact;
This worker is in truth the rightful king.
When that demon king on the Hall of Golden Chimes heard this speech, he became so frightened that his heart pounded like the feet of a young deer and his face was flushed with red clouds. He wanted to run away at once, but he did not even have a weapon in his hands. Turning around, he saw one of the captains of palace guards, who had a scimitar buckled to his waist and who had been rendered a dumb and stupid person standing there by Pilgrim’s magic of immobilization. Dashing up to him, the demon king took this scimitar and then immediately mounted the clouds to escape in the air. Sha Monk and Zhu Eight Rules were so annoyed by this turn of events that they screamed at Pilgrim, “You impatient ape! Why did you have to say all those things at once? You could have tricked him into staying if you had used a slower approach. Now that he has mounted the clouds and escaped, where would you go to search for him?”
“Don’t scream madly like that, brothers,” said Pilgrim with laughter. “Let me ask the prince to come out and bow to his father and the queen to greet her husband first. Let me then recite another spell to release those ministers from my magic so that they can learn the truth about what has happened and pay homage to the real king. Then I can go look for him.” Dear Great Sage! After he had disposed of everything he said he would do, he told Eight Rules and Sha Monk, “Take care to guard ruler and subjects, father and son, husband and wife, and our master. I’m off!” Hardly had he finished speaking before he was completely out of sight.
Rising straight up to the clouds of the Ninefold Heaven, Pilgrim opened wide his eyes to stare all around: the demon king, having escaped with his life, was fleeing toward the northeast. Pilgrim caught up with him in no time, shouting, “Fiend, where are you going? Old Monkey’s here.” Swiftly turning around, the demon king brought out his scimitar and said with a loud voice, “Pilgrim Sun, what a rogue you are! I took the throne of another man, but that didn’t concern you. Why did you have to be involved in someone’s affairs and reveal my secret?”
Roaring with laughter, Pilgrim said, “You audacious, lawless fiend! You think you ought to be permitted to be a king? If you recognized old Monkey, you should have fled at the earliest opportunity to the farthest place. How dare you try to give my master a hard time, asking for that so-called deposition? That deposition I gave you just now, was that accurate or not? Don’t run away now! If you’re a man, have a taste of old Monkey’s rod!” The demon king stepped aside to dodge the blow before he wielded the scimitar to meet his opponent. The moment their weapons joined, it was a marvelous battle. Truly
The Monkey King is fierce,
The demon king is strong—
Rod and scimitar dare each other oppose.
This day the Three Regions are bedimmed by fog,
All for a king’s restoration to his court.
After the two of them fought for a few rounds, the demon king could no longer withstand the Monkey King and fled instead back into the city on the way he came. Hurling himself into the two rows of civil and military officials before the white jade steps, the demon king gave his body a shake and changed into an exact image of Tripitaka Tang, both of them standing hand-in-hand before the steps. The Great Sage arrived and was about to strike with the rod when the fiend said, “Disciple, don’t hit me! It’s I!” Pilgrim turned the rod toward the other Tang Monk who also said, “Disciple, don’t hit me! It’s I!”
There were two Tang Monks exactly alike and most difficult to distinguish. Thinking to himself, “If I kill the monster spirit with one blow of the rod, it would be my merit, all right; but what would I do if that blow happens to kill my true master?” Pilgrim had to stop and ask Eight Rules and Sha Monk, “Which is the fiend and which is our master? Point him out to me so that I can strike at him.” “You two were yelling and fighting in midair,” said Eight Rules, “and when I blinked my eyes, I saw two masters the next moment. I don’t know who is real and who is false.”
When Pilgrim heard these words, he made the magic sign with his fingers and recited a spell, which called together the various deva guardians, the Six Gods of Darkness and the Six Gods of Light, the Guardians of Five Quarters, the Four Sentinels, the Eighteen Guardians of the Faith, the local spirit, and the mountain god of that region. He said to them, “Old Monkey is trying to subdue a monster here, who has changed himself into the likeness of my master. Both their form and substance seem exactly the same and it’s difficult to tell them apart. But you may be able to distinguish them in secret; if so, make my master walk up the steps into the main hall so that I can catch this demon.” The fiend, you see, was accomplished in magic; when he heard these words of Pilgrim, he quickly bounded into the Hall of Golden Chimes. Pilgrim raised his rod and brought it down hard on the Tang Monk. Alas! If it had not been for desperate efforts of those several deities summoned to this place, the blow would have reduced even twenty Tang Monks to meat patties! Fortunately the various deities managed to block the blow, saying, “Great Sage, the fiend knows his magic. He has gone up to the hall first.” Pilgrim gave chase at once, and the demon king ran outside the hall to catch hold of the Tang Monk once more in the crowd. After this confusion, they again could not be distinguished.
Pilgrim was highly displeased, and when he saw, moreover, that Eight Rules was snickering on one side, he became enraged, saying, “What’s the matter with you, stupid coolie? Now you have two masters whose calls you must answer and whom you must serve. Are you overjoyed?” Laughing, Eight Rules said, “Elder Brother, you say I’m dumb; well, you’re even dumber! If you can’t recognize who is the real master, why waste all this energy? You try to endure a little pain on your head for a moment and ask Master to recite that little something of his. Sha Monk and I will each hold on to one of them and listen: that person who does not know how to recite the spell must be the monster. What’s so difficult about that?”
“Thank you, Brother,” said Pilgrim. “You’ve got it. That little something indeed is known only to three persons: born of the very mind of our Buddha Tathāgata, it was transmitted to the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin, who then imparted it to my master. There is no other person who has knowledge of it. All right, Master, start your recital.” In truth the Tang Monk began to recite, but how could the demon king know what to do? All he could do was mumble something, and Eight Rules said, “This one mumbling is the monster!” He let go and raised his muckrake to strike at the demon king, who leaped up and tried to flee, treading the clouds.
Dear Eight Rules! With a shout, he mounted the clouds also to give chase. Sha Monk hurriedly abandoned the Tang Monk and brought out his precious staff to do battle. Only then did the Tang Monk stop reciting his spell; the Great Sage Sun, enduring his headache, dragged his iron rod up to midair. Ah, look at this battle! Three fierce monks have surrounded a brazen demon!
The demon king, you see, was attacked left and right by Eight Rules with his rake and Sha Monk with his staff. Chuckling to himself, Pilgrim said, “If I go attack him face to face, he will try to escape as he is already somewhat afraid of me. Let old Monkey get up higher and give me a garlic-pounding blow from the top down. That’ll finish him off!”
Mounting the auspicious luminosity, the Great Sage rose to the Ninefold Heaven and was about to show his decisive hand when a loud voice came from a petal of colored cloud in the northeast: “Sun Wukong, don’t do it!” When Pilgrim turned to look, he discovered the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. Quickly putting away his rod, he drew near and bowed, saying, “Bodhisattva, where are you going?” “I came,” said Mañjuśrī, “to put away this fiend for you.” Pilgrim thanked him and said, “I’m greatly obliged.” Taking out an imp-reflecting mirror from his sleeve, the Bodhisattva aimed it at the fiend and the image of its original form became visible at once. Pilgrim called Eight Rules and Sha Monk to come to greet the Bodhisattva and to look into the mirror. Exceedingly ferocious in appearance, that demon king had
Eyes like large goblets of glass;
A head like a cooking vat;
A body of deep summer green;
And four paws like autumn’s frost;
Two large ears that flipped downward;
A tail as long as a broom;
Green hair full of fighting ardor;
Red eyes emitting gold beams;
Rows of flat teeth like jade slabs;
Round whiskers rearing up like spears.
The true form seen in the mirror
Was Mañjuśrī’s lion king.
“Bodhisattva,” said Pilgrim, “so this is the green-haired lion who serves as your beast of burden. How was it that he had been turned loose so that he could become a spirit here? Aren’t you going to make him submit to you?” “Wukong,” said the Bodhisattva, “he was not turned loose. He had been sent by the decree of Buddha to come here.” Pilgrim said, “You mean that this beast’s becoming a spirit to usurp the throne of a king was a decree of Buddha? If that’s the case, old Monkey, who is accompanying the Tang Monk through all his trials, should have been given several imperial documents!”
The Bodhisattva said, “You don’t know that this king of the Black Rooster Kingdom was dedicated to virtue and to the feeding of monks at first. The Buddha sent me to lead him to return to the West so that he could attain the golden body of an arhat. I could not, of course, reveal myself to him in my true form, and so I changed myself into an ordinary mortal monk to beg some food from him. During our conversation a few words of mine put him on the spot; not realizing that I was a good man after all, he tied me up with a rope and sent me into the imperial moat. I soaked in there for three days and nights before the Six Gods of Darkness rescued me back to the West. Tathāgata therefore sent this creature here to push him down the well and have him submerged for three years, in order to exact vengeance for my water adversity of three days. Thus ‘not even a sup or a bite is not foreordained,’ and we had to wait for all of you to arrive and achieve this merit.”
“You might have repaid the private grievance of your so-called one sup or one bite,” said Pilgrim, “but who knows how many human beings that fiendish creature has harmed.” “He has not,” said the Bodhisattva. “In fact, these three years after his arrival have seen nothing but winds and rains in season, prosperity for the kingdom, and peace for the inhabitants. Since when has he harmed anyone?”
“Even so,” said Pilgrim, “those ladies of the three palaces did sleep with him and rise with him. His body has defiled many and violated the great human relations countless times. And you say that he has not harmed anyone?” The Bodhisattva said, “He has not defiled anyone, for he’s a gelded lion.” When Eight Rules heard this, he walked near and gave the creature a pat, saying with a chuckle, “This monster-spirit is truly a ‘red nose who doesn’t drink’! He bears his name in vain!”
“All right,” said Pilgrim, “take him away. If the Bodhisattva did not come here himself, I would never have spared his life.” Reciting a spell, the Bodhisattva shouted, “Beast, how long are you going to wait before you submit to the Right?” The demon king at once changed back to his original form, after which the Bodhisattva released the lotus flower seat to be placed on the back of the lion. He then mounted the lion, who trod on the auspicious luminosity and left. Aha!
He went straight to the Wutai Mountain;6
To hear sūtras explained before the lotus seat.
We do not know finally how the Tang Monk and his disciples leave the city; let’s listen to the explanation in the next chapter.