Home > Journey to the West > 04-five-elements-mountain

04 Five Elements Mountain

Just then the thirty-six thunder generals arrived and surrounded Wukong. Quite without fear, he shook himself and became a thing of three heads and six arms; his golden-hooped rod tripled into three, and his six hands plied the three rods like a spinning wheel in motion, so that the gods dared not come near. Alarmed by the din of battle, the Jade Emperor hastily ordered the Numinous Officer Youyi and the True Lord Yisheng to go west and ask the Buddha to subdue the demon. The two sages came to the Thunder Sound Monastery on Spirit Mountain, greeted the Buddha, told him how Wukong had thrown Heaven into chaos, and begged him to come to the rescue. The Buddha said to the bodhisattvas, "Remain here in your seats and do not leave your places in meditation. I shall make a journey to the heavenly palace." The Buddha called Ananda and Kasyapa to attend him and left the Thunder Sound Monastery for the gate of Lingxiao Hall. The shouting was deafening: the thirty-six thunder generals still had Wukong ringed about. The Buddha issued his command: "Lay down your arms for now. Bid that Great Sage come here — I have something to ask him." The generals withdrew as commanded, and Wukong, closing his three heads and six arms, stalked over in a fury. "Who are you, that you dare question me?" he shouted harshly. The Buddha smiled. "I am Sakyamuni of the West. I hear you have thrown Heaven into chaos and run utterly wild. What is it you hope to gain?" Wukong said loudly, "As the saying goes, the throne is taken in turn — next year it comes to my house. Tell the Jade Emperor to move out at once and hand Heaven over to me, or I will not stop!" The Buddha said with a cold smile, "What power have you, that you would seize the fair realm of Heaven?" "I have seventy-two transformations," said Wukong, "and I ride the somersault cloud — a hundred and eight thousand li at a single leap!" The Buddha said, "Let us make a wager. If one somersault carries you clear of my palm, I will ask the Jade Emperor to come west and yield Heaven to you. If you cannot get out of my palm, you will go back down to the world and be a demon, and trouble us no more." Wukong chuckled to himself: this Buddha is a fool too! A hundred and eight thousand li in one somersault — how could I fail to clear his palm? "Agreed, then," he said. "But can you answer for the Jade Emperor?" "I can," said the Buddha, and he held out his right hand, no bigger than a lotus leaf. "Come!" Wukong put away his staff, gave a leap and landed in the Buddha's palm. "I'm off!" he cried, and turned a somersault that whirled like a windmill as he went streaming away on a trail of cloud-light. As he went, Wukong suddenly saw five flesh-red pillars shooting up into the highest heavens. "This must be the end of the sky," he thought. "I'll leave a mark, so the Buddha cannot go back on his word." Having decided, he plucked out a hair, breathed on it and turned it into a brush, with which he wrote on the middle pillar: "The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, visited this place." Then he tossed the brush aside and, at the foot of the first pillar, left a puddle of monkey piss. Wukong then turned his somersault cloud about and returned to where he had started. "I have been to the edge of the sky and back," he told the Buddha. "Now bid the Jade Emperor hand Heaven over to me." "You piss-soaked ape," the Buddha said. "You never left my palm at all." "I reached the end of the sky and left my mark on the red pillar," Wukong said. "Will you come and see it?" "There is no need," said the Buddha. "First look down." Wukong looked down and saw written on the Buddha's middle finger: "The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, visited this place" — and in the cleft of the thumb, the reek of monkey piss. Wukong cried in amazement, "Can this be? Has he the art of knowing things before they happen? I don't believe it — I'll go and look at the edge of the sky again!" But as he leapt to spring away, the Buddha turned his palm over and swept him out beyond the western gate of Heaven. The Buddha changed his five fingers into a chain of five mountains — metal, wood, water, fire and earth — which he named the Five-Elements Mountain, and pinned Wukong beneath it. At the sight of it the gods, and Ananda and Kasyapa with them, pressed their palms together and murmured, "Well done! Well done!"

 5/6   Home Previous 3 4 5 6 Next Last