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06 The Search for the Scripture Pilgrim

Husband and wife told each other all that had befallen them in eighteen years, and the family was whole again, their joy beyond measure. Chen Guangrui and Xuanzang went to the Liu family inn for his mother, and together they returned to the Prime Minister's residence in the capital, where a feast was laid to celebrate. At court the next day the Prime Minister stepped forward and told Emperor Taizong the whole story. The Emperor made Chen Guangrui a scholar of the academy to serve at court, and since Xuanzang's heart was set on the Buddha, sent him to the Hongfu Temple to pursue his devotions. Xuanzang studied with all his heart until there was no scripture he had not mastered, and his virtue was high; and so Wei Zheng and the others chose him to preside over the Water-and-Land Assembly. Wei Zheng brought Xuanzang into the palace to be presented to the Emperor, who saw at once that he was no common man and was greatly pleased. He invested him as Grand Preceptor of All Monks and bade him name an auspicious hour to open the altar and preach at the Huasheng Temple. Xuanzang went to the Huasheng Temple, chose twelve hundred monks and divided them into three halls, upper, middle and lower, and fixed the third day of the ninth month for the opening of the Assembly, to run its forty-nine days. On the morning of the third day of the ninth month in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, Master Xuanzang began to expound the wonderful scriptures at the Huasheng Temple. After the morning court Emperor Taizong led his civil and military officers there to offer incense, in a scene of great splendour. Guanyin Bodhisattva, who had come to Chang'an under the Buddha's command to seek out the pilgrim, had found no one. Then she heard of the Water-and-Land Assembly, and that the one expounding the law there was Master Xuanzang, the reincarnation of the Golden Cicada, and her heart was glad. Satisfied that Xuanzang was the man, she resolved to make a pretext of selling the brocade cassock and nine-ringed staff the Buddha had given her, and so present them to him. She and the boy Mucha turned themselves into two scabby-headed monks, and went through the streets of Chang'an with the cassock and the staff to sell. At the East Flower Gate they met the Prime Minister Xiao Yu returning from court, and stepped up to him. Xiao looked closely, saw the cassock glowing with colour, knew it for no common thing, and asked the price. "Five thousand taels of silver for the cassock," said Guanyin, "and two thousand for the staff." "What virtue has this cassock," Xiao Yu asked, "that it should be worth so much?" And Guanyin set out the reasons for him. Xiao Yu took Guanyin into the palace and reported the matter to the Emperor, who had the cassock spread out for inspection. It was indeed a treasure. "I shall buy these two objects," he said, "and bestow them on Master Xuanzang." Guanyin pressed her palms together. "Since he is a man of virtue, this poor monk will take not a coin, but give them freely." And with that she drifted away. The Emperor summoned Xuanzang to the palace and gave him the cassock and the staff. Xuanzang thanked him, shook out the cassock and put it on, took the staff in his hand and stood before the steps, glowing with light, truly like an arhat come down to the world. All the ministers cried out in admiration. The Emperor, much pleased, granted him two files of guards and retinue, and the ministers escorted him out of the palace gate and down the long street to the temple, in all the bustle and rejoicing of a first-place graduate's triumphal progress.

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