In verse:
To dwell in the world, you must keep a blade upon the heart; To cultivate the self, remember "er" with "cun" close by.
[Translator's note: the first couplet is a character-splitting riddle—a blade (ren 刃) set upon a heart (xin 心) spells ren 忍, "forbearance"; "cun" 寸 set beside "er" 而 spells nai 耐, "patience."]
The proverb says the blade is where the living's made— Yet thrice think first, and curb both wrath and guile. The highest men, who strive with none, are famed through ages past; The sages, cherishing virtue, carried on their day. For every stubborn man there is one more stubborn still; In the end it all comes down to emptiness and blame.
The story continues: the Great Immortal Zhenyuan took the Pilgrim by the hand and said: "I know your powers well enough, and I have heard your famous name. But this time you have flouted all reason and outraged your conscience. Dodge and feint as you may, you will not slip out of my hands. I could argue this case with you all the way to the Western Heaven, into the presence of your Buddha himself, and you would still owe me a living ginseng fruit tree. None of your magic tricks, now!"
The Pilgrim laughed: "What a small-minded fellow you are, sir! If it's a living tree you want, where's the difficulty? Had you said so in the first place, wouldn't it have spared us this whole quarrel?" The Great Immortal said: "Spared the quarrel? And you think I'd simply have let you off?" The Pilgrim said: "You release my master, and I'll hand you back a living tree—how's that?" The Great Immortal said: "If you have such powers as that, and can cure the tree back to life, I will bow to you eight times and swear brotherhood with you." "No trouble at all," said the Pilgrim. "Let them go, and old Sun guarantees to return you a living tree." The Great Immortal reckoned he could not get away anyhow, and gave orders to release Tang Sanzang, Bajie, and the Sha Monk.
The Sha Monk said: "Master, who knows what trick Brother is up to this time?"
"What trick!" said Bajie. "This is what's called the face-favoring-ghost trick! The tree is dead—how could it ever be doctored back to life? He's putting on a pretty show, begging leave to go find a cure for the tree, just to wriggle loose and be off on his own—do you suppose he'll spare a thought for you and me?"
Sanzang said: "He would never dare abandon us. Let's ask him where he means to go for his cure." So he called: "Wukong, how could you fool the immortal elder into setting us free?"
"Old Sun spoke the honest truth," said the Pilgrim, "how did I fool him?"
"Where will you go to seek a prescription?" asked Sanzang.
"The ancients say, prescriptions come from over the sea," the Pilgrim replied. "I am going up onto the Eastern Ocean to roam the Three Islands and the Ten Continents, to call on the aged immortals and holy elders, and beg from them a method of raising the dead to life. I guarantee I shall bring his tree back alive."
"How long before you return?" asked Sanzang.
"Only three days."
"Very well, we shall take you at your word and grant you three days. If you come back within the three days, all well; if you are not back after three days, I shall start reciting that little sutra of ours."
"As you command, as you command," said the Pilgrim.
Watch him hitch up his tiger-skin kilt in a hurry and go out the door to say to the Great Immortal: "Set your heart at rest, sir—I'm off, and I shall be back. But you must wait upon my master well: three teas and six meals every day, no skimping. If anything is lacking, old Sun will settle accounts with you when he returns, and start by knocking the bottom out of your cooking pot. When his clothes get grubby, have them washed and starched for him. If his face goes the least bit sallow, I won't have it; and if he gets thinner, I'm not going anywhere."
"Go, go," said the Great Immortal. "I promise you he shall not go hungry."
A fine Monkey King! He leapt at once onto his somersault cloud, left Wuzhuang Temple, and headed straight out over the Eastern Ocean. In mid-air, swift as a lightning flash, quick as a shooting star, he soon reached the immortal land of Penglai. Pressing down his cloud, he looked carefully about him—a truly fine place! There is a poem in proof:
A fairy country of the earth, the roost of ranks of saints; Penglai, closing and opening, masters the waves. The Jasper Terrace's reflection dips—the heart of heaven is cold; The towering palace's light rides high upon the sea. Five-colored mists and clouds hold pipes of jade; The stars and moon of the ninefold sky shine on the golden turtle. The Queen Mother of the Western Pool comes here time and again, Toasting the three immortals with peaches yet once more.
The Pilgrim could never see enough of the immortal scenery, and went straight on into Penglai. As he walked along, outside the White Cloud Cave, in the shade of the pines, he saw three old fellows playing go. The one watching the game was the Star of Longevity; the two bent over the board were the Star of Fortune and the Star of Prosperity.
The Pilgrim went up to them and called: "My respects, little brothers!"
The three stars swept the board aside, returned his bow, and said: "Whence comes the Great Sage?"
"I've come especially to find you for a bit of fun."
The Star of Longevity said: "I heard that the Great Sage forsook the Way for the Buddha's teaching, and escaped with his life to protect the Tang monk on the journey to the Western Heaven for the scriptures, toiling day after day along the mountain roads. Where would you find the leisure to come and play?"
"To be quite honest with you gentlemen," said the Pilgrim, "old Sun, bound for the West, has met with a small holdup on the road, and has come to ask a trifling favor. I wonder—will you hear me out?"
"What place? What holdup?" said the Star of Fortune. "Pray tell us plainly, that we may judge the matter."
"Passing Longevity Mountain, I ran into a stop at Wuzhuang Temple."
The three elders started up in alarm: "Wuzhuang Temple is the immortal palace of the Great Immortal Zhenyuan. Surely you haven't gone and stolen his ginseng fruits to eat?"
The Pilgrim laughed: "So what if I ate them? What's that worth?"
"You monkey—you've no sense of better or worse!" said the three elders. "One sniff of those fruits and you live three hundred sixty years more; eat a single one, and you live forty-seven thousand years. It is called the Grass-Returned Cinnabar of Longevity. Our own Way falls far short of his! He came by his so easily, and by right of it lives as long as Heaven itself; while we must still nurture our essence, refine our breath, preserve our spirit, harmonize dragon and tiger, seize Kan to fill in Li—and who knows how much toil that costs? How can you say his fruits aren't worth much? In all the world there is only this one numinous root!"
"Numinous root! Numinous root!" said the Pilgrim. "I've gone and severed that root for him!"
The three elders were horrified: "What do you mean, severed?"
"The day before yesterday we were at his temple. The Great Immortal was away from home, and only two little boys received my master; they presented two ginseng fruits to him. My master did not know what they were, took them for infants not yet three days old, and refused again and again to eat. So the boys carried them off and ate them themselves, without so much as offering us a taste. Thereupon old Sun went and stole three of them, and the three of us brothers ate them up. But those boys, knowing no better, cursed us front and back—'thief' here, 'thief' there—without ever stopping. Old Sun lost his temper, struck their tree one blow with his cudgel, and knocked it flat to the ground: every fruit gone from the tree, boughs splayed, leaves fallen, roots bared, branches hurt—dead and withered. Then those boys locked us in, but old Sun twisted open the lock and we got away. Next morning at dawn that master of theirs came home and chased after us. In the course of the questions our words clashed, so we fought him; but he dodged once, spread out his sleeve, and swept the whole lot of us into it. Roped and corded, interrogated and flogged, we were beaten for a whole day. That night we escaped again, and again he caught up and bagged us as before. Though he carried not an inch of iron, he warded us off with nothing but a horsetail whisk, and with the three weapons we brothers had, we never once managed to touch him. This time he played the same trick again: he rolled my master and my two brother-disciples up in bolts of cloth, and me he meant for the oil cauldron. But I pulled off another escape-trick and got away, and broke his cauldron to pieces into the bargain. Seeing he could not hold me, he grew quite wary of me. So I made it up with him: he should release my master and my brother-disciples, and I would cure his tree and guarantee it alive—only thus did the two of us come to peace. Then I remembered that prescriptions come from over the sea, so I have come especially to these immortal lands to visit you three little brothers. If you have any prescription that can cure a tree, pass one on to me, quick, and save the Tang monk from his sufferings."
Hearing this, the three stars were troubled too. "You ape—you cannot size up men at all!" they said. "That Zhenyuanzi is the Patriarch of Earth Immortals; we ourselves are of the ancestry of the spirit immortals. Though you have attained to the rank of a celestial, you are still only an unranked Grand Unity immortal, not yet of the true stream—how could you ever have slipped his hand? Had the Great Sage killed some beast that runs or bird that flies, some insect or scaled creature, a single grain of our millet elixir could have brought it back to life. But the ginseng fruit is the root of an immortal tree—how is it to be cured? No prescription, no prescription."
At this word that there was no prescription, the Pilgrim's two brows locked together and a thousand furrows creased his forehead.
"Great Sage," said the Star of Fortune, "if there is none here, there may be elsewhere. Why fall into despair at once?"
"'Seek elsewhere' is easy enough to say," the Pilgrim replied. "Old Sun would think nothing of roaming the very ends of the earth and sky, of tramping clear through the thirty-six heavens. But that venerable Tang master of mine is strict in discipline and narrow of patience: he has given me a limit of only three days. If I am not back within three days, he will start reciting the Band-Tightening Spell."
The three stars laughed: "Good! Good! Good! If it were not for that little spell to keep you in check, you would be drilling your way up through Heaven again."
The Star of Longevity said: "Set your heart at rest, Great Sage, and do not fret. Though the Great Immortal is of the elder generation, he is an old acquaintance of ours. For one thing, it is long since we paid him our respects; for another, this will do you a favor. The three of us will go together to call upon him, speak for you there, and tell that Tang monk not to recite his Band-Tightening Spell. Never mind three days or five—we shall not take our leave until you come back with your prescription."
"Grateful! Grateful!" said the Pilgrim. "Then bestir yourselves, three little brothers—I am off." Of the Great Sage's parting from the three stars we say no more.
Now the story tells how the three stars mounted their auspicious light and came straight to Wuzhuang Temple. Everyone in the temple suddenly heard cranes crying across the wide sky: the three elders were arriving. Just look at them:
Auspicious light clustering thick, filling the sky; Fragrance upon fragrance drifting down the clouds. A thousand ribbons of colored mist guard their feathered robes; One wafer of light cloud bears up their immortal feet. The blue luan flies, the scarlet phoenix sweeps after, Sleeves trailing fragrant wind that sweeps along the ground. Dragon-headed staves in hand, their faces beam with joy; White beards like hanging jade brush softly on their chests. Faces of children, merry and free of care, Sturdy frames and heroic vigor—blessed indeed. They hold the star tallies and add to the Sea House of years, Gourd and precious registers hanging at their waists. Myriad eras, thousand decades of fortune and long life, Lodging wherever fate wills, among Ten Continents and Three Isles. Ever coming to the world below to bring a thousand blessings, Ever adding a hundred joys among the sons of men. All heaven and earth they bless with rank and rich content— Boundless fortune, endless life, today made glad. Three elders ride the auspicious light to greet the Great Immortal: The hall of blessings brims with harmony past all measure.
[Translator's note: "adding to the Sea House" (haiwu tianchou) is a conventional birthday blessing: tallies dropped one by one into a mythical house of longevity by the sea each stand for another age of the world.]
The immortal boys saw them and hurried in to report: "Master, the Three Stars of the Sea have come."
Zhenyuanzi was chatting at ease with Tang Sanzang and his disciples; at the report he came down the steps to welcome them.
When Bajie saw the Star of Longevity, he went up, seized hold of him, and laughed: "You bald old pate! Not seen for ages, and still as careless as ever—you couldn't even bring a hat along."
With that he clapped one of his own monk's caps onto the old star's head, slapped his hands together, and roared with laughter: "Good! Good! Good! 'A cap on the head, and a raise in the salary!'"
[Translator's note: Bajie's cry jiaguan jinlu means "promotion and an increase of official salary," punning on lu 禄, the name of the Star of Prosperity.]
The Star of Longevity flung the cap off and cursed: "You great clodhopper! Grown so big, and still cannot tell high from low!"
"I'm no clodhopper," said Bajie. "It's you lot who are really slaves!"
"You're the clodhopper," said the Star of Fortune, "and yet you dare call us slaves!"
Bajie laughed again: "If you're not somebody's slaves, how come you're called 'Add-Longevity,' 'Add-Fortune,' and 'Add-Salary'?"
Sanzang shouted Bajie away, hurriedly straightened his robes, and bowed to the three stars.
The three stars greeted the Great Immortal with the ceremony owed by the younger generation, and only then did all sit and talk.
When they were seated, the Star of Prosperity said: "Long absent from your honored presence, we have failed in our respects. Today, because the Great Sage Sun has troubled your immortal mountain, we have come especially to see you."
"Has Pilgrim Sun gone off to Penglai?" asked the Great Immortal.
"He has," said the Star of Longevity. "Having harmed the Great Immortal's cinnabar tree, he came to us to beg a prescription to cure it. We had none, and he has gone elsewhere to search. We feared only that he would overstep the holy monk's three-day limit and bring on the Band-Tightening Spell. So we have come, first to pay our respects, and second to beg a little more time."
Hearing this, Sanzang hastened to answer: "I'll not recite it! I'll not recite it!"
Just then Bajie came running in again, seized the Star of Fortune, and demanded fruit to eat. He rummaged wildly through his sleeves, groped about his waist, and kept peeling back the star's robes to search him.
Sanzang laughed: "Whatever are the manners of that Bajie!"
"It's not bad manners," said Bajie. "This is called 'every turn brings fortune.'"
[Translator's note: another pun—to rummage and turn things over (fan 翻) sounds like "each and every" (fan 番); searching the robes of the Star of Fortune "brings fortune with every turn."]
Sanzang ordered him out again. The blockhead slouched out the door, then stood glaring at the Star of Fortune, eyeing him without a blink and gnashing his teeth.
"Clodhopper!" said the Star of Fortune. "Where have I ever offended you, that you should glare at me so?"
"It's not hate," said Bajie. "This is called 'turning back to gaze on fortune.'"
Out the door, the blockhead caught sight of a young boy carrying four teaspoons, just going to fetch cups and fruit to serve the tea. He snatched them all in one grab, ran up into the hall, took up the little stone chime, and hammered away at it with his hand, disporting himself first at one end and then the other.
"This monk," said the Great Immortal, "grows less and less respectful!"
"It isn't disrespect," said Bajie with a grin. "This is called 'good cheer in all four seasons.'"
[Translator's note: the four teaspoons pun on "the four seasons" (sishi 四时), and the chime (qing 磬) puns on "celebration" (qing 庆).]
But no more of Bajie's clowning and pestering. The story turns to the Pilgrim, who soared from Penglai on his auspicious cloud and soon came to the immortal mountain of Fangzhang. A truly wonderful place—there is a poem in proof:
Fangzhang towers lofty, a heaven set apart; In the halls of Great Mystery the immortals gather. The purple terraces light the road of the Three Pure Ones; Flowers and trees float fragrance on five-colored mist. Golden phoenixes flock of themselves to the blossom towers; Who needs compel the jade unguent to water the magic-fungus fields? Green peaches and purple plums newly ripe— Once more ten thousand years go by, and word is brought to the immortals.
The Pilgrim pressed down his cloud, in no mood to enjoy the scenery. As he walked along, he smelled a fragrant wind heavy with scent and heard the cry of dark cranes; on the other side there was an immortal. Just look at him:
Ten thousand rays of rosy light fill the sky; Colored mists drift and sway, the gleam unbroken. The scarlet phoenix bearing a flower is brighter still; The blue luan dances, its voice sweet and lovely. Fortune vast as the Eastern Sea, long life lasting as the hills, A face like a little child's, a body hale and strong. In his gourd is hidden the ageless elixir of the cave-heaven; At his waist hangs the seal of long life that grows with the days. Time and again he has sent down blessings among men, And often has dissolved men's misfortunes in the world below. Emperor Wu once summoned him and lengthened his span; He attends the Peach Banquet at the Jasper Pool each season. He teaches the monks and frees them from their worldly ties, Points open the Great Way, bright as a lightning flash. He has crossed the seas to wish men a thousand autumns, And often goes to the holy mountain to behold the Buddha's face. His holy title is the Great Emperor Donghua— Foremost of immortals in the fellowship of mist and cloud.
Pilgrim Sun went up to meet him face to face and hailed him: "Divine Lord, my respects!"
The Divine Lord hurriedly returned the bow: "Great Sage, forgive my failure to welcome you. Pray enter my humble dwelling for a cup of tea." And he took the Pilgrim by the hand, and they went in together.
It was truly a palace of shell, an immortal palace—jasper pools and jasper towers past all seeing. They had only just sat down to await the tea when from behind the emerald screen came a youth. How was he dressed?
A Daoist robe that shimmers like drifting rosy cloud, A sash of knotted silk, its light in glittering disarray. On his head a kerchief of black silk, its cloth set out with stars; On his feet sandals of plaited rush for roaming the sacred peaks. He has refined his primal truth and shed his mortal shell; When his merit was perfected, his heart knew full content. He has seen through the source and stream of essence, breath, and spirit, And knows his own true master without slip or error. Escaping fame, he now delights in boundless life; The rounds of sixty years can lay no hold on him. Round the winding galleries he turns, up the precious towers, And thrice has plucked the peaches of the heavens. From the emerald screen, wreathed in pale fragrant cloud, This young immortal is Dongfang Shuo.
At the sight of him the Pilgrim laughed: "So the little thief is here! No peaches at the Divine Lord's for you to steal!"
Dongfang Shuo advanced, bowed to his master, and answered: "Old thief, what are you doing here? No elixir at my master's for you to steal!"
"Manqian!" the Divine Lord called out. "None of your nonsense—see about the tea." Manqian was Dongfang Shuo's Daoist name. He hurried inside and brought out two cups of tea.
When they had drunk, the Pilgrim said: "Old Sun has come with a small matter in hand. I wonder—will you grant it or not?"
"What matter?" said the Divine Lord. "You have only to say."
"Of late, escorting the Tang monk westward, we passed Longevity Mountain and stopped at Wuzhuang Temple. Because his young boys behaved without manners, I lost my temper for a moment and pushed over his ginseng fruit tree. Hence this holdup: the Tang monk cannot get away. I have come specially to your honored realm to beg a prescription to cure it. I earnestly hope you will consent."
"You monkey!" said the Divine Lord. "You never stop to reckon one from two before you blunder into trouble wherever you go. Zhenyuanzi of Wuzhuang Temple—his holy title is 'Compeer of the World,' and he is the Patriarch of Earth Immortals. How could you go and cross him? That ginseng fruit tree of his is the Grass-Returned Cinnabar. To steal and eat the fruits was crime enough; but to topple the tree as well—do you suppose he would let it rest?"
"Just so," said the Pilgrim. "We did get away, but he caught up with us, scooped the whole lot of us into his sleeve like so many sweat-rags—so I've been swallowing my anger. Nothing for it but to promise him I would seek a prescription and cure it. That is why I have come to beg you."
"I have a single 'Grand Unity Elixir of the Ninefold Refinement,'" said the Divine Lord, "but it can only cure the living creatures of this world; it cannot cure a tree. A tree is the spirit of wood and earth, fed by Heaven and moistened by Earth. A common fruit tree of the mortal world might yet be treated—but Longevity Mountain is a blessed land from before the making of the world, Wuzhuang Temple is the cave-heaven of the Western Continent of Cattle-Gift, and the ginseng fruit is a numinous root from the days when Heaven was parted from Earth. How could it be cured? No prescription! No prescription!"
"Since there is no prescription, old Sun will take his leave."
The Divine Lord still wished to keep him for a cup of jade nectar, but the Pilgrim said: "My errand of rescue is pressing—I dare not linger long." So he mounted his cloud and came on to the island of Yingzhou.
Another fine place. There is a poem in proof:
Pearl trees glitter, shining in the purple mist; The palaces of Yingzhou touch upon all the heavens. Green hills and blue waters, magic blossoms bright; Jade nectar, Kunwu steel, and stone as hard as iron. The five-colored jade cock crows at the sea's sunrise; The thousand-year scarlet phoenix drinks the cinnabar mist. Men of the world never plumb the world within the gourd— Spring light beyond all forms, a hundred million years.
When the Great Sage reached Yingzhou, beneath the cinnabar cliffs and pearl trees he saw several white-haired, white-bearded elders—immortals with the faces of children and cranes' plumes for hair—playing go and drinking wine, chatting, laughing, singing. Truly:
Auspicious clouds fill with light; Happy vapors float their fragrance. Colored luan cry at the mouth of the cave; Dark cranes dance upon the peak. Green lotus root and water peaches wash down the wine; Crosswise pears and fire dates yield a thousand autumns of life. Not one of them hears an imperial summons— Their names stand on the registers of the immortals. Free and easy, they drift wherever the waves may toss; Serene and loose, they take their ease in quiet seclusion. The sixty-year rounds of heaven cannot bind them; Through all the earth and sky they wander as they will. Dark apes offer fruit, in pairs attending, fond and loving; White deer with flowers in their mouths bow down by twos, devoted without end.
As the old fellows were enjoying their wine, the Pilgrim shouted out at the top of his voice: "What's wrong with taking me along for a little fun!"
At the sight of him the immortals hurried forward with quick steps to greet him. There is a poem in proof:
The numinous root, the ginseng fruit tree, is broken; The Great Sage seeks the immortals, begging their wondrous art. Coiling cinnabar clouds break from the treasured grove— The Nine Elders of Yingzhou come out to meet him.
The Pilgrim knew them for the Nine Elders, and laughed: "Taking your ease as ever, old brothers!"
"Had the Great Sage kept to the straight path in the old days," said the Nine Elders, "and not made havoc in the Palace of Heaven, you would be even more at ease than we. But now, we hear, you have returned to the truth and go westward to worship the Buddha—how did you ever find time to come here?"
The Pilgrim laid the whole matter before them—how he sought a prescription to cure the tree.
The Nine Elders too were greatly startled: "What a troublemaker you are! A troublemaker indeed! We truly have no prescription."
"Since you have none, I'll bid you farewell for now."
The Nine Elders tried to keep him for jade nectar and green lotus root, but the Pilgrim flatly refused to sit; standing, he drank one cup of their nectar and ate one piece of root, then hurriedly left Yingzhou and turned back across the Eastern Ocean. Soon he caught sight of Mount Potalaka not far off; he pressed down his cloud and went straight onto Potalaka Rock, where he found the Bodhisattva Guanyin in the Purple Bamboo Grove, expounding the sutras and teaching the Law with the great gods of all the heavens, with Muzha and the Dragon Girl. There is a poem in proof:
The sea-lord's city towers high, its happy vapors dense; And stranger, rarer things await beyond all telling. Know this: beyond a thousand veiled and shadowed forms, All issues from that one most faint and subtle essence. The Four Holy Ones, receiving the teaching, win the fruit of truth; The Six Worlds of the common, hearing it, escape their cages. In the grove there dwells another taste of truth: Flowers and fruits in fragrant clusters, red upon the trees.
The Bodhisattva had already seen the Pilgrim coming, and sent the Guardian Deity of the Mountain to receive him.
The great deity came out of the grove and called: "Sun Wukong, where are you bound?"
The Pilgrim lifted his head and shouted back: "You great bear! Am I a Wukong for the likes of you to call? If old Sun had not spared you back then, you would long since have been a corpse-ghost on Black Wind Mountain! Today you have followed the Bodhisattva, received the good fruit, dwell upon this immortal mountain, and ever hear the teaching of the Law—and you cannot bring yourself to call me one word of 'lord'?"
That black bear had truly won the true fruit: as Guardian of Potalaka at the Bodhisattva's side, honored as a great deity, he owed it all to the Pilgrim.
So he could only force a smile: "Great Sage, the ancients said, 'A gentleman does not dwell on old wrongs.' Why keep harping on it? The Bodhisattva sent me to welcome you."
Then the Pilgrim, solemn and reverent, went with the great deity into the Purple Bamboo Grove and bowed before the Bodhisattva.
"Wukong," said the Bodhisattva, "how far along the road has the Tang monk come?"
"He has reached Longevity Mountain in the Western Continent of Cattle-Gift," said the Pilgrim.
"On Longevity Mountain there is Wuzhuang Temple. Have you met the Great Immortal Zhenyuan?"
The Pilgrim knocked his head upon the ground: "It was at Wuzhuang Temple, Holy One. Your disciple did not know the Great Immortal Zhenyuan; I ruined his ginseng fruit tree and gave him offense, and he has trapped my master there, unable to go forward."
The Bodhisattva understood it all already, and scolded: "You wicked ape, you know no better! That ginseng fruit tree is a numinous root from the days when Heaven was parted from Earth, and Zhenyuanzi is the Patriarch of Earth Immortals—even I yield him three points. How could you go and break his tree!"
The Pilgrim bowed again and again: "Your disciple truly did not know. That day the Great Immortal was away from home; only two immortal boys attended us. It was Zhu Wuneng who knew he had the fruits and wanted to taste one fresh, and your disciple did indeed steal three of them, and we brothers shared them out. The boys found out and cursed us without end; your disciple lost his temper and pushed their tree over. The next day their master came home, caught up with us, bagged the whole lot of us in one sleeve, roped us, flogged us, beat us for a full day. That night we escaped, but he caught us again and bagged us as before. After the third time and the second, there was truly no escaping him, and I promised to cure his tree. Just now I have been seeking a prescription across the seas, roaming all Three Islands, and none of the immortals had the power. Therefore your disciple has come with single-hearted devotion to bow before the Bodhisattva. I humbly pray that in your compassion you will look down and grant one prescription, to save the Tang monk and let him soon go on toward the West."
"Why did you not come to see me sooner," said the Bodhisattva, "instead of hunting all over the islands?"
At these words the Pilgrim rejoiced inwardly: "Luck at last! Luck at last! The Bodhisattva must surely have a prescription!"
He pressed forward and begged again.
"The sweet dew in the bottom of my pure vase," said the Bodhisattva, "is good for curing immortal trees and numinous sprouts."
"Has it ever been put to the proof?" asked the Pilgrim.
"Put to the proof indeed," said the Bodhisattva.
"What proof?"
"Years ago Lord Lao Zi made a wager with me. He pulled up my willow twig, put it into his elixir furnace and baked it dry and scorched, then sent it back to me. I took it and set it in my vase, and in one day and one night it was green of branch and green of leaf again, just as it had been before."
The Pilgrim laughed: "Luck at last! Luck at last! If a baked and scorched twig can be cured back to life, what difficulty can there be with a tree that was only pushed over!"
The Bodhisattva instructed the assembly: "Guard the grove; I go, and shall return." Then, bearing the pure vase in her hand—with the white parakeet caroling sweetly ahead of her, and the Great Sage Sun following behind—she set out. There is a poem in proof:
Her jade-white rays, her golden form—the world cannot fathom her; She is the Compassionate One, the Savior of the Afflicted. In kalpas past she met the Immaculate Buddha, And thus has won her body of blessed deeds. Life after life the waves of the sea of desire have stilled; The field of her heart holds not one speck of dust. Long has the sweet dew proven the true and wondrous Law— It will keep the precious tree forever in its spring.
Now the story tells how the Great Immortal in the temple was conversing quietly with the three elders when the Great Sage Sun suddenly pressed down his cloud, shouting: "The Bodhisattva is here! Quick, receive her! Receive her!"
The three stars, Zhenyuanzi, and Sanzang with his disciples, all in a flurry, hurried out of the precious hall together to welcome her. The Bodhisattva brought her auspicious cloud to rest, first exchanged courtesies with Zhenyuanzi, then saluted the three stars. When the rites were done she took the seat of honor, and there before the steps the Pilgrim led the Tang monk, Bajie, and the Sha Monk in bowing to her.
The immortals of the temple came too to pay their respects.
Said the Pilgrim: "Great Immortal, no need to hesitate—set out the incense table at once, and ask the Bodhisattva to cure that fruit tree of yours."
The Great Immortal bowed and thanked the Bodhisattva: "A trifling affair of my own—how could I presume to trouble the Bodhisattva to descend?"
"The Tang monk is my disciple," said the Bodhisattva, "and Sun Wukong has offended you, sir. It is only right that your precious tree be made good."
"Since it is so," said the three elders, "no more polite refusals. Let us all go into the garden and see."
The Great Immortal at once ordered the incense table set out and the rear garden swept clean; the Bodhisattva was invited to lead the way, the three elders following.
Sanzang and his disciples, together with the immortals of the temple, all came into the garden to watch. The tree lay fallen on the ground, the earth split open, the roots laid bare, leaves fallen, branches withered.
The Bodhisattva called: "Wukong, hold out your hand."
The Pilgrim opened his left hand. Dipping her willow twig into the sweet dew of the vase, the Bodhisattva drew upon his palm a magic character for raising the dead to life, and bade him set it beneath the roots of the tree, watching until water came forth—that would be the measure of it.
The Pilgrim clenched his fist and thrust it down under the roots of the tree; in a moment there welled up a pool of clear spring water.
"That water must not touch any vessel of the Five Elements," said the Bodhisattva. "You must ladle it out with a jade dipper, raise the tree upright, and pour from the crown downward. Then root and bark will knit together of themselves, leaves will grow and buds put forth, the branches will turn green, and the fruit appear."
"Little Daoists!" cried the Pilgrim. "Fetch a jade dipper, quick!"
"In this poor Daoist's wild mountain," said Zhenyuanzi, "we have no jade dipper—only jade tea bowls and jade wine cups. Will they serve?"
"So long as it is jade, and can ladle water, that will do," said the Bodhisattva. "Bring them and let me see."
The Great Immortal ordered the little boys to bring out some two or three dozen tea bowls and four or five dozen wine cups, and they ladled out the clear spring from beneath the roots. The Pilgrim, Bajie, and the Sha Monk hoisted the tree up, set it upright and true, and heaped the soil back about it; then cup by cup they presented the sweet spring from the jade vessels to the Bodhisattva. With her willow twig she sprinkled it finely over the tree, all the while reciting sutras and spells.
Before long, all the water they had ladled out had been sprinkled, and sure enough the tree stood as of old, green-branched and green-leaved, dense and shady, with twenty-three ginseng fruits upon it.
The two boys, Qingfeng and Mingyue, said: "That day, when the fruits went missing, we counted over and over and made out only twenty-two. Now that it has come back to life, how has there come to be one more?"
"Time reveals a man's heart," said the Pilgrim. "That day old Sun stole only three. One of them fell to the ground, and the local deity said this treasure sinks into the earth the moment it touches soil—but Bajie kept bawling that I had palmed one for myself. So the rumor got loose, and the tangle has lasted until this very day, when the truth is clear at last."
"The reason I would use no vessel of the Five Elements," said the Bodhisattva, "is that I knew this thing stands in fear of the Five Elements."
The Great Immortal was overjoyed, and at once ordered the golden striker brought, knocked down ten of the fruits, and invited the Bodhisattva and the three elders back into the precious hall—first to give thanks for her labor, and second to hold a ginseng-fruit feast.
The lesser immortals set out the tables and chairs and spread the red-lacquered trays: the Bodhisattva was given the seat of honor at the head, the three elders the seats of honor on the left, the Tang monk the seat of honor on the right, with Zhenyuanzi seated before them as host. Each ate one fruit. There is a poem in proof:
In Longevity Mountain's ancient cave-heaven, The ginseng ripens once in nine thousand years. The numinous root once bared—its sprouts and branches hurt; The sweet dew nourished it, and fruit and leaves were whole. The three elders, met in joy, were all old friends of old; The four monks' happy meeting was a bond from former lives. Now that they all have tasted of the ginseng fruit, Every one is an immortal, deathless and unaging.
At this feast the Bodhisattva and the three elders each ate one fruit; the Tang monk, knowing at last that it was a treasure of the immortals, ate one too. Wukong and his two brothers each had one, Zhenyuanzi ate one in company, and the immortal folk of the temple divided one among them.
Then the Pilgrim gave thanks to the Bodhisattva, who returned to Potalaka Rock, and saw the three stars straight back to the island of Penglai. Zhenyuanzi laid on a feast of vegetarian dishes and wine, and swore brotherhood with the Pilgrim. Truly it is, "no fight, no friendship"—the two households had now become one. Master and disciples, four in all, went happily to their rest as evening fell. And so the elder at last had won his chance:
By happy fate he ate the Grass-Returned Cinnabar, To live long years—yet still must bear the demons' trials.
How they parted on the morrow—listen to the explanation in the next chapter.