Master and disciple came riding on together until they drew rein at the head of the mountain gate, and looked. It was indeed a monastery. Behold:
Hall upon hall, tier upon tier; galleries and chambers ranged in rows.
Beyond the triple mountain gate, ten thousand shafts of coloured cloud lie towering and thick;
before the Hall of the Five Blessings, a thousand strands of crimson mist coil and glow.
Two lanes of pine and bamboo, one grove of juniper and cypress.
Two lanes of pine and bamboo: without a year, without a reckoning, pure and secluded of themselves;
one grove of juniper and cypress: full of hue, full of colour, proud and lovely as they please.
See too the bell tower and the drum tower rising high, the stūpa-pagoda standing sheer.
Monks settled in meditation compose their nature; birds crying in the trees make an idle music.
Still and free of dust — truly still; pure and void, possessed of the Way — pure and void indeed.
And a poem says:
A lofty monastery, a Jetavana hidden in a kingfisher hollow;
a temple's rare prospect, outdoing the Sahā world.
Truly, the Pure Land is a scarce thing among men —
yet of the empire's famous mountains, the monks hold most.
The elder dismounted, the Pilgrim set down the load, and they were on the point of entering when out through the gate came a company of monks. See now how they were got up:
On their heads, caps pinned at the left; on their bodies, robes without stain.
Bronze rings hang doubled from their ears; silk sashes bind their waists about.
Straw sandals make their walking steady; wooden fish they carry in their hands.
In their mouths, recitation without ceasing; in prajñā they take refuge, all of them.
Sanzang, seeing them, stood attentively beside the gate and made his salutation. The monk hastily returned the courtesy and said, smiling, “Forgive me for not having looked up. Where have you come from? Please come into the abbot's quarters and take tea.”
“This disciple is an imperial commissioner from the Land of the East,” said Sanzang, “bound for the Temple of Thunderclap to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures. Arriving here as the light fails, I would beg one night's lodging of your eminent monastery.”
“Come in and sit, come in and sit,” said the monk. Only then did Sanzang call the Pilgrim to lead the horse in. The monk, catching sight of the Pilgrim's face, took some fright. “What kind of thing is that, leading the horse?” he asked.
“Softly, softly,” said Sanzang. “His temper is quick, and if he hears you call him a thing, he will take it ill. He is my disciple.”
The monk gave a shudder, bit his finger, and said, “And you took on so ugly-headed, so freakish-skulled a creature for a disciple?”
“You cannot see it,” said Sanzang. “Ugly he is, but he is very useful indeed.”
The monk had no choice but to go in through the mountain gate together with the two of them. Within the gate they saw, inscribed above the main hall, four great characters: Guanyin Chan Monastery. Sanzang was greatly pleased.
“This disciple has felt the Bodhisattva's holy grace many times over, and has never yet had the chance to knock his head in thanks,” he said. “To come upon this cloister today is as good as beholding the Bodhisattva herself. It is most fitting that I bow my thanks.”
Hearing this, the monk at once ordered the lay servant to open the doors of the hall, and invited Sanzang to make his devotions. The Pilgrim tethered the horse, flung down the baggage, and went up into the hall with him. Sanzang spread out his back and stretched his frame, laid his breast to the ground, and knocked his head before the golden image. The monk went to beat the drum. The Pilgrim went straight to strike the bell. Sanzang lay prostrate before the dais and prayed with all his heart.
The prayers and prostrations done, the monk stilled his drum; but the Pilgrim only kept on ringing the bell without a pause, now fast, now slow, and rang it a long while. The lay servant said, “The worship is finished. What are you still ringing the bell for?”
Only then did the Pilgrim let go the bell-hammer. He laughed and said, “How would you know? With me it is a case of: be a monk for a day, ring the bell for a day.”
By now the din had roused every monk of the temple, great and small, and the elders of the upper and lower quarters. Hearing the bell clanging wildly, they came crowding out together and cried, “What wild man is banging away at the bell and drum in here?”
The Pilgrim came springing out and barked at them, “It was your Grandpa Sun, ringing it for sport.”
At the sight of him the monks were so terrified that they stumbled and rolled, and every one of them crawled upon the ground, crying, “Lord Thunder! Grandfather!”
“Lord Thunder is my own great-grandson,” said the Pilgrim. “Get up, get up, don't be frightened. We are gentlemen come from the Great Tang in the Land of the East.”
Only then did the assembly make their bows; and when they saw Sanzang, they were all at last easy and unafraid. Among them the prior of the monastery invited them: “Let the reverend gentlemen come to the abbot's quarters at the rear and take tea.” So they loosed the halter and led the horse, took up the baggage, passed round the main hall, went straight into the rear chambers, and seated themselves in order of precedence.
The prior served tea, and had a meatless meal made ready as well. The daylight was still early, and Sanzang had not finished giving his thanks, when from the rear two young pages came out supporting an old monk between them. Look how he was got up:
On his head, a square Vairocana cap, its jewelled finial of cat's-eye stone ablaze with light;
on his body, a brocade-and-velvet vestment, its gold border of kingfisher plumes glittering bright.
A pair of monk's shoes clustered with the Eight Treasures; a single staff inlaid with cloud and star.
His face all creased with wrinkles, for all the world the Old Mother of Mount Li;
his pair of clouded eyes, yet like the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea.
His mouth will not latch against the wind, for his teeth are fallen; his waist is humped and his back bent, for his sinews have drawn in.
“The Grand Master has come,” said the monks. Sanzang bowed from the waist, made his greeting, and said, “Venerable prior, this disciple salutes you.” The old monk returned the courtesy, and each was seated in his order.
“Just now my little ones told me that a gentleman had come from the Tang court in the Land of the East,” said the old monk, “so I came out to pay my respects.”
“I have come lightly to your precious mountain, not knowing good from ill,” said Sanzang. “Forgive the offence, forgive the offence.”
“I dare not accept it,” said the old monk, “I dare not.” Then he asked, “Reverend sir, from the Land of the East to this place — how long is the road?”
“From the borders of Chang'an there were something over five thousand lǐ,” said Sanzang. “Past the Mountain of Two Frontiers I took on a young disciple, and coming along the road we passed through Hābì, a kingdom of the Western Fan; and after two months and another five or six thousand lǐ, only now have we reached your honoured place.”
“That is a remoteness of ten thousand lǐ,” said the old monk. “Your disciple has idled a whole life away and has never once gone out of the mountain gate. I am truly what men call one who sits in a well to look at the sky — a fellow of rotten ailanthus wood.”
Sanzang asked again, “What is the venerable prior's honoured age?”
“I have foolishly attained two hundred and seventy years,” said the old monk.
The Pilgrim, hearing this, said, “Even so, he would be my descendant of the ten-thousandth generation.” Sanzang shot him a glance. “Guard your tongue. Don't be one who cannot tell high from low, and affront a man.”
The monk then asked, “And how many years have you, reverend sir?”
“I dare not say,” said the Pilgrim.
The old monk took it for a mad remark, gave it no thought, asked no more, and simply called for tea. A young page came out bearing a tray of mutton-fat jade, and upon it three enamelled teacups rimmed with gold; another carried in a white-brass pot and poured three cups of fragrant tea. Truly its colour shamed the pomegranate's bloom, and its savour surpassed the scent of osmanthus.
Sanzang, seeing them, could not praise them enough. “Fine things, fine things,” he said. “Fine food indeed, and in fine vessels.”
“They offend the eye, they offend the eye,” said the old monk. “Your reverence is from the celestial court, a superior kingdom, and has surveyed its rarest treasures. Vessels such as these — what are they, to be praised so? Since your reverence comes from a superior land, have you perhaps some treasure you would lend this disciple for a single look?”
“Alas,” said Sanzang, “in my Land of the East there are no treasures worth the name; and had there been, the road is far, and I could not have carried them.”
The Pilgrim, standing at his side, said, “Master, the other day, in the bundle, I saw that cassock. Is that not a treasure? Suppose we take it out and let him have a look?”
Hearing the word cassock, the monks laughed coldly, every one of them. “What are you laughing at?” said the Pilgrim.
“Your reverence has just called a cassock a treasure,” said the prior. “The words are laughable indeed. If we speak of cassocks — of the kind that men such as we possess, there are no fewer than twenty or thirty; and if we speak of our Grand Master, who has been a monk in this place two hundred and fifty or sixty years, he has a full seven or eight hundred.” He called out, “Bring them here and let him look.”
The old monk, in a moment's vanity of his own, ordered the lay servant to open the storehouse and the ascetics to carry out the chests; and twelve chests were carried out, set down in the courtyard, and the locks opened. Clothes-racks were set up on either side, ropes strung round on all four, and the cassocks shaken out and hung up one by one, and Sanzang was invited to view them. Truly it was damask and embroidery filling the hall, silk gauze and figured satin on all four walls.
The Pilgrim looked them over one by one — all of them things of flowered weave and patched brocade, of embroidery and beaten gold thread — and laughed. “Good, good, good. Put them away, put them away. Now fetch out ours as well, and let us have a look.”
Sanzang caught him by the sleeve and said softly, “Disciple, do not vie in riches with other men. You and I are alone and abroad; I fear only that something may go amiss.”
“What can go amiss,” said the Pilgrim, “in looking at a cassock?”
“You have not understood it,” said Sanzang. “The men of old had a saying: things rare and precious, things kept for delight, must never be let fall beneath the eyes of the greedy and the false. Once such a thing has passed before the eye, it must stir the heart; and the heart once stirred, a scheme must be born of it. If you are a man who fears calamity, then when they demand it, comply with their asking — and it may pass. If not, then bodies are destroyed and lives are ended, and the whole of it takes its rise from here. The matter is no small one.”
“Rest easy, rest easy,” said the Pilgrim. “It all rests on old Sun's shoulders.”
See how, without letting another word be said, he hurried off and undid the bundle — and at once a roseate radiance came bursting out, though two thicknesses of oiled paper still held it bound. The paper away, he drew out the cassock; and when he shook it open, a red light filled the room and a coloured vapour brimmed the courtyard. Not one of the monks who saw it failed to rejoice in his heart and praise it with his mouth. Truly a fine cassock. Upon it were these:
A thousand cunning subtleties of hanging pearl; ten thousand rarities of Buddha-jewel, close-clustered.
Above and below, dragon-beard threads spread out in coloured damask; tūla down on all four sides, with brocade running the hem.
Hang it on the body — hill-sprite and water-goblin perish from that hour; wear it on the back — the demons of wood and stone go down to the Yellow Springs.
Transformed immortals of Heaven wrought it with their own hands; and were he not a true monk, no man would dare to wear it.
The old monk, beholding so great a treasure, was moved — sure enough — to a covetous heart. He came forward, knelt down before Sanzang, and said with tears standing in his eyes, “Your disciple is truly without the bond.”
Sanzang raised him up. “What has the venerable master to say?”
“This treasure of your reverence's has only now been spread open, and the day has darkened,” he answered, “and my eyes being dim and clouded, I cannot see it plainly. Is that not to be without the bond?”
“Bring up a lamp,” Sanzang directed, “and let him look again.”
“Your reverence's treasure is bright of itself,” said the old monk. “Light a lamp and it will dazzle the more; there is no hope of seeing it in any detail.”
“How would you have it, then, in order to see it well?” said the Pilgrim.
“If your reverence would be broad in kindness and easy in mind, let your disciple carry it to the back chamber,” said the old monk, “to study it minutely through the night; and in the morning I will send it back, and your reverence may go west. I do not know your honoured mind on the matter?”
Sanzang, hearing it, took fright, and reproached the Pilgrim: “This is your doing. All of it your doing.”
The Pilgrim laughed. “What is there to fear from him? Let me wrap it up, and have him carry it away to look at. If there should be any slip, old Sun will set the whole of it right.”
Sanzang, unable to hold him back, handed the cassock to the old monk. “Look at it as you please. Only, in the morning, return it to me as it was. It must not be soiled or damaged in the least.”
The old monk, all delight, had his favourite page carry the cassock within. Then he ordered the monks to sweep out the meditation hall at the front, fetch two rattan beds, and lay bedding upon them, and to invite the two reverend gentlemen to their rest; while on the other hand he had a morning meal prepared to speed them on their way. So they all dispersed. Master and disciple shut the meditation hall, lay down — and of this no more.
Now, the monk, having got the cassock into his hands by a trick, carried it to the back chamber, set it beneath the lamp, and wailed over it, weeping bitterly. So alarmed were the monks of the house that none dared go to bed before him. The little page, not knowing what it was about, went off to report to the assembly: “Grandfather has wept into the second watch and has still not left off.”
Two disciples' disciples, being dear to his heart, came forward and asked, “Master's master, what are you weeping for?”
“I weep that I have no bond, and cannot look my fill at the Tang monk's treasure,” said the old monk.
“Grandfather, you are far advanced in years; you have carried it too far,” said a young monk. “His cassock lies there before you. You need only untie it and look, and there is an end. What need of all this weeping?”
“The looking does not last,” said the old monk. “I am two hundred and seventy years old this year, and to no purpose have I amassed some hundreds of cassocks. How am I to come by this one of his? How am I to become a Tang monk?”
“Grandfather is mistaken,” said a young monk. “The Tang monk is one who has left home and native place — a monk who goes on foot. You, at your great age, have your comforts, and enough of them. Would you rather be like him, and go on foot? What is the sense of it?”
“Though I sit at home at my ease, and take my pleasure in the evening of my life,” said the old monk, “I cannot come by that cassock of his to wear. If I might wear it a single day, I would shut my eyes in death content; it would mean I had been a monk once, in this world of the living.”
“What nonsense is this?” said the monks. “If you want to wear his, where is the difficulty? Tomorrow we will keep him a day, and you shall wear it a day; keep him ten days, and you shall wear it ten. That is all there is to it. Why weep so bitterly?”
“Even if we kept him a year,” said the old monk, “I should only wear it a year; in the end it would not last. When he wishes to go, we can only let him go. How is it to be kept for long?”
While they were speaking, a young monk named Guangzhi put his head forward and said, “If Grandfather would have it for good, that is easy enough.”
The old monk brightened up. “My son, what fine notion have you?”
“Those two Tang monks are travellers, and worn out with hardship,” said Guangzhi. “By now they are fast asleep. Let us find a few strong men, take up spears and knives, break open the meditation hall, and kill them. Bury the corpses in the back garden; only our own household will know of it. Then we take his white horse and his baggage too, and keep the cassock here, to be the treasure handed down in the family. Is that not a plan for the long fortune of our sons and grandsons?”
Hearing it, the old monk was filled with joy. He wiped away his tears and said, “Good, good, good — the plan is exquisite.” And at once they set about gathering spears and knives.
Among them was yet another young monk, Guangmou by name, brother-disciple to that same Guangzhi, who came forward and said, “That plan is not good. If we mean to kill them, we must first see how matters stand. The white-faced one looks easy; the hairy-faced one looks hard. If we should fail to kill him, would we not bring the disaster back upon ourselves? I have a method that uses neither knife nor spear. I do not know how it strikes your honoured mind?”
“My son, what method is this?” said the old monk.
“By this small grandson's reckoning,” said Guangmou, “summon now the heads of every quarter, great and small, of the eastern hill, and let each man bring a bundle of dry firewood; give up those three rooms of the meditation hall, set them alight, and leave them no door to escape by — horse and all consumed in a single fire. And should the households before and behind the hill see it, we need only say that he was careless himself, that a fire got away from him and burned our meditation hall down. As for those two monks — will they not both be burned to death? And it covers over men's eyes and ears. Will not the cassock be our family's treasure handed down?”
Hearing him, not one of the monks failed to rejoice. “Strong! Strong! Strong!” they all said. “This plan is better still, better still.”
So each quarter was ordered to fetch its firewood. Alas! This plan of theirs — it was just as the saying has it:
Contriving it so that a long-lived old monk should meet his appointed end,
and the Chan cloister of Guanyin be turned to dust.
Now, in that monastery of theirs there were seventy or eighty quarters, and its inmates, great and small, numbered above two hundred. That night, in one throng, they carried firewood, and heaped the meditation hall about, before and behind, hemming in all four sides so that nothing could pass; and there they made ready to set the fire — of which no more for now.
Now, Sanzang and his disciple had settled themselves to rest. But the Pilgrim, being a monkey of spirit, though he had lain down, was only nourishing his spirit and refining his breath, drowsing with his eyes awake. Suddenly he heard, outside, a ceaseless walking of men, and a rustling of firewood, and a wind rising with it. His mind misgave him. “At this hour the night is still. How should there be the sound of men's feet walking? Can it be robbers, plotting to do us harm?”
With a roll he sprang up, and would have opened the door to look out — but feared to wake his master. See how he summoned his powers, shook his body, and turned himself into a bee. Truly it was so:
Sweet of mouth and venomous of tail; slender of waist and light of body.
Threading flowers, crossing willows, it flies like an arrow; clinging to catkins, seeking fragrance, it falls like a star.
A small, small frame, and yet it can bear a burden; loud-humming, gossamer wings, and yet they can ride the wind.
Down it goes from the rafter-edge, and bores its way out to see the matter plain.
And there he saw the monks, hauling firewood and carrying straw, already ringing the meditation hall about, ready to set it burning. The Pilgrim laughed to himself. “It is just as my master said. They mean to have our lives, and to take my cassock; that is why they have raised so venomous a heart. I have a mind to fetch out my cudgel and lay into them — but the pity is they cannot stand a beating, and one blow of the cudgel would kill the lot; and then my master would blame me for cruelty. Enough, enough, enough. I will let them lead the sheep away by the halter, and turn their own plan against them, and see to it that they do not stay here at all!”
Good Pilgrim! With a single somersault he leapt up within the Southern Gate of Heaven. So terrified were Pang, Liu, Gou and Bi that they bent double, and Ma, Zhao, Wen and Guan drew back their shoulders, all crying, “This is bad, this is bad! That master who made havoc of Heaven has come again!”
The Pilgrim waved a hand at them. “Gentlemen, no ceremony, and no alarm. I have come to look for the Broad-Eyed Deva King.”
Before he had finished speaking, the King himself arrived, and coming toward him said, “It is long, long since we met. I heard some while ago that the Bodhisattva Guanyin came before the Jade Emperor and borrowed the Four Sentinels, the Six Ding and Six Jia, and the Guardians and the rest, to guard the Tang monk on his westward road for the scriptures; and it was said you had become his disciple. What leisure brings you here today?”
“Spare me the pleasantries,” said the Pilgrim. “The Tang monk has fallen among villains on the road, who are setting fire to burn him. The matter is urgent past all measure. I have come on purpose to borrow your fire-shield of you, to save him. Quick, hand it over and let me use it; I will return it this instant.”
“You are mistaken,” said the Deva King. “If villains are setting a fire, you should borrow water to save him. What do you want with a fire-shield?”
“How should you know the inside of it?” said the Pilgrim. “Borrow water, save him, and the fire never takes hold — which would only suit them. Lend me this shield instead: it will guard the Tang monk from harm, and as for the rest, let them look to it; let the whole of it burn. Quick, quick — I fear it is already too late. Do not make me miss my business down below.”
The Deva King laughed. “This monkey is still the same: he raises an unkind heart, thinks only of his own, and cares nothing for anyone else.”
“Hurry, hurry,” said the Pilgrim. “Don't stand wagging your tongue and ruin a great matter.”
The Deva King dared not refuse to lend it, and handed the shield over. The Pilgrim took it, pressed down his cloud-head, went straight to the roof-ridge of the meditation hall, and covered over the Tang monk with the white horse and the baggage. Then he went and sat upon the roof of the abbot's quarters behind, where the old monk lodged, to guard the cassock.
Watching the men set their fire, he turned, made the magic sign, recited the spell, faced the quarter of Xun, drew in a breath and blew it out; and a wind rose, and blew that fire until it roared and raged. A fine fire! A fine fire! Behold:
Black smoke in billows, red flame in surges.
Black smoke in billows — through the long sky not one star is seen;
red flame in surges — over the wide earth is light, a thousand lǐ of crimson.
At the first, glittering golden serpents;
and after, blood-red horses in their fury.
The Three Breaths of the South display their prowess; Huilu, the Great Fire God, puts forth his power.
Parched firewood burns out the nature of fierce fire — what talk is there now of Suiren drilling wood?
Hot oil before the doors sends coloured flame flying — it outdoes the Patriarch's opened furnace.
This is a fire without feeling; how shall it be checked, when the cruelty is by design?
It goes not to quell the calamity, but rather to abet the outrage.
The wind follows the fire's force: flame flies a thousand zhàng and more;
the fire vaunts the wind's might: ashes are flung to the ninth heaven.
Ping, ping, pang, pang — like firecrackers at the year's end;
po, po, la, la — like the roar of cannon in an army's midst.
It burns until the Buddha-images on their pedestals can find no escape, and the Sangharama of the eastern cloister has nowhere to hide.
It surpasses the night battle in the fire of Red Cliff; it outdoes the flames within the Palace of Epang.
This was indeed a case of the little spark that can burn ten thousand acres of field. In a moment the wind was wild and the fire high, and the whole Guanyin Monastery glowed red from end to end. See the monks: hauling boxes and carrying baskets, snatching up tables and clutching cauldrons, and the whole compound loud with the cry of misery. Sun the Pilgrim guarded the abbot's quarters behind; the fire-shield covered over the meditation hall in front. Everywhere else, before and behind, the fire blazed up mightily — truly, a red flame lighting heaven in splendour, a golden radiance shining through the walls.
It happened that when the fire arose, it startled a beast-spirit of the mountains. Some twenty lǐ due south of this Guanyin Monastery there stands a Black Wind Mountain, and in the mountain there is a Black Wind Cave, and in the cave a fiend, who was just then waking and turning over. He saw a light coming through the window and took it for daybreak. Rising to look, he found it was a glare of fire in the north.
The fiend started up. “Ah! This must be a fire in the Guanyin Monastery. How careless those monks are! I will go and see, and lend them a hand to put it out.”
Good fiend! He mounted his cloud-head and came at once beneath the smoke and flame. The fire was indeed roaring to heaven: the halls in front stood empty, and the smoke and fire of the two galleries were only now catching. He strode in with great strides and was just calling out for water to be brought, when he saw that the rear chamber was untouched by fire, and that a man was sitting on its roof-ridge making wind. Then he understood how matters stood, and hurried inside to look. In the middle of the abbot's quarters he saw a rosy radiance and coloured vapour, and on the table a bundle wrapped in blue felt. He untied it and looked: it was a cassock of brocade and border-silk, a marvellous treasure of the Buddha's gate. This is what is called wealth stirring the heart of a man. He did not put out the fire; he did not call for water. He took up that cassock, plundered it in the confusion, drew back his cloud-steps, and went straight off to the eastern hill.
That fire burned on until the fifth watch and the light of dawn, and only then went out. See the monks: stripped bare, weeping and wailing, all of them poking in the ashes for copper and iron, raking over the rotted charcoal, scrabbling after gold and silver. Some were in the corners of the walls, thatching themselves lean-tos; some at the foot of a scorched wall were propping up a pot to cook rice. They cried out on their wrongs and their injuries, shouting and clamouring in confusion — of which no more.
Now, the Pilgrim took up the fire-shield and with one somersault sent it back to the Southern Gate of Heaven, handing it to the Broad-Eyed Deva King. “Thanks for the loan, thanks for the loan.”
The Deva King took it back. “The Great Sage is a man of his word. I was just worrying that you would not return my treasure, and that I should have nowhere to go after it — and here you are, bringing it back. I am glad.”
“Is old Sun the sort of man who cheats another to his face?” said the Pilgrim. “This is what they call: borrow well and return well, and borrowing again is easy.”
“It is long since I saw you,” said the Deva King. “Come to the palace and sit a while — what do you say?”
“Old Sun is not what he was before, sprawling on a broken bench and talking grandly at large,” said the Pilgrim. “Now I am guarding the Tang monk, and I have no leisure. Another time, another time.”
He took a hasty leave and dropped down on his cloud; and the sun-star was rising again. Coming straight before the meditation hall, he shook his body, turned himself into a bee, flew in, resumed his own form, and looked: his master was still fast asleep.
“Master, day has broken,” called the Pilgrim. “Get up.”
Sanzang, just waking, turned over and said, “So it has.” He put on his clothes, opened the door and came out — and lifting his head, saw nothing but toppled walls and reddened brick; the towers and halls were gone. In great alarm he cried, “Ah! How is it the halls are all vanished, and everything is red walls? What is this?”
“You are still dreaming,” said the Pilgrim. “A fire got away in the night.”
“How is it I knew nothing of it?” said Sanzang.
“Old Sun was guarding the meditation hall; and seeing my master deep in sleep, I did not disturb him.”
“If you had the power to guard the meditation hall,” said Sanzang, “how is it you did not put out the fire in the other quarters?”
The Pilgrim laughed. “Let me tell my master how it was. It fell out just as you said yesterday: they took a liking to our cassock, and laid a plan to burn us to death. Had old Sun not perceived it, by now we should both be ashes and bones.”
Sanzang, hearing it, was afraid. “Was it they who set the fire?”
“If not they, who?” said the Pilgrim.
“Can it be that they slighted you, and this is a piece of your own work?”
“Is old Sun so idle a rogue as to do so ill a thing?” said the Pilgrim. “It was truly their own household that set it. Old Sun saw how venomous their hearts were, and so, it is true, did not help them put it out — I only helped them a little with a touch of wind.”
“Heaven, oh Heaven!” said Sanzang. “When a fire breaks out you should have helped with water. How came you to help with wind instead?”
“Do you not know the ancient saying: if a man has no heart to injure a tiger, a tiger has no mind to injure a man? Had they not played with fire, why should I have played with wind?”
“Where is the cassock?” said Sanzang. “Can it be it has been burned to ruin?”
“No matter, no matter, it cannot burn. The abbot's quarters where the cassock was had no fire in them.”
“I care nothing for that,” said Sanzang bitterly. “If there is the least damage to it, I shall recite that little speech of mine over and over, and you are a dead thing.”
The Pilgrim was alarmed. “Master, do not recite it, do not recite it. I will see the cassock found and returned to you, and there's an end. Let me go and fetch it, and we shall be on our road.”
So Sanzang led the horse and the Pilgrim shouldered the load; they came out of the meditation hall and went straight to the abbot's quarters at the rear.
Now, the monks were in the midst of their lamenting when suddenly they caught sight of master and disciple coming toward them, leading the horse and shouldering the load. Terror scattered the souls of every one of them. “The wronged ghosts have come for our lives!”
The Pilgrim shouted at them, “What wronged ghosts? Give me back my cassock, and quickly.”
The whole body of monks fell on their knees together and knocked their heads. “Your Worship! A wrong has its wrongdoer, and a debt has its debtor. If you want lives, it is no affair of ours. It was Guangmou and the old monk who laid the plan to do you harm. Do not come dunning us for lives.”
The Pilgrim barked at them, “You beasts, you deserve to die! Who is asking any of you for a life? Only fetch the cassock, give it back to me, and let me be on my road!”
Among them were two monks of bolder spirit, who said, “Your Worship, you were burned to death in the meditation hall. Now you come again to ask for the cassock. Are you truly a man, or a ghost?”
The Pilgrim laughed. “You pack of sinful brutes! Where has there been any fire? Go and look at the meditation hall in front, and then come back and talk.”
The monks scrambled up and went forward to look. The doors, the windows, the lattice-leaves on the outside of that meditation hall — not half a part of them had been so much as scorched. The crowd was struck with awe, and knew at last that Sanzang was a monk of the gods, and the Pilgrim a guardian of the Law. Together they came forward and knocked their heads. “We have eyes but no pupils in them; we did not know that True Men had come down to the world. Your cassock is at the back, in the abbot's quarters, with our old Grand Master.”
Sanzang walked through three or four courses of ruined wall and broken brick, sighing without ceasing. He found the abbot's quarters indeed untouched by fire. The monks rushed inside, calling, “Grandfather! The Tang monk is a divine man. He has not burned to death, and now we have destroyed nothing but our own property. Bring out the cassock at once, and give it back to him.”
Now, the old monk could not find the cassock, and he had burned down the buildings of his own monastery besides; and being sunk in ten-thousandfold vexation and scorching anguish, how should he dare to answer when he heard those words? Turning it over and finding no plan, no way forward and no way back, he stretched out his stride, bent his back, and dashed his head against the wall with all his strength. Pitiable! He dashed it until the skull was broken, the blood ran, the souls were scattered, the breath was cut off in his throat, and the red sand was stained. There is a poem to prove it. The poem says:
Pity the old monk, of a nature foolish and benighted, who lived to be an old man of this world for nothing at all.
He wished to get a cassock and hand it down through distant ages, not knowing that a Buddha's treasure is not as common things are.
He took a thing easily come by and made of it his long endurance; and so it was certain that desolation would be all his winning.
Broad Wisdom, Broad Scheming — what were they good for? Injure another to profit yourself, and it comes at last to nothing.
The monks were thrown into a panic and wept. “Our Grand Master has dashed himself dead, and still there is no cassock. What is to be done?”
“I suppose you have stolen it and hidden it away,” said the Pilgrim. “Come out, all of you. Draw up a register of names and hand it in, and let old Sun check you off one by one.”
The priors of the upper and lower quarters drew up two sheets, entering the monastery's monks, its ascetics, its pages and its lay servants; great and small, the persons came to two hundred and thirty in all. The Pilgrim seated his master in the high place, and himself called each name in turn from the head of the roll and searched them, every man to loosen his robe and open it, and all were checked in plain sight — and there was no cassock. Then he took the chests and boxes and goods that each quarter had snatched out of the fire, and went through them from the beginning, minutely, and everywhere — and where was there any trace of it?
Sanzang's heart was full of vexation, and his resentment of the Pilgrim knew no end; and sitting up in the high place, he began to recite that spell. The Pilgrim fell flat upon the ground, clutching his head, unable to bear it, crying only, “Do not recite, do not recite! I will see the cassock found and returned!”
Seeing this, the monks were every one of them trembling and shaking; they came forward, knelt, and pleaded for him, and only then did Sanzang close his mouth and cease. The Pilgrim sprang up with a roll, drew the iron rod from his ear, and would have laid about him among the monks, but Sanzang shouted him down. “Monkey-head! Your skull aches, and still you are not afraid? Still you would be insolent? Stay your hand. Do no man harm. Let me question them once more.”
The monks knocked their heads and made their obeisance, imploring Sanzang: “Your Worship, spare our lives! We truly and honestly never saw it. It is all the fault of that old dead ghost. Last night he sat looking at your cassock and wept until the watches were deep; he never once dared even to look at it properly, but thought how to keep it for ever, and make it the treasure handed down in the family, and laid his plans and settled his scheme to burn your Worships to death. From the moment the fire arose, a violent wind sprang up, and every man of us thought only of fighting the fire and snatching out the goods; and we know nothing of where the cassock has gone.”
The Pilgrim, in a great rage, went into the abbot's chamber, hauled out the corpse of the old ghost who had killed himself against the wall, stripped it and looked it over closely — and on the whole body there was no such treasure. He dug the abbot's quarters up three feet deep besides, and found not a shadow of it. He pondered a while, then asked, “Is there any goblin hereabouts that has become a spirit?”
“Had your Worship not asked, we should never have thought to tell you,” said the prior. “Due south-east of us there stands a Black Wind Mountain, and within the Black Wind Cave there is a Great King of Black Wind. This old dead ghost of ours often discoursed on the Way with him. He is a fiend. There is nothing else of the kind.”
“How far off is that mountain?” said the Pilgrim.
“Only twenty lǐ,” said the prior. “That peak you can see from here — that is it.”
The Pilgrim laughed. “Set your heart at rest, master. No need to argue it. Beyond a doubt it is that black fiend who has stolen it.”
“His quarter lies twenty lǐ from here,” said Sanzang. “How can you conclude so certainly that it was he?”
“You did not see last night's fire,” said the Pilgrim. “Its light climbed ten thousand lǐ; its brightness pierced the three heavens. Never mind twenty lǐ — at two hundred it would still have been seen. Depend upon it, he saw the fire-light blazing, took his chance, came here quietly, saw that our cassock was a treasure, and made off with it in the confusion. Let old Sun go and hunt him out.”
“If you go,” said Sanzang, “on what shall I lean?”
“Set your mind at ease,” said the Pilgrim. “In the unseen you have spirits to guard you; in the seen, I shall make these monks wait upon you.” He called the monks over at once and said, “Let some of you go and bury that old ghost; let some wait on my master and look after my white horse.”
The monks assented. The Pilgrim went on, “And let none of you answer with the mouth only. The moment I am gone you will leave off your service. Whoever tends my master must have a pleasant face and a cheerful colour; whoever feeds the white horse must have his water and his grass in good measure. If there is so much as a hair's worth of fault in it, this is the sort of rod you shall have. Look at it.”
He drew out his cudgel, and against the fire-scorched brick wall he brought it down with a crack. The wall was smashed to powder, and seven or eight courses of wall behind it were shaken flat. Seeing this, every monk of them went soft in the bone and numb in the body; they knelt, knocked their heads, let the tears fall, and said, “Go with an easy heart, Your Worship. We will strain every sinew and be reverent of mind in serving the reverend gentleman. We dare not be a hair's breadth remiss.”
Good Pilgrim! He mounted his somersault cloud in haste and went straight up Black Wind Mountain to seek that cassock. And it was just as the saying has it:
The Golden Chan sought the True and left the capital's precincts; leaning on his staff he turned west and waded the blue-green hills.
Tigers, leopards, wolves and vermin are found wherever he passes; merchants, scholars and travellers are rarely to be seen.
On the road he met a foreign land where an ignorant monk was envious; and had to rely wholly on the might of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.
Fire broke out and wind arose, and the Chan cloister was laid waste; and the black bear, in the night, stole the brocade-bordered robe.
But whether, going thus, the cassock was to be had or not, and whether the issue would be fortunate or ill — for that, listen to the explanation in the next chapter.