The Dharma has its rise from mind, and from that mind alike it comes to nothing.
Arising and ceasing — by whom are they wrought? Sir, discriminate the matter yourself.
Since all of it is your own mind, what need have you of another man’s telling?
You need only bend to the bitter labour, and wring the blood from out of iron.
Lay the soft cord upon the nose and thread it through; draw fast the knot of emptiness.
Tether the beast to the tree of non-doing, and suffer it not to run wild and wayward.
Take not the thief to be your son; let mind and dharma both fall wholly away.
Let it not cozen you: with a single fist strike clean through.
Reveal the mind, and there is no mind; reveal the dharma, and the dharma too gives out.
When neither man nor ox is anywhere seen, the blue heaven is a lucid brightness.
Round as the autumn moon it stands, and this from that can hardly be told apart.
This gāthā was Master Xuanzang’s own, made when he had penetrated the Heart Sutra to the bottom and thrown open its gate; and because the elder recited it always and always kept it by him, a single point of numinous light shone through of itself.
Now the three of them, on the road, supped on wind and lodged upon water, went girt with the moon and cloaked in the stars; and soon enough the burning season of summer was upon them. Behold:
The flowers are spent, and the butterfly has no more courtship to relate; the trees stand high, and the cicada has voice enough to clamour.
Wild silkworms wind their cocoons; the fiery pomegranate is fair; and over the pool the new lotus shows its face.
One day, as they were going along, evening came on of a sudden, and they saw a hamlet standing beside the mountain road. “Wukong, look,” said Sanzang. “The sun drops behind the western hills and hides away its mirror of fire; the moon climbs from the eastern sea and shows its wheel of ice. Happily there is a house beside the way. Let us beg a night’s lodging, and go on again tomorrow.”
“Well said,” said Bajie. “Old Hog is somewhat hungry himself. Let us beg a little fasting-fare of the house — there will be strength in me then for carrying the loads.”
“You home-hankering ghost,” said the Pilgrim. “A few days from your own doorway and already you breed complaints.”
“Brother, I am no match for you, who drink the wind and sup the haze,” said Bajie. “Since I fell in behind our master these few days, I have gone long with a belly half-empty. Did you know that?”
Sanzang, hearing it, said, “Wuneng, if the thought of home lies so heavy on you, then you are no man who has left the household. Go back, and welcome.”
The Idiot dropped in a fright to his knees. “Master, do not listen to my elder brother. He has a way of fastening dirt upon a man. I complained of nothing whatever, and still he says I complain. I am a straight-gut simpleton. I said my belly was empty and that we might find a house and beg a meal, and at once he rails at me for a home-hankering ghost. Master, from the Bodhisattva I received the discipline of the precepts, and from you I have had compassion besides; willingly I would serve you the whole way to the Western Heaven, and I have sworn to know no drawing back. This is what men call cultivation in bitter earnest. How can you say it is not the speech of one who has left the household?”
“If that is how it stands,” said Sanzang, “get up.”
The Idiot sprang up with a bound and, muttering and mumbling to himself, shouldered the carrying-pole, hardened his heart to it, and came along after. Soon they were at the gate of the house beside the road. Sanzang dismounted; the Pilgrim took the bridle-rein and Bajie set down the luggage, and all of them stood beneath the green shade. Sanzang, leaning on his nine-ringed priestly staff, settled the rattan-bound, bamboo-plaited rain-hat upon his head, and went first to the door. There he saw an old man reclining aslant on a bamboo couch, murmuring the Buddha’s name under his breath.
Sanzang durst not raise his voice. Softly he called, “Benefactor, I give you greeting.”
The old man scrambled up all in a heap, hastily drew his robe together, came out and returned the salutation. “Elder, forgive me that I did not meet you. From what quarter have you come? And what brings you to my poor door?”
“This poor monk is a priest of the Great Tang in the Land of the East,” said Sanzang. “By imperial command I go to the Temple of Thunderclap, to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures. Coming to your honoured district with the day far gone, I would throw myself upon your charitable house and beg one night’s lodging. Of your kindness, oblige me.”
The old fellow waved his hand and shook his head. “You cannot go. There are no scriptures to be had in the Western Heaven. If scriptures you must have, go east for them.”
Sanzang said nothing aloud, but pondered within: the Bodhisattva pointed me west — how comes this old man to tell me to go east? Where in the east should there be scriptures? Abashed, he could not bring himself to speak, and for a good while made no answer.
Now the Pilgrim was by nature fierce and headstrong. Unable to hold himself in, he stepped up and cried aloud, “Old man, at so great an age you know nothing at all. We who have left the household come far to beg a lodging, and you would fright me off with such graceless talk. If your house is truly too cramped and there is no place to sleep, we can sit out the night beneath the trees well enough. We shall not trouble you.”
The old man caught hold of Sanzang. “Master, you say never a word, but that disciple of yours — with a kidnapper’s face and a jaw set askew, a mouth like the Thunder God’s, and red eyes; a very consumptive fiend — how does he come to round upon a man of my years?”
The Pilgrim laughed. “Old fellow, you have no eye in your head. Your smart, well-favoured sort are what we call fair to the eye and foul to the taste. Small as Old Monkey is, he is tough enough: a knot of sinew wrapped in a skin.”
“You must have some arts, then,” said the old man.
“I would not boast,” said the Pilgrim, “but I may pass muster.”
“Where is your home? And for what cause did you shave your head and become a monk?”
“Old Monkey’s native place is the Water-Curtain Cave of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, in the country of Aolai, east of the sea, in the Eastern Continent of Superior Spirit. From my youth I learned to play the fiend, and my name was Wukong, Awakened to Emptiness. On the strength of my own arts I made myself Great Sage, Equal to Heaven. Only because I would not take the roll of Heaven, I raised a great revolt in the Palace of Heaven and drew a whole calamity upon myself. Now, delivered from that ordeal and my ill fortune dissolved, I have turned to the gate of the śramaṇa and go forward to seek the right fruit. I guard this master of mine, who serves beneath the throne of Tang, on his road to the Western Heaven to worship the Buddha. What are high hills and hard passes to me, or wide waters and raving waves? Old Monkey can lay hold of a fiend and bring a demon low; he can quell tigers and take dragons, kick over the sky and turn the wells about. There is a little of everything he knows. If in your honoured house there be any flinging of bricks or clattering of tiles, pots that cry out or doors that open of themselves, Old Monkey can settle it and lay it to rest.”
The old man, hearing all this, laughed aloud. “So you are one of those glib-tongued monks who go knocking at doors for alms.”
“It is your son who is glib,” said the Pilgrim. “These days, what with the hard walking behind my master, I have grown too lazy to talk at all.”
“If you were not weary, and not too lazy to talk,” said the old man, “I dare say you would deafen me alive. Since you have such arts, then the West may be reached after all — may be reached. How many are you in your party? Come into my thatched house and lodge.”
“I am much obliged to my aged benefactor for the kindness of not driving us off,” said Sanzang. “We are three in our party.”
“And where is that other one?” The Pilgrim pointed. “The old fellow’s eyes are dim. Is that not he, standing under the green shade?”
And the old man’s eyes were dim indeed. He lifted his head of a sudden and looked closely; and the moment he saw Bajie’s face and muzzle, he was so terrified that he stumbled at every step, ran headlong into the house, and could only cry, “Shut the door! Shut the door! A monster is come!”
The Pilgrim ran after him and caught hold of him. “Old fellow, do not be afraid. He is no monster; he is my junior in religion.”
Trembling, the old man said, “Good, good, good — monks each uglier than the last.”
Bajie stepped up. “Venerable sir, if you take the measure of a man by his looks, you are clean mistaken. Ugly we are, and ugly we may be; but every one of us is good for something.”
The old man was still talking with the three monks before his gate when, from the south side of the farm, two young men appeared, bringing with them an old dame and three or four small boys and girls, their skirts hitched up and their feet bare, come back from the setting-out of the rice. Seeing a white horse and a pole of luggage, and all this clamour at their own doorway, and not knowing what to make of it, they crowded forward in a body and demanded, “What are you about?”
Bajie turned his head about, waggled his ears a few times, and thrust out his long snout, so that the people reeled east and staggered west, tripping and sprawling every way. Sanzang, alarmed, called out with all his mouth, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. We are no bad men. We are monks going to fetch the scriptures.”
Only then did the old man come out of the house, and he raised his wife by the arm. “Get up, goodwife. There is little here to be alarmed at. This master comes from the Court of Tang. It is only that his disciples’ faces are somewhat ill-favoured; and a hard face may hide a kind heart. Take the children indoors.” So the old dame took her husband by the arm, and the two young men led the children in.
Sanzang, seated meanwhile on the bamboo couch within the gate-tower, fell to complaining. “Disciples, the two of you are ugly of face and coarse of speech besides. You have frightened this whole household out of seven wits and eight, and every one of you is heaping up sin on my account.”
“I’ll not deceive you, Master,” said Bajie. “Since Old Hog fell in behind you, he has grown a great deal handsomer this while. In the old days at Gao Village, I had only to scoop my snout forward and waggle my ears on either side, and twenty or thirty people would be frightened to death.”
The Pilgrim laughed. “Idiot, don’t talk nonsense. Put some of that ugliness away.”
“Do you hear what Wukong says?” said Sanzang. “A face is what a man is born with. How would you have him put it away?”
“Let him tuck that rake of a snout into his bosom and not bring it out,” said the Pilgrim, “and let him lay those rush-fan ears flat behind and not stir them. That is what putting it away means.”
And Bajie did in fact tuck in his snout and flatten his ears, and stood hunch-headed to one side. The Pilgrim carried the luggage in at the door, and tied the white horse to a post.
Presently the old man led out one of the young men, who carried a wooden tray and offered three cups of clear tea. The tea drunk, he gave order for a fasting-meal. The young man brought out an old table full of holes and bare of lacquer, and carried in two benches with broken tops and crippled legs, set them down in the courtyard, and invited the three of them to be seated in the cool.
Then Sanzang asked, “What is my aged benefactor’s honoured surname?”
“Your servant’s name is Wang.”
“And how many worthy sons?”
“Two small sons,” said he, “and three little grandsons.”
“My congratulations, my congratulations,” said Sanzang. “And what is your honoured age?”
“I have foolishly attained sixty-one years.”
“Good, good, good,” said the Pilgrim. “The cycle has come round again.”
Sanzang asked once more, “Aged benefactor, why did you say at first that the scriptures of the West were hard to fetch?”
“The scriptures are not hard to fetch,” said the old man. “It is only that the road is rough and hard going. Thirty lǐ westward of us, or thereabouts, there stands a mountain called the Yellow Wind Ridge of Eight Hundred Lǐ, and on that mountain are many fiends. That is what I meant by hard to fetch. But if this little elder has all the arts he says he has, why then, you may pass.”
“No matter, no matter,” said the Pilgrim. “With Old Monkey here and this junior of mine, let them be what fiends they please, they will not dare to meddle with me.”
Just as they were speaking, one of the sons brought in the rice, set it out on the table, and said, “Take your meal, if you please.” Sanzang put his palms together and began to intone the grace before eating. Bajie had already swallowed a bowl. The elder’s few lines were not yet done when the Idiot had got through three bowls more.
“This chaff-stuffer!” said the Pilgrim. “He must have run slap into a hungry ghost.”
Old Wang, for his part, knew what was proper. Seeing how fast he ate, he said, “This elder must be truly hungry. Bring more rice, and be quick.” The Idiot’s belly was capacious indeed. He never once lifted his head, and at a stretch he ate a dozen bowls and more. Sanzang and the Pilgrim between them did not get through two bowls apiece; and still the Idiot did not stop, but went on eating.
“Having no dainties ready on the sudden, I dare not press you,” said Old Wang, “but take one more mouthful, I beg.”
Sanzang and the Pilgrim both said, “We have had enough.”
“What are you dribbling on about, old man?” said Bajie. “Who is casting a horoscope with you, that you talk of a fifth line and a sixth? If there is rice, only keep fetching it, and there’s an end.”
At that one sitting the Idiot ate the whole household’s rice clean up, and still said he had got no more than half his fill. Only then were the dishes cleared away; and beneath the gate-tower they made up a bamboo couch and a plank bed, and lay down to sleep.
Next day at dawn the Pilgrim went to saddle the horse, and Bajie to make up the loads. Old Wang further bade his wife get ready some pastry and hot water to send them off; and the three religious gave their thanks and took their leave.
“If anything untoward should befall you on the road,” said the old man, “be sure to come back again to my thatched house.”
“Old fellow, don’t talk foolishness,” said the Pilgrim. “We who have left the household do not walk a road twice.” And so they whipped up the horse, shouldered the pole, and went west.
Ah! On this going there could be no good road toward the Western Regions, and evil demons would surely send down a great calamity.
The three of them had not been half a day on the way when sure enough they came upon a high mountain, and by the look of it exceedingly steep. Sanzang’s horse came to the cliff’s edge; leaning aslant upon the precious stirrup he looked out, and truly there was this:
High — that is the mountain; sheer — that is the ridge;
steep — that is the scarp; deep — that is the gully;
sounding — that is the spring; fresh — that is the flower.
That mountain, is it high? Its crown goes up to the blue empyrean.
This ravine, is it deep? In the bottom of it one sees the courts of the dead.
Before the mountain are white clouds rolling and billowing, and strange rocks jagged and upstanding, and beyond all telling, a thousand zhàng and ten thousand, the Soul-Clutching Cliff.
Behind the cliff, winding and twisting, lies the Dragon-Hiding Cave; and within the cave, ting-a-ting and tang-a-tang, the Dripping-Water Crag.
And there one sees branching and forking the antlered deer; muddled and mazy the man-watching river-deer; coiling and curling the red-scaled python; frolicking and romping the white-faced ape.
At dusk, the tiger of Ba’s hills that hunts out its lair; at dawn, the dragon that churns the wave and rises from the water; and, as they climb, the cave-mouth sounds hu-la-la.
In the grass the flying birds go up pu-lu-lu; in the wood the running beasts pace off jü-lie-lie.
Of a sudden a pack of wolves goes past, and a man’s heart is startled ke-teng-teng with fright.
It is truly a dang-dao-dong, a dang-dang-dao-dong, a dong-dang-dang-dao-dong-dang of a mountain.
Green mineral pigment has dyed a thousand zhàng of jade; a blue gauze curtains ten thousand banks of mist.
The master slackened his grey-dappled mount, the Great Sage Sun stayed his cloud and slowed his pace, and Zhu Wuneng shifted his load and walked at leisure. They were still looking at the mountain when of a sudden they heard a whirlwind get up in a great blast.
Sanzang, on his horse, was frightened at heart. “Wukong, a wind is rising.”
“And what is there in a wind to fear?” said the Pilgrim. “It is the breath of Heaven’s four seasons. What is there in it to dread?”
“This wind is exceedingly evil,” said Sanzang. “It is not like the wind of heaven.”
“How can you tell it is not like the wind of heaven?”
“Look at this wind:”
Vast and rolling it comes with a hissing gust; boundless and dim, it issues from the blue empyrean.
Crossing the ridge, one hears only a thousand trees roar; entering the wood, one sees only ten thousand culms sway.
On the bank it shakes the willows to their very roots; in the garden it blows the blossom and bears off the leaf.
The fishing-boats that gather their nets make every cable fast; the passenger craft that drop their sails cast their anchors, all of them.
Halfway on the road the traveller loses his way; on the mountain the woodcutter cannot lift his load.
Among the fairy fruit-trees the monkeys scatter; in the thickets of rare blossom the deer flee away.
Before the cliff the junipers and cypresses go over one by one; below the ravine the pine and the bamboo shed leaf upon leaf.
It scatters the soil and flings up the dust till the sand goes flying; it overturns the river and stirs the sea till the billows roll.
Bajie came up and caught hold of the Pilgrim. “Brother, the wind is very great. We had best get under cover, and have done.”
The Pilgrim laughed. “Brother, you are no use at all. If we hide whenever the wind blows hard, what shall we do when we come face to face with a fiend?”
“Brother, have you never heard it said, ‘Shun lust as you would shun an enemy; shun the wind as you would shun an arrow’? If we take cover, we wrong nobody.”
“Say no more,” said the Pilgrim. “Let me take a handful of this wind and give it a smell.”
Bajie laughed. “There goes my brother telling his empty lies again. How should a wind be caught and brought over to be smelled? And if you did catch it, it would only bore its way out and be gone.”
“Brother, you do not know that Old Monkey has a method he calls the wind-catch.”
Excellent Great Sage! He let the head of the wind go past, caught its tail, drew it over and gave it a smell; and there was a rankness in it. He said, “It is no good wind indeed. The savour of this wind is no tiger’s wind. It must be a fiend’s wind, and there is certainly something strange about it.”
He had not finished speaking when, from under the slope of the mountain, with tail lashing and hooves flying, out sprang a striped and savage tiger. Sanzang was so alarmed that he could not keep his seat on the carved saddle: he went head over heels off the white horse and lay slumped beside the road, his soul flown and his spirit scattered.
Bajie flung down the luggage, drew out his muckrake, and, not letting the Pilgrim get in front of him, roared aloud, “Cursed beast, where are you going?” He rushed at it and struck straight down at its head. But the tiger reared bolt upright, raised its left forepaw, and hooked its claws into its own breast; it drew downward with a single rip, and with a slithering sound peeled the whole hide away, and stood at the roadside.
You may look at the evil shape of him. Ah! The look of him was this:
A body flayed raw and running with blood; legs and feet bowed round and hideously red.
Whiskers at either temple like flame, tangled and loose; brows stiff as driven stakes and standing bolt upright.
Four steel fangs, white and bristling; a pair of golden eyes with a glittering light.
A breath of fury as he strained and roared aloud; a bristling manliness as he shouted in a savage voice.
It shouted, “Softly, softly! I am no common person. I am the Vanguard of the Forward Road, under the Great King of Yellow Wind. Today, by the King’s strict command, I patrol this mountain, to take a few common mortals to serve up with the wine. What manner of monk are you, that you dare lift a weapon unbidden and wound me?”
Bajie cursed him. “Confound you for a cursed beast! It seems you do not know me. We are none of your passing mortals. We are disciples of Sanzang, Imperial Younger Brother of the Great Tang in the Land of the East, and we go west by decree to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures. Get you off betimes to some other quarter; clear the high road; do not startle my master, and your life is spared. But if you rage on as before, then where this rake comes down there will be no mercy in it.”
The fiend would hear no explaining. He stepped in close, threw himself into a posture, and clawed straight at Bajie’s face; and Bajie dodged it smartly and swung the rake down upon him. The monster had no weapon in his hands and turned to run; Bajie came after him; and when the monster reached a jumble of rocks at the foot of the slope, he took out two red-copper sabres, whirled them up, and turned to meet him. There before the slope the two of them went at it, thrust and counter-thrust, charge and countercharge, gaming their lives against each other.
Sun the Pilgrim raised the Tang Monk up. “Master, be not afraid. Sit here awhile, and let Old Monkey go and help Bajie. When we have knocked that monster down, we may be on our way.” Only then could Sanzang manage to sit up; and trembling, he began to recite the Heart Sutra to himself, of which no more.
The Pilgrim drew out his iron rod and roared, “Take him!” At this Bajie roused up his spirits, and the monster broke and gave ground. “Do not spare him,” said the Pilgrim. “He must be run down.” So the two of them swung up rake and rod and chased him down the mountain.
The monster lost his head, and used the stratagem of the golden cicada that sheds its shell: he turned a somersault, showed his true body, and was a savage tiger once more. But how should the Pilgrim and Bajie let him go? They chased the tiger, resolved to pull up the root of him. Seeing them come up close behind, the monster hooked his own breast again and peeled the hide away; he spread it over a crouching-tiger rock, slipped his true body free, turned into a gust of raging wind, and went straight back to the road-head. There he caught sight of the master, still reciting the Heart Sutra; and seizing him in one hand, he rode the long wind and carried him off.
Pity that Sanzang! River Float is fated to many a torment; in the gate of quiescent extinction, merit and practice come hard.
The monster brought the Tang Monk captive to the cave mouth, stilled his raging wind, and said to the door-keeper, “Go and report to the Great King that the Tiger Vanguard of the Forward Road has taken a monk, and waits outside the gate for orders.” The lord of the cave sent word that he was to be brought in.
The Tiger Vanguard, his two red-copper sabres thrust in his belt, held the Tang Monk up in both hands, came forward and knelt. “Great King, your unworthy officer, dispatched by your august command to patrol the mountain, fell in of a sudden with a monk. He is Sanzang, Master of the Law, Imperial Younger Brother under the throne of the Great Tang in the Land of the East, gone west to worship the Buddha and seek scriptures. I have taken him and present him, a poor dish for your table.”
The lord of the cave, hearing this, was startled. “I have heard it said before now, that Sanzang the Master of the Law is a holy monk of the Tang, gone for the scriptures by imperial command; and that under him is a disciple called Sun the Pilgrim, whose magic arts are vast and whose wit and strength are high. How were you able to take him?”
“He has two disciples,” said the Vanguard. “The one who came up first wields a nine-toothed muckrake, and is long of snout and large of ear; the other wields a gold-banded iron rod, and has fiery eyes and golden pupils. They were pressing your officer hard, when your officer used the stratagem of the golden cicada that sheds its shell, drew himself out and got his opening, and took this monk and brought him, and offers him to the Great King as a poor mark of respect, worth one meal.”
“Do not eat him yet,” said the lord of the cave.
“Great King, to see food and not eat it — is that not what men call a balking mule?”
“You do not understand. To eat him is no great matter; but I fear those two disciples of his will come to the door and raise a clamour, and that would hardly be safe. Let him rather be bound to the Wind-Stilling Post in the back garden. Wait three days or five; and if the two of them do not come to trouble us, why then, first, we shall have him with his body clean; and second, there will be no wagging of tongues; and shall we not then do just as we please? Boiled or steamed, fried or seared, there will be time enough to enjoy him at our leisure.”
The Vanguard was delighted. “The Great King plans deep and looks far. What he says is reason itself.” And he called, “You there, take him away.”
From the side seven or eight of the binding-men crowded up and carried the Tang Monk off, for all the world as a hawk carries a swallow, and trussed him with rope and wound him about with cord. This is indeed: bitter-fated River Float thinking upon the Pilgrim; the holy monk in his calamity longing for Wuneng.
He cried out, “Disciples! I know not on what mountain you are catching monsters, in what place subduing fiends, while I am taken by the demon chief and come to this cruel pass. When shall we look upon one another again? Bitter indeed! If you come betimes, you may yet save my life; if you are very late, I am past all saving.” So he sighed and lamented; and all the while his tears fell like rain.
Now the Pilgrim and Bajie had chased that tiger down the slope, and there they saw the tiger drop in its tracks and lie flat before the cliff. The Pilgrim raised his rod and struck with all his force, and the jarring of it set his own hands aching. Bajie followed with a stroke of the rake, and the teeth of the rake sprang back from it. For it was in truth a single tiger-hide, spread over a crouching-tiger rock.
The Pilgrim was greatly startled. “This is bad, this is bad! We have walked into his stratagem.”
“What stratagem of his have we walked into?” said Bajie.
“This is what is called the stratagem of the golden cicada that sheds its shell. He laid the tiger-skin over the place here, and himself made off. Let us go back and look to our master, lest he come to some cruel hand.”
The two of them hurried back; and Sanzang was already nowhere to be seen. The Pilgrim cried out like a thunderclap, “What is to be done? Our master has been carried off by him.”
Bajie took the horse by the rein at once, and the tears dripped from his eyes. “Heaven! O Heaven! And where are we to go looking for him?”
The Pilgrim raised his head. “Do not weep, do not weep. One weeping and the edge is off our spirit. In any case he must be somewhere on this mountain. Let us go and search and search.”
The two of them plunged into the mountain, crossed hummock and ridge, and after a good long march they saw, beneath a stone cliff, a cave-dwelling rising up. The two halted and looked their fill, and truly the place was fearful. Behold:
Piled barriers and pointed peaks; winding ranges and an ancient road.
Green pines and emerald bamboo, soft and drooping; willows and dark paulownia, slow and swaying.
Before the cliff, strange rocks stand two and two; within the wood, hidden birds are paired and paired.
The ravine’s water runs far and dashes on the rock wall; the mountain spring drips fine and floods the sandy dyke.
Wild clouds in flakes; magic herbs thick and green.
Fiend-foxes and cunning hares shuttle to and fro; antlered deer and musk-deer contend together in valour.
Split cliffs hang aslant with vines ten thousand years old; deep gullies bear, half suspended, cypresses a thousand years old.
Towering and lofty, it puts Mount Hua to shame; with falling blossom and crying birds it outdoes Mount Tiantai.
“Worthy brother,” said the Pilgrim, “set the luggage down in some wind-sheltered hollow of the mountain, turn the horse loose, and do not show your head. Let Old Monkey go to his gate and give him battle. Only when the fiend is taken can our master be saved.”
“There is no need to instruct me,” said Bajie. “Go, and go quickly.”
The Pilgrim straightened his cassock, tightened his tiger-skin kilt, drew out his rod, and strode up to the gate; and he saw upon it six great characters: YELLOW WIND CAVE ON YELLOW WIND RIDGE. He planted his feet in the shape of the character 丁, held up the rod, and shouted, “Monster! Send my master out betimes, and spare yourself the overturning of your nest and the trampling flat of your dwelling.”
The little fiends heard him, and every one of them was afraid; trembling, they ran within and reported, “Great King, there is trouble!”
The Yellow Wind fiend was sitting at his ease. He asked, “What trouble?”
“Outside the cave door there is come a monk with a Thunder God’s beak and a hairy face, holding in his hand an iron rod of such and such a thickness, and he is demanding his master.”
The lord of the cave was dismayed, and called for the Tiger Vanguard at once. “I sent you to patrol the mountain, and you should have taken no more than hill-oxen, wild boars, fat deer, and mountain sheep. Why must you take that Tang monk, and bring these disciples of his down here to make an uproar? How is the business to be managed?”
“Great King, set your heart at rest and be easy: sleep high and have no care,” said the Vanguard. “Your unworthy officer begs leave to take fifty of the little troopers out, and to fetch back this Sun the Pilgrim, or whatever they call him, to be eaten with the rest.”
“Besides the captains great and small, I have five or seven hundred troopers here,” said the lord of the cave. “Choose whom you please, and take as many as you will. Only lay hold of that Pilgrim, and we shall eat that monk’s flesh at our ease; and I will gladly swear brotherhood with you. But if you fail to take him, and take a hurt yourself instead, do not come at that time blaming me.”
“Rest easy, rest easy,” said the Tiger fiend. “Only wait till I come again.”
So he mustered fifty stout little fiends, beat the drums and shook out the flags, girt on his two red-copper sabres, came leaping out of the gate, and shouted in a savage voice, “What monkey monk are you, and where do you come from, that you dare stand hallooing and bawling in this place? What is your business?”
The Pilgrim cursed him. “You skin-shedding beast! What was that shell-sloughing trick of yours, that you carried off my master, and now turn round and ask me my business? Send my master out at once and fairly, and I will yet spare you that life of yours.”
“Your master is taken, and I took him,” said the Tiger fiend, “and he shall make a dish to go with my Great King’s rice. Know when to stand and when to fall, and go home. Otherwise you shall be taken too, and eaten along with him — and shall I not have bought one and been given another free?”
At these words the Pilgrim’s heart swelled with rage. His steel teeth ground and clashed; his fiery eyes rolled wide and round; he drew out the iron rod and roared, “How great are these arts of yours, that you dare talk so large? Do not run. Look to my staff!” And the Vanguard hastily raised his sabres to meet it.
Now this was no gentle bout. Each of them showed his power to the full. A fine slaughter:
That fiend was no more than a goose’s egg; Wukong was a goose-egg stone.
Copper sabres barred the Handsome Monkey King, as one might pile up eggs and pitch them at a rock.
How should crow and magpie contend against the phoenix? How should the pigeon dare face hawk and falcon?
The fiend blew wind, and ash filled all the hills; Wukong spat mist, and cloud bewildered the sun.
He could not stand three or five exchanges: the Vanguard’s waist went soft, and all his strength was gone.
He turned to fly and save his life; but Wukong pressed him to the death.
The Tiger fiend could not hold his guard, and turned his head and fled. But he had boasted before the lord of the cave, and dared not go back into it; so he made straight up the mountain slope to save his life. How should the Pilgrim let him go? Holding the rod, he came on after him for all he was worth, whooping and roaring, the noise of his shouting never ceasing, until he had chased him to the wind-sheltered hollow of the hills.
Just as he raised his head he saw Bajie there, pasturing the horse. Bajie, hearing of a sudden the whooping and the shouting, turned his head and looked; and it was the tiger fiend, run to a stand by the Pilgrim. So he let go the horse, lifted his rake, came in slantwise with his head down, and struck once.
Pity the Vanguard! He had slipped clear of the yellow silken net, and never knew that the man with the casting-net stood waiting. One stroke of Bajie’s rake, and nine holes gushed with fresh blood, and the whole head ran dry of its brains. There is a poem to prove it; the poem says:
Three years since, or five, he turned him to the orthodox school; he kept the fast, held to the plain fare, and woke to the true emptiness.
With a sincere heart he undertook to guard the Tang Sanzang; and newly come to the śramaṇa’s calling, he sets up this merit.
The Idiot set one foot on his backbone and, gripping the rake in both hands, struck him again. The Pilgrim saw it and was greatly delighted. “Brother, that is just the way of it. He led out some scores of little fiends and dared give battle to Old Monkey, and I beat him; and instead of running back into the cave he ran up here to look for his death. It is thanks to you that you caught him; otherwise he would have got clean away.”
“Was it he who raised the wind and carried our master off?” said Bajie.
“It was; it was.”
“And did you ask him what became of our master?”
“This fiend has our master in the cave, to make a dish of meat for some cursed king of theirs. Old Monkey lost his temper and fought him all the way up here — and it is you who have taken his life. Brother, this merit is reckoned yours. Do you go on keeping the horse and the luggage; and let me drag this dead fiend off, and go again to the cave door and give them challenge. We must take the old fiend himself, and only so can our master be saved.”
“There is reason in what my brother says,” said Bajie. “Go, then, go. If you beat this old fiend, drive him back up this way, and let Old Hog cut him off and kill him.”
Excellent Pilgrim! With one hand he carried the iron rod, and with the other he dragged the dead tiger, and made straight for the cave door. It was thus:
The Master of the Law, in his calamity, falls in with fiends; nature and disposition, being in accord, subdue the unruly demon.
But whether, going thus, he could subdue the fiend and rescue the Tang Monk, we do not yet know; and you must hear the next chapter told before it is explained.