We tell now how the fifty battered imps came tumbling into the cave, their banners torn and their drums split, and reported: “Great King! The Tiger Vanguard could not stand against that hairy-faced monk, and has been driven by him down the eastern slope.”
Hearing this, the old fiend was greatly vexed. He was bowing his head in silence, turning over some stratagem, when another imp — one of those who kept the front gate — came in and said, “Great King! The hairy-faced monk has beaten the Tiger Vanguard to death, and now drags him about before our gate, railing at us for a fight.”
At these words the old fiend grew more vexed still. “The wretch is past all knowing,” he said. “I had not, after all, so much as eaten his master; yet he turns about and kills the Vanguard of my house. Hateful! Hateful!” And he called out, “Bring my armour! I have only heard men talk of some Sun Xingzhe or other. Let me go out and see what manner of nine-headed, eight-tailed monk he may be. I shall take him and haul him in, and he shall answer with his life for my Tiger Vanguard.”
The imps hurried out with the armour. The old fiend girded himself trim and whole, snatched up a three-pronged steel trident, and at the head of his host went bounding out of the cave.
The Great Sage stood waiting outside the gate; and when he saw the fiend come striding forth, he was in truth a valiant sight. See how he was arrayed:
A golden helm that dazzled the sun; golden mail that gathered the light.
From the helm streamed a plume of mountain-pheasant tail; over the mail a gauze robe of pale goose-yellow.
The armour-cord, coiled dragon-wise, glittered with colour; the heart-guarding mirror blazed about his eye.
Boots of deerskin, dyed with pagoda-tree bloom; an apron of brocade, worked in willow-leaf pile.
In his hand a keen three-pronged steel trident — no lesser figure than the Illustrious Sage of old.
The old fiend came out through his gate and cried in a stern, high voice, “Which of you is Sun Xingzhe?”
The Pilgrim, the tiger-fiend’s hide trodden underfoot and the as-you-will iron rod held in his hand, answered, “Your Grandpa Sun is here. Send out my master!”
The fiend looked him over carefully, and saw that the Pilgrim was mean and stunted of body, gaunt of face, and not a full four chǐ in height. He laughed. “A pity! A pity! I had taken you for some champion no man could throw over. You are nothing but a sickly ghost, a skull and no more.”
The Pilgrim laughed too. “You son of mine, you have no eye in your head at all. Your Grandpa may be small, but if you will strike me one blow on the crown with the butt of that trident, I shall grow three chǐ.”
“Harden your head, then,” said the fiend, “and take a stroke of my shaft.” The Great Sage stood wholly unafraid, and the fiend did strike, one blow. The Pilgrim bent his waist in a bow, and grew a good three chǐ, so that he stood a zhàng in height.
In alarm the fiend held his trident still and shouted, “Sun Xingzhe! Why do you bring this body-guarding trick of transformation and play it off before my gate? No empty flourishes! Come forward, and let the two of us try our arts.”
The Pilgrim laughed. “My son, the common saying has it: he who spares does not raise his hand; he who raises his hand does not spare. Your Grandpa’s hand is a heavy one. I fear you will not bear this single stroke of my rod.”
The fiend would hear no argument. He whirled the steel trident about and thrust straight at the Pilgrim’s breast; and the Great Sage — for the practised man is never hurried, and the hurried man is never practised — brought his iron rod round, used the posture called Black Dragon Sweeping the Ground, knocked the trident aside, and struck again at his head. There at the mouth of the Yellow Wind Cave the two of them fought; and it was a fine slaughter:
The fiend-king in his fury; the Great Sage in his might.
The fiend-king in his fury would take the Pilgrim to answer for his Vanguard; the Great Sage in his might would seize the sprite and save the elder.
Trident comes, rod parries; rod goes, trident meets it.
The one, Grand Marshal who holds the mountain; the other, the Handsome Monkey King who guards the Law.
At first they fought amid the dust; afterwards each rose into the middle air.
The tempered steel trident, its points bright and keen; the as-you-will rod, its shaft black and its bands yellow.
Whom it pierces, his soul goes home to the shades; whom it strikes, he shall surely see King Yama.
All rests upon a quick hand and a quick eye; all requires a stout arm and a strong frame.
Both cast off life and forgot death in the fight; and who could tell which would come off whole, and which would take the wound?
The old fiend and the Great Sage fought through thirty bouts, and neither victory nor defeat was settled. Then the Pilgrim, wanting to show some feat, employed the art called the body-beyond-the-body: he plucked a handful of hairs from his hide, chewed them to fragments in his mouth, blew them upward, and cried, “Change!” They changed into a hundred and more Pilgrims, all in the same array, each gripping an iron rod, and they ringed the fiend about in the air.
The fiend took fright, and used an art of his own. Turning his head quickly, he faced toward the quarter of Xun, opened his mouth three times, and blew out a single breath with a huff; and of a sudden a yellow gale sprang up out of the empty sky. A fine wind it was, and truly terrible:
Chill and soughing, heaven and earth were changed; shadowless, formless, the yellow sand went round.
It pierced the woods, snapped the ridges, laid pine and plum flat; it scattered the soil, flung up the dust, brought the crags down.
Yellow River billows dashed and were muddied to the bed; Xiang River waters surged and turned their waves over.
The blue sky shook in the palace of the Dipper and the Ox; it all but blew the Hall of Judgment over.
Five hundred arhats raised a clamour to heaven; the eight great vajra-guardians shouted all together in confusion.
Mañjuśrī’s green-maned lion ran off; Samantabhadra’s white elephant was nowhere to be found.
Zhenwu’s tortoise and snake lost their company; Zitong’s mule had its saddle-flap blown loose.
Travelling merchants cried aloud and appealed to blue heaven; boatmen bowed low and vowed every vow they had.
Life on the misted waves went adrift in the surge; the last of fame and profit was settled by the water.
The immortals’ hills and grotto-courts were black and dim; the sea-isle of Penglai lay dark and dull.
Laozi could scarcely mind his elixir furnace; the Star of Longevity put away his dragon-whisker fan.
The Queen Mother, riding out to the peach feast, had skirt and waist-bangles blown into disorder.
Erlang lost his way to the city of Guanzhou; Nezha could not draw the sword out of its case.
The Heavenly King could not see the pagoda on his palm; Lu Ban let fall his gold-headed drill.
The precious towers of Thunderclap sank three storeys; the stone bridge of Zhaozhou broke in two.
The one wheel of the red sun was tossed and lost its light; the stars that filled the sky were all thrown into disorder.
Birds of the southern hills flew off to the northern hills; waters of the eastern lake spilled over into the western.
Cock and hen, torn from their pairs, called to each other no more; dam and young, driven apart, could scarcely cry out.
The Dragon King searched the whole sea for his yakṣa; the Duke of Thunder hunted everywhere for his Lightning.
The ten kings of the underworld sought after their judge; in the earth-prison Ox-Head chased after Horse-Face.
This wind blew Mount Potalaka over, and rolled up a scroll of Guanyin’s sutra.
White lotus blossoms were stripped away and flew along the shore; it blew the Bodhisattva’s twelve courts down.
From Pangu’s day to this a wind has been seen indeed, but never a wind that came so ill as this.
Hu-la-la! — heaven and earth were within a hair of bursting asunder, and ten thousand lǐ of rivers and hills together shook.
The fiend loosed this mad gale, and it whirled the little Pilgrims that the Great Sage’s hairs had become round and round in the middle air, for all the world like so many spinning-wheels; not one of them could manage to swing his rod, and how were they to gather their bodies together? In alarm the Pilgrim gave his hairs a shake and drew them back onto his body. Alone now, he lifted his iron rod and went forward to strike.
But the fiend blew a mouthful of yellow wind full in his face, and it scoured his two fiery eyes with golden pupils until they were shut fast and could not be opened. He could not wield the iron rod after that, and so he fell back from the field. The fiend gathered in his wind and returned to his cave, of whom no more.
We tell now how Zhu Bajie, seeing the yellow wind rise and heaven and earth go dark, held the horse, guarded the luggage-pole, and crouched down in a hollow of the hills, not daring to open his eyes, not daring to lift his head, muttering the Buddha’s name and making vows under his breath; nor did he know how the Pilgrim fared, whether he won or lost, or whether his master were alive or dead.
Just as he was at this anxious reckoning, the wind fell of a sudden and the sky cleared. He raised his head and looked toward the cave gate, but there was no glint of weapons there, and no sound of gong or drum. The Idiot dared not go up to the door; nor was there anyone to keep the horse and the baggage. It was hard to go forward and hard to go back, and he was in a wretched fright.
In the midst of his worrying he heard the Great Sage come hallooing from the west, and he rose to meet him. “Brother! What a great wind that was! Where have you come from?”
The Pilgrim waved his hands. “Terrible, terrible! In all my time as a living being I never saw such a wind. That old fiend took up a three-pronged steel trident and came to fight with me. We had fought some thirty-odd bouts when I used old Monkey’s trick of the body-beyond-the-body. We had him ringed and beaten, and he grew so desperate that he raised this wind. It was truly ferocious. It scoured me until I could not keep my feet, so I gathered in my art and fled before it. — Hen! What a wind! Hen! What a wind! Old Monkey can call up winds himself, and rains as well, and never a wind of mine was as ill as that fiend’s.”
“Brother,” said Bajie, “what of the fiend’s skill at arms?”
“He will pass,” said the Pilgrim. “His trident-play is orderly enough, and he fought old Monkey to a standstill. It is only that his wind is so ill; that makes him hard to beat.”
“If it is like that,” said Bajie, “how are we to rescue our master?”
“Rescuing our master can wait to be dealt with,” said the Pilgrim. “What I want to know is whether there is an eye-doctor hereabouts, to set my eyes to rights for me.”
“What is the matter with your eyes?” said Bajie.
“That fiend blew a mouthful of wind at me,” said the Pilgrim, “and it left the balls of my eyes aching sourly; and now the cold tears run down.”
“Brother,” said Bajie, “we are halfway up a mountain, the day is late, and it is idle to speak of eye-doctors when we have not so much as a lodging.”
“A lodging is not hard to come by,” said the Pilgrim. “I reckon that fiend will not dare to harm our master yet. Let us go up to the highroad, find some house to stop at, pass the night, and come back at daybreak tomorrow to subdue the demon.”
“Just so,” said Bajie, “just so.”
So he led out the horse, took up the luggage-pole, came out of the hollow and up onto the road. It was growing dusk by now, and they heard, from the southern slope below the road, the barking of a dog. The two of them stopped and looked. It was a farmstead, and there was the faint shining of a lamp in it. Caring nothing whether there was a path or none, they went through the grass and came straight to the gate of the house. And this was the sight:
Purple fungus in shadowed masses; white stone pale and bare.
Purple fungus in shadowed masses, and green grass thick between; white stone pale and bare, half of it under green moss.
A few points of firefly-light, glimmering; a stand of wild trees, ranked close together.
Fragrant orchid, richly scented; tender bamboo, newly set.
A clear spring runs in a winding gully; an ancient cypress leans on the deep cliff.
The place is remote, and no traveller comes to it; before the gate there is only the wild flower, opening.
The two of them did not dare to walk in unbidden, and could only call out, “Open the gate! Open the gate!”
Within there was an old man, and with him several young farmhands, who came out together with pitchforks and rakes and brooms, asking, “Who is there? Who is there?”
The Pilgrim bowed and said, “We are disciples of a holy monk from the Land of the East, the Great Tang. We were going west to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures, and passing this mountain we had our master taken from us by the Great King of Yellow Wind; we have not yet been able to rescue him. The day is late, and we have come to beg the loan of a night’s shelter of your house. We ask this kindness of you.”
The old man returned the bow. “Forgive us for meeting you so ill. This is a place of many clouds and few people, and hearing a knocking just now we feared it might be a fiend-fox, a tiger, or bandits from the hills; and so my foolish lads were rough with you, not knowing that it was two reverend elders. Come in, come in.”
The brothers led in the horse and carried in the luggage, went straight through to the inner rooms, tethered the horse and set down the pole, and made their bows to the old squire and sat down with him. A house-servant brought tea. When the tea was done, several bowls of sesame rice were set out; and when the meal was over, he ordered bedding laid for them to sleep.
“Not sleeping would do well enough,” said the Pilgrim. “But may I ask, good sir, whether in these parts there is anyone who sells eye-medicine?”
“Which of the reverend elders suffers in the eyes?” said the old man.
“I will not deceive you, sir,” said the Pilgrim. “We who have left the household life are never ill, and have never in our lives known what sore eyes are.”
“If you have no sore eyes,” said the old man, “why do you ask for medicine?”
“Today at the mouth of the Yellow Wind Cave, as we were rescuing our master,” said the Pilgrim, “that fiend blew a mouthful of wind at us unlooked-for, and it left the balls of my eyes aching sourly, and now they swim with tears; and that is why I want eye-medicine.”
“Mercy, mercy!” said the old man. “You are a reverend elder of tender years — why do you tell me lies? That Great King of Yellow Wind — his wind is the most terrible of all. It is no common wind: not the wind of spring or autumn, not the wind of the pines and bamboos, nor any wind of east or west or south or north…”
“It must be the wind of the brain,” said Bajie, “or the sheep’s-ear wind, or the great leprous wind, or the head-wind that takes one side or the whole of it?”
“No,” said the elder, “none of these. It is called the Wind of the Three Samādhis.”
“How can that be seen?” said the Pilgrim.
“That wind can blow heaven and earth into darkness,” said the old man, “and set the ghosts and spirits grieving; it cracks the stone and brings the cliff down; and a man’s life is finished at a breath of it. Should you meet with that wind of his, and it blow upon you — could you hope to be alive? Unless you were an immortal, there would be no coming off unhurt.”
“Just so,” said the Pilgrim, “just so. We are not immortals, to be sure — the immortals are our juniors. This life of mine is not to be finished in a hurry. It is only that the wind has left the balls of my eyes aching sourly.”
“If that is how it stands,” said the old man, “you are a person of some origin after all. In this poor place of mine there is no one who sells eye-medicine. But I too have the cold tears that come with the wind, and I once met an extraordinary man who taught me a prescription. It is called the Three-Flower Nine-Seed Ointment, and it can cure every disorder of the eyes brought on by wind.”
Hearing this, the Pilgrim bowed his head and made a salutation. “I beg a little of it, to try upon my eyes.”
The old man consented, and went inside, and brought out a small jar of agate stone. He drew the stopper, took up a little of the salve on a jade hairpin, and applied it to the Pilgrim’s eyes, bidding him not to open them, but to lie quiet and sleep, and by morning all would be well. When he had applied it, he put the stone jar away and led his servants back into the inner rooms.
Bajie untied the bundles, spread out the bedding, and invited the Pilgrim to lie down. The Pilgrim, with his eyes shut, groped about him at random.
Bajie laughed. “Fortune-teller,” he said, “and where is your blind man’s staff?”
“You swill-swallowing Idiot!” said the Pilgrim. “So you would have me play the blind man, would you?”
The Idiot laughed to himself with a stifled cackle and went to sleep. The Pilgrim sat up on the bed, turning his spiritual power within him, and it was past the third watch before he lay down.
Before he knew it, the fifth watch was drawing toward dawn. The Pilgrim rubbed his face, opened his eyes, and said, “Good medicine indeed! I see a hundredfold more brightly than before.”
But when he turned his head and looked behind him — why! Where were the house and the rooms and the windows? He saw nothing but old locust trees and tall willows, and his brothers asleep on the green turf.
Bajie woke. “Brother, what are you shouting about?”
“Open your eyes and look,” said the Pilgrim.
The Idiot lifted his head of a sudden, saw no house at all, and scrambled up in a fright, rolling over as he went. “And where is my horse?” he cried.
“Is that not it tied to the tree?” said the Pilgrim.
“And the baggage?”
“Is that not it, lying at your head?”
“This family is a shabby lot,” said Bajie. “They have moved, and never so much as called out to us. Had they let old Hog know, I would have sent you off with a few cakes and some tea. They must have been running from the tax-rolls, and were afraid the headman would find them out, and so they moved by night. — Ah! And we slept too dead. How could they pull the house down and we never hear so much as a sound of it?”
The Pilgrim laughed through his teeth. “Idiot, do not carry on so. Look — what is that paper slip on the tree?”
Bajie went up, pulled it off with his hand, and there upon it were four lines of a gāthā, which said:
This dwelling was no dwelling of ordinary men: the dharma-guarding Saṃghārāma raised the hut by transformation.
The excellent medicine was given to heal your eyes; bend your whole heart to subduing the fiend, and do not hesitate.
“These are that crowd of stubborn spirits,” said the Pilgrim. “Ever since they gave us the dragon-horse I have not once called their names, and now here they are playing their empty tricks again.”
“Brother, do not give yourself airs,” said Bajie. “What should make them answer to your roll-call?”
“Little brother, there is much you do not know,” said the Pilgrim. “These dharma-guarding Saṃghārāma, the Six Ding and Six Jia, the Guardians of the Five Quarters and the Sentinels of the Four Watches all serve under the Bodhisattva’s command, and guard our master in secret. From the day they reported their names, I have had you with me all this while, and I have not once had need of them; and that is why I have not called the roll.”
“Brother, if they have orders to protect our master in secret,” said Bajie, “then of course they cannot show themselves openly, and so they conjured up that farmstead for us. Do not take it ill of them. Yesterday it was they who put the medicine in your eyes, and they too who saw us fed with a meal of fasting food; that is bending the whole heart, I should say. Do not take it ill of them. Let us go and rescue our master.”
“Little brother, you speak well,” said the Pilgrim. “It is not far from here to the mouth of the Yellow Wind Cave. Do not stir yourself, but stay here in the wood, watch the horse, and keep the luggage. Let old Monkey go into the cave and listen for news, and find out what has become of our master; then I will fight him again.”
“That is just it,” said Bajie. “Get us a sure word of it, dead or alive. If our master is dead, each of us can go and seek his own fortune; and if he is not dead, we can put out our whole strength and give him all our hearts.”
“Enough of this loose talk,” said the Pilgrim. “I am going.”
He gave his body a leap and came straight to the fiend’s gate, and the gate was still shut, for they were sleeping within. The Pilgrim did not call at the door, and would not disturb the fiends. He made the finger-sign, spoke a spell, shook himself, and changed into a speckle-legged mosquito, a very neat small thing. There is a poem to prove it. The poem says:
A shape too small to trouble with, and a sharp proboscis; a thin singing voice, and it comes like thunder.
Through orchid chamber and gauze bed-curtain it passes at its ease, loving best the warm airs of the burning summer.
It fears only the smoke and the beating fan, and dotes upon the brightness of the lamp.
Light, light, and small, small, and far too quick at boring in — it flew into the fiend’s cave.
He saw the imp who kept the gate snoring where he lay, and the Pilgrim stung him once on the face. The little imp rolled over and woke. “Oh, my father!” he said. “What a monstrous mosquito. One bite, and it has raised a great lump on me.” Then he opened his eyes suddenly and said, “It is light.” And there came the creak of a hinge, and the second gate was opened.
The Pilgrim went whining in, and saw the old fiend giving orders that every gate be watched closely, and on one side of the hall that the weapons be got ready. “I am afraid,” said he, “that yesterday’s wind did not blow that Sun Xingzhe dead. He will certainly come again today; and when he does, I shall make an end of his life.”
Hearing this, the Pilgrim flew on across the hall and came round to the back, where he found an inner door shut very fast. He crawled in through the crack of the door, and found beyond it a great empty garden, and on one side of it the Wind-Stilling Post, and the Tang monk bound to it with cord and rope. The master’s tears were falling thick, and his heart was full of nothing but Awakened to Emptiness and Awakened to Power, and where they might be he did not know.
The Pilgrim folded his wings, alighted on the bald crown of his head, and called out, “Master.”
The elder knew his voice. “Wukong,” he said, “how I have longed for you! Where are you, that you call to me?”
“Master, I am on your head,” said the Pilgrim. “Do not fret, and do not vex yourself. We shall certainly take this fiend, and then and only then can we save your life.”
“Disciple,” said the Tang monk, “when will you take the fiend?”
“That tiger-fiend who carried you off is already beaten to death by Bajie,” said the Pilgrim. “It is only the old fiend’s wind that is so terrible. I reckon it will be today. Depend upon it, we shall take him. Set your heart at rest and do not weep. I am going.”
No sooner said than done: he went whining to the front of the cave, and there was the old fiend sitting above, calling the roll of the captains of every quarter. Then he saw a little imp come in from before the cave, waving a pennant with the character for Orders on it, and running up into the hall to report:
“Great King, your servant was patrolling the mountain, and had not long come out when he saw a long-snouted, big-eared monk sitting in the wood. Had I not run rather fast, he would very nearly have caught me. But of the hairy-faced monk of yesterday I saw nothing.”
“If Sun Xingzhe is not there,” said the old fiend, “then he was surely blown dead by the wind; or else he has gone off somewhere to beg divine soldiers of someone.”
“Great King,” said the imps, “if he was indeed blown dead, that is our good fortune; but if by chance the wind did not kill him, and he goes and asks for divine soldiers, what shall be done then?”
“What are these divine soldiers to me?” said the old fiend. “If there is one who can still my wind, it is only the Bodhisattva Lingji, and nobody else. Whom else need I fear?”
The Pilgrim, up on the roof-beam, heard this one sentence of his and was beyond measure delighted. He drew himself up at once and flew out, resumed his true form, came into the wood, and called, “Brother!”
“Elder brother, where have you been?” said Bajie. “A little while ago a fiend carrying an Orders pennant came by, and I chased him off.”
The Pilgrim laughed. “Well done, well done. Old Monkey changed himself into a mosquito and went into his cave to spy out our master; and there was our master, tied by him to the Wind-Stilling Post and weeping. It was old Monkey who told him to stop weeping. Then I flew up onto the roof-beam and listened a while, and there came the fellow with the Orders pennant, panting and blowing, walking in to report that you had chased him and that of me there was no sign. The old fiend guessed this way and that, and said that old Monkey had been blown dead by the wind, and then that he had gone to fetch divine soldiers. And then, of his own accord, he named a man in evidence. Very good! Very good!”
“And whom did he name?” said Bajie.
“He said that he feared no divine soldiers,” said the Pilgrim, “and that there was only one who could still his wind, and none but the Bodhisattva Lingji. — But I do not know where Lingji lives.”
Just as they were talking it over, they saw an old man come out onto the highroad. Look at him, and see what manner of figure he was:
Hale in body, he leaned on no staff; his beard was ice, his temples snow, and both were wild.
Golden flowers dazzled his eyes and his mind seemed clouded; his bones were lean, his sinews withered, and yet he was strong and firm.
Bent-backed, head lowered, he went at a slow pace; his brows were heavy and his face was red as a child’s.
Look at his countenance, such as men praise: he was for all the world the Star of Longevity come out of his cave.
Bajie saw him and was greatly pleased. “Elder brother,” he said, “the common saying has it: if you would know the road below the hill, ask the man who has come along it. Go up and ask him a word, why not?”
So the Great Sage put away his iron rod, let down the skirt of his robe, went up and called out, “Venerable sir, I salute you.”
The old man returned the bow with half a bow, and said, “Where do you come from, monk? What business have you in this open waste?”
“We are holy monks who go to fetch the scriptures,” said the Pilgrim. “Yesterday we lost our master in this place, and I have come to ask you a word: where does the Bodhisattva Lingji dwell?”
“Lingji lies due south,” said the old man, “and it is three thousand lǐ from here to there. There is a mountain, called Little Mount Sumeru; and in that mountain is a place of the Way, which is the Bodhisattva’s monastery for the exposition of the scriptures. Is it his scriptures you go to fetch?”
“It is not his scriptures,” said the Pilgrim. “I have a business to trouble him with, and do not know by which road to go.”
The old man pointed south with his hand. “This sheep’s-gut path is the one,” he said. And when he had thus tricked the Great Sage into turning his head to look at the road, the old man changed into a pure wind and was gone without a sound. Only, on the roadside, he had left behind a slip of paper, and on it were four lines of a gāthā, which said:
A word for the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, that he may hear: the old man was none other than Li Changgeng.
On Mount Sumeru there is a Flying-Dragon Staff; Lingji received it, in that year, as a soldier of the Buddha.
The Pilgrim took up the slip and turned back down the road. “Brother,” said Bajie, “our luck has been low these several days running. Twice now in broad daylight we have seen ghosts. Who was that old man who went off as the wind?”
The Pilgrim handed him the slip, and when he had read it through once, Bajie said, “And who is Li Changgeng?”
“That is the style and title of the Planet Venus, the Great White Star of the West,” said the Pilgrim.
Bajie was so alarmed that he bowed down toward the empty sky. “Benefactor! Benefactor! Had old Hog not been beholden to the Star of Gold for pleading his case before the Jade Emperor, he does not know what he would have been turned into, life and all.”
“Little brother, it seems you know a debt when you owe one,” said the Pilgrim. “But do not show yourself. Hide in the deep of this wood, and keep close watch over the baggage and the horse. Let old Monkey go and find Mount Sumeru, and ask the Bodhisattva to come.”
“I understand, I understand,” said Bajie. “Only go, and go quickly. Old Hog has learnt the tortoise’s art: when it is time to pull the head in, he pulls it in.”
The Great Sage leapt up into the air, mounted his cloud-somersault, and went off due south; and truly he was swift: with one nod of his head he passed three thousand lǐ, and with one twist of his waist eight hundred more. In a moment he saw a high mountain, and halfway up it auspicious clouds appeared, and lucky vapours lay thick. In a fold of the hills there was indeed a monastery, and he heard the bell and the chime-stone sounding far off, and saw the incense-smoke drifting.
The Great Sage came up to the gate, and there was a Daoist attendant with a string of beads about his neck, reciting the Buddha’s name. “Attendant, I salute you,” said the Pilgrim.
The attendant bowed and returned the courtesy. “And whence comes your worship?” he said.
“Is this the place where the Bodhisattva Lingji expounds the scriptures?” said the Pilgrim.
“It is indeed,” said the attendant. “What have you to say?”
“May I trouble you, sir, to carry in a word for me,” said the Pilgrim. “I am the disciple of the Dharma Master Sanzang, the sworn brother of the emperor of the Great Tang in the Land of the East, and my name is Sun Wukong the Pilgrim, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven; and I have a business, and would see the Bodhisattva.”
The attendant laughed. “Your worship has many words and many titles, and I cannot remember them all.”
“Then say only that Sun Wukong, the Tang monk’s disciple, has come,” said the Pilgrim.
The attendant did as he was bid, and went up to the lecture hall to make report. The Bodhisattva put on his cassock at once, added incense, and came to meet him. The Great Sage had but stepped through the gate and looked within, when he saw this:
Brocade filled the hall; awe filled the chamber.
The assembled disciples chanted the Lotus Sutra together, and the old precentor struck lightly on the cast-gold chime.
Before the Buddha the offerings were all immortal fruit and immortal flowers; on the tables were set out none but meatless dishes and meatless viands.
Splendid candles: strand by strand their golden flames shot into rainbows; fragrant true incense: coil by coil its jade smoke flew into coloured mists.
This was the very thing: the lecture done, the mind at leisure, and entering upon meditation, while the white clouds passed in flakes around the pine-tops.
In stillness they gathered in the sword of wisdom, and the head of the demon was cut off; by prajñā and pāramitā, the good assembly was raised on high.
The Bodhisattva straightened his robe and came out to receive him. The Pilgrim went up into the hall, took the guest’s seat, and tea was ordered.
“Do not trouble to offer tea,” said the Pilgrim. “My master is in distress on the Mountain of Yellow Wind, and I have come to beg the Bodhisattva to put out his great dharma-power, subdue the fiend, and save him.”
“I received the Tathāgata’s decree to hold down the Yellow Wind Fiend in this place,” said the Bodhisattva, “and the Tathāgata bestowed on me a Wind-Stilling Pill and a Flying-Dragon precious staff. At that time I took him, and spared his life, and let him go to hide his nature and return to the mountain, upon condition that he should do no killing and work no sin. I did not know that today he means to injure your master. He has broken the terms of the decree, and the fault is mine.”
The Bodhisattva would have kept the Pilgrim, and set out a fast for him, and talked with him; but the Pilgrim earnestly declined, and taking up the Flying-Dragon Staff, he mounted the clouds with the Great Sage together.
In no long time they were above the Mountain of Yellow Wind. “Great Sage,” said the Bodhisattva, “this fiend has some fear of me. I shall keep my station here at the edge of the cloud. Go down and challenge him, and draw him out; then I can put forth my power.”
The Pilgrim did as he was bid. He brought his cloud down, and without a word of parley he swung out his iron rod and broke the door of the cave to pieces. “Fiend,” he cried, “give me back my master!” In a fright the imp who kept the gate ran in to report.
“This wretched ape is truly past all manners,” said the fiend. “He will not submit to reason, and now he has broken down my door. This once I go out, I shall raise my spirit-wind, and I will have him blown dead.” He put on his armour as before, snatched up his steel trident, and came out through the gate again.
He saw the Pilgrim, and would not stop to talk, but whirled the trident and thrust at his breast; and the Great Sage slipped aside from it. He raised his rod and paid him back face to face; and they had not fought many bouts before the fiend turned his head away and looked toward the quarter of Xun, and was just about to open his mouth and call the wind —
when up in the middle air he saw the Bodhisattva Lingji cast the Flying-Dragon precious staff down. What spell he spoke over it nobody knew. But it was a golden dragon with eight claws, which spread two of them with a rush, snatched the fiend up in one grip, took him by the head, shook him two or three times, and dashed him down on the rock of the cliff-side; and there he took on his true form, and it was a marten with yellow fur.
The Pilgrim ran up and raised his rod to strike, but the Bodhisattva held him off. “Great Sage,” he said, “do not take his life. I must still carry him to see the Tathāgata.”
And he said further, “He was in truth a rat who had gained the Way, living at the foot of Vulture Peak; and because he stole the pure oil out of a glass lamp, so that the lamp burned dim, and because he feared the vajra-guardians would take him, he ran away, and here he set up as a spirit and worked mischief. The Tathāgata beheld him and saw that he was not guilty to the death, and so he made me his warden — but now that he has killed and worked sin, he shall be brought up to Vulture Peak. And today he has affronted the Great Sage besides, and betrayed the Tang monk to his ruin. I shall take him to see the Tathāgata, and have his offence made plain and pronounced upon; and only then may this be reckoned an achievement.”
Hearing this, the Pilgrim thanked the Bodhisattva. And the Bodhisattva returned to the west, of whom no more.
Now we tell how Zhu Bajie, in the wood, was thinking of the Pilgrim, when he heard a shout from below the mountain slope: “Brother Awakened to Power! Bring the horse and the luggage-pole!” The Idiot knew the Pilgrim’s voice. He gathered his things in haste and ran out of the wood, and seeing the Pilgrim he said, “Elder brother, how did the business go?”
“I begged the Bodhisattva Lingji,” said the Pilgrim, “and he used a Flying-Dragon Staff and took the fiend; and it turned out to be a yellow-furred marten grown into a spirit, and the Bodhisattva has carried him off to Vulture Peak to see the Tathāgata. Come with me into the cave now and rescue our master.” And then the Idiot was full of joy.
The two of them charged inside, and that whole nest of cunning hares, fiend-foxes, musk-deer and antlered stags they beat to death, every one of them, with a fall of the muckrake and the iron rod; and then they went round to the back garden to bow to their master and set him free.
The master came out through the door and asked, “How did the two of you take the fiend? And by what means was I saved at last?” The Pilgrim laid out for him the whole matter of begging Lingji to come and subdue the demon, and the master thanked him beyond all thanking.
The brothers gathered up such fasting food as was in the cave, prepared a little tea and rice and ate it, and only then went out through the gate and found the highroad, and went away to the west.
In the end there is no knowing what came after; you must listen to the next chapter, and it will be explained.