The Great Sage rose into the air, vexed and sunk in gloom. He thought to go back to the Water-Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, but he feared the little fiends of his own cave would laugh at him — laugh that what had gone out of him had come back upon him, and that he was no vessel of a great man. He thought to make for the Palace of Heaven, but feared that within it he would not be suffered to stay long. He thought to make for the ocean isles, but was ashamed to face the immortals of the Three Islands. He thought to make for the Dragon Palace, but could not bring himself to go begging a favour of the Dragon King. Truly he had neither prop nor stay. Bitterly he reckoned with himself: “Enough, enough, enough. I shall go back and see my master after all; that is still the true fruit.”
So he pressed his cloud-head down and came straight before Tripitaka's horse, where he stood in attendance and said: “Master, forgive your disciple this once! Hereafter I shall not dare to do violence again — I shall receive the Master's instruction. By all means you still need me to guard you on the road to the Western Heaven.”
The Tang Monk saw him and made no answer at all. He reined in his horse and at once recited the Tight-Fillet Spell, turning it over and over, more than twenty times together. He cursed the Great Sage down onto the ground, and the fillet sank into the flesh a good cùn deep before he stopped his mouth and said: “You will not go back — what do you mean by coming to pester me again?”
Pilgrim could only cry: “Do not recite it, do not recite it! I have somewhere to live out my days — I only fear that without me you will not get to the Western Heaven.”
Tripitaka flew into a rage. “You baboon! You slaughter the living and destroy life, and how much you have dragged me into it. Now I truly want no more of you. Whether I get there or not is no concern of yours. Be off, be off! Delay a moment and I shall recite the true words again, and this time I will not stop my mouth until I have squeezed your very brains out.”
The Great Sage could hardly bear the pain, and seeing that his master would not relent, he had no help for it but to mount his cloud-somersault once more and rise into the air. Then suddenly he came to himself. “This monk has wronged my heart,” he said. “I shall go to the Cliff of Potalaka and lay the matter before the Bodhisattva Guanyin.”
Fine Great Sage! He wheeled his somersault about, and in less than an hour had reached the great sea of the southern ocean. He set down his auspicious light, went straight up to Mount Potalaka, and pushed into the Purple Bamboo Grove, where he met Mokṣa the Pilgrim coming toward him. Mokṣa made a bow and said: “Great Sage, where are you bound?”
“I want to see the Bodhisattva,” said Pilgrim.
Mokṣa led him at once to the mouth of the Tide-Sound Cave, where the Boy Sudhana also made a bow and said: “Great Sage, what brings you?”
“I have a matter to lodge with the Bodhisattva.”
Sudhana caught that one word lodge, and laughed. “What a sharp-tongued monkey! Still the same as the time I had hold of the Tang Monk and you got the better of me. Our Bodhisattva is a holy and good Bodhisattva of great mercy and great compassion, of great vows and the Great Vehicle, who rescues from bitterness and rescues from calamity, boundless and immeasurable. What fault is there in her, that you should lodge a complaint against her?”
Pilgrim's breast was already full of pent-up gall. He heard these words and felt the anger break out in his heart; with a single bark he shouted the Boy Sudhana back a step. “This little beast, who turns his back on right and forgets a kindness, is stupid indeed! In those days you played the monster and had made yourself a spirit, and it was I who begged the Bodhisattva to take you in, so that you might turn to the right and hold to it. Now you have won such bliss and long life, free and at your ease, of an age with Heaven itself — and still you do not bow your thanks to Old Monkey, but turn about and show me insolence like this. I came with a matter to lodge and beg of the Bodhisattva; how then do you say I am sharp-tongued and mean to lodge a complaint against her?”
Sudhana laughed to make amends. “Still the same hasty monkey! I was only making sport with you — how is it you change your face so fast?”
Just as they were talking, a white parrot came flying back and forth, and they knew the Bodhisattva was calling. Mokṣa and Sudhana went ahead to lead him in, and brought him below the Precious Lotus Throne. Pilgrim looked up and saw the Bodhisattva. He threw himself down and bowed, and could not stop his tears, which welled up like a spring; then he lifted his voice and wept aloud.
The Bodhisattva had Mokṣa and Sudhana raise him up. “Wukong, what grievous matter is there? Speak it out plainly. Do not weep, do not weep. I shall rescue you from bitterness and dispel your calamity.”
Pilgrim let his tears fall and bowed again. “In the years when I was a man, what insult did I ever take from anyone? Since the Bodhisattva delivered me from the calamity of Heaven, I have upheld the teaching at the Śramaṇa gate and guarded the Tang Monk on his way west to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures. Your disciple has thrown away his body and staked his life to deliver him from his demon-barriers — as though snatching brittle bone out of a tiger's mouth, or prising a living scale from a flood-dragon's back. I looked for nothing but to come home to the truth and its true fruit, to wash off my sins and cast out what was evil. How was I to know the elder would turn his back on right and forget a kindness, letting one whole span of good karma be lost in his confusion, never once looking into the bitterness of which was black and which was white?”
“Set out the whole cause of this black and white,” said the Bodhisattva, “and let me hear it.”
Pilgrim then took the beating and killing of the bandits from beginning to end and laid the whole of it out in detail: how, because the Tang Monk had taken it hard that so many men were struck dead, resentment had grown in his heart, so that he would not sort the black from the white but recited the Tight-Fillet Spell and drove him off several times; and how, with no road up to Heaven and no gate down into the earth, he had come expressly to lay the matter before her.
The Bodhisattva said: “The Tang Monk went west by imperial command, single-hearted in his resolve to hold to goodness as a monk, and he would never lightly injure a living thing. With powers as measureless as yours, why go to the trouble of striking so many bandits dead? Bandits though they were, and no good men, they had human bodies after all, and should not have been beaten to death. That is not the same as your monstrous birds and strange beasts, your goblins and spirit-demons. Those, killed, are set to your credit; these, having human bodies, killed, are set against you as a want of humanity. You had only to drive them off and scatter them, and you would naturally have saved your master. By my own judgment of the matter, the fault is still yours.”
Pilgrim held back his tears and knocked his head on the ground. “Granting that your disciple was in the wrong, he should still be allowed to set his merit against the offence, and should not be driven off like this. I beg the Bodhisattva of her great mercy to recite the Loosening-Fillet Spell, so that the golden band may be slipped off and handed back to you, and I may go back to the Water-Curtain Cave to save my life.”
The Bodhisattva laughed. “The Tight-Fillet Spell was handed to me by the Tathāgata himself. In the year he dispatched me to the Land of the East to seek out a scripture-pilgrim, he bestowed on me three treasures — the brocade cassock, the nine-ringed pilgrim's staff, and the three fillets, Gold and Tight and Prohibition. He imparted three spells in secret along with them, but there was never any Loosening-Fillet Spell at all.”
“If that is how it stands,” said Pilgrim, “I take my leave of the Bodhisattva.”
“And where will you go, when you have taken leave of me?”
“I shall go up to the Western Heaven, make my plea to the Tathāgata, and ask him to recite the Loosening-Fillet Spell for me.”
“Stay a moment. Let me look and see for you how the omens stand, fair or foul.”
“There is no need to look. Things being as unlucky as this is quite enough.”
“I am not looking at you,” said the Bodhisattva. “I am looking at the Tang Monk's fortune.”
Fine Bodhisattva! Seated upright on her lotus throne, she sent her mind through the Three Realms, gazed far off with the eye of wisdom, and swept the whole compass of the universe; and in an instant she opened her mouth and said: “Wukong, this master of yours will meet with an injury to his body before the moment is out, and before long he will come looking for you. Only stay here. Wait until I have spoken with the Tang Monk, and I shall have him go with you again to fetch the scriptures and bring the true fruit to completion.”
The Great Sage could only submit. He did not dare be forward, but stood in attendance below the Precious Lotus Throne; and of this, no more for the present.
Now the Tang elder, having driven Pilgrim off himself, had Bajie lead the horse and Sha Monk carry the load; and the four of them, counting the horse, had gone west not quite fifty lǐ when Tripitaka reined in. “Disciples, we left the village at the fifth watch, and then that Ban-Horse Plague put me in a temper. Half the day I have been hungrier and hungrier and thirstier and thirstier. Which of you will go and beg a little vegetarian fare for me to eat?”
“Master, please get down from the horse,” said Bajie, “and let me see whether there is any village nearby, and go to beg there.”
Tripitaka heard him out and slid down from the horse. The Idiot sprang up on his cloud-head and looked carefully from mid-air, but as far as he could see it was all mountain ridges, and there was no hoping for a house anywhere. He brought his cloud down again. “There is nowhere to beg. In the whole prospect there is not a farmstead.”
“If there is nowhere to beg,” said Tripitaka, “then get me a little water to quench my thirst, and that will do.”
“Then let me go down to the ravine on the south mountain and fetch some water.”
Sha Monk at once took out the alms-bowl and handed it to him, and Bajie held it up and rose away on cloud and mist. The elder sat by the roadside and waited a long while, and saw no one come back; and pitiable it was, his mouth dry and his tongue bitter, the thirst past bearing. There is a poem in witness of it. The poem says:
To guard the spirit and nourish the breath — this is what is called the essence;
disposition and nature were from the first one single endowment with form.
When the heart is disordered and the spirit darkened, the hundred ailments arise;
when the form withers and the essence fails, the prime of the Way topples.
If the Three Flowers do not come together, the toil is spent for nothing;
if the Four Great are left desolate, the striving is wasted.
Earth and Wood achieve nothing, Metal and Water are cut off —
with sloth like this, when will the dharma-body ever be brought to completion!
Sha Monk, standing by, saw that Tripitaka's hunger and thirst were past bearing and that Bajie had still not come back with the water. He could only make the baggage fast and tie the white horse securely. “Master, sit here at your ease, and let me go and hurry the water along.” The elder, his eyes full of tears, said nothing, and answered only with a nod; and Sha Monk mounted his cloud-light in haste and went off toward the south mountain as well.
That master of theirs, left to smelt and stew alone, was in extremity of misery. Just at the height of his distress he suddenly heard a loud noise, and the elder, startled, raised himself to look — and there was Sun Pilgrim, kneeling by the roadside, holding up a porcelain cup in both hands.
“Master, without Old Monkey you cannot come by so much as water. Here is a fine cup of cool water. Drink a mouthful and quench your thirst, and let me go off again and beg you some food.”
“I will not drink your water,” said the elder. “I will die of thirst where I stand, and I shall take that as my lot. I want no more of you. Go away.”
“Without me you will never reach the Western Heaven.”
“Whether I get there or not is no concern of yours. You wretched baboon, what do you mean by coming to pester me all the time?”
That Pilgrim's face changed. Rage and fury broke out of him, and he shouted abuse at the elder: “You hard-hearted bald wretch! You hold me utterly cheap.” He swung up the iron rod, flung the porcelain cup away, and brought the rod down with a grinding blow across the elder's spine. The elder fainted away on the ground and could not speak; and the other took the two blue felt bundles up in his hands, mounted his cloud-somersault, and was gone no one knew where.
Now Bajie, holding the alms-bowl up, made straight for the foot of the southern slope, and suddenly saw a thatched cottage in a fold of the hills. Earlier, when he had looked, the height of the mountain had hidden it and he had not been able to make it out; only now, coming up close, did he know it for a dwelling. The Idiot thought to himself: “If I go with an ugly face like this they will certainly be frightened of me — spirit and thought spent for nothing, and not a scrap of alms to be had. I had better change into something better-looking. I had better change into something better-looking.”
Fine Idiot! He pinched the finger-sign, recited a spell, gave his body seven or eight shakes, and turned into a monk sallow and bloated with a wasting sickness; and moaning and whimpering he edged up to the door and called: “Benefactor, there is rice left over in your kitchen, and there is a hungry man on the road. This poor monk has come from the Land of the East and goes west to fetch scriptures. My master is famished and parched on the road. If there is crusted rice or cold rice in the house, I beg you spare a little to save a mouth.”
As it happened the men of that household were away; they had all gone off to transplant the seedlings and sow the grain. There were only two women at home. They had just cooked the midday meal and ladled out two basins of it, and were making ready to carry it down to the fields; there was still some rice and some crust in the pot that had not yet been ladled out. The women saw how sick he looked, and heard him talking besides of coming from the East and going to the West, and feared he might be raving in a fever, or fall down and die at their door. So they bustled and fussed, took the leftover rice and crust, and gave him a brimming bowlful. The Idiot carried it back, resumed his own shape, and went straight along the old road.
Just as he was walking he heard someone calling out, “Bajie.” He lifted his head to look, and there was Sha Monk standing on the cliff shouting: “Over here! Over here!” He came down off the cliff and met him face to face. “There is good clear water in this ravine and you have drawn none. Where have you been off to?”
Bajie laughed. “When I got here I saw a house in a fold of the hills, and went and begged this bowl of cooked rice.”
“The rice will be wanted right enough,” said Sha Monk, “but the master's thirst has grown desperate. How are we to come by water?”
“Water is easy enough. Take the skirt of your robe and carry the rice in it, and let me use the alms-bowl to draw some.”
The two of them came back to the road in high spirits — and there was Tripitaka face down on the ground, fallen in the dust; the white horse loose from its halter, neighing long and plunging about by the roadside; and the baggage-load nowhere to be seen. Bajie was thrown into a panic, stamping his feet and beating his breast, and bawled out: “No need to say it, no need to say it! This will be the remnant of that gang Sun Pilgrim drove off. They have come here and beaten the master to death and carried off the baggage.”
“Go and make the horse fast first!” said Sha Monk. And then he could only cry: “What are we to do? What are we to do? This is what is meant by giving up halfway and stopping in mid-course.” He called out once: “Master.” His eyes streamed and he wept with a breaking heart.
“Brother, leave off weeping,” said Bajie. “Things have come to this, and we had best say no more about fetching scriptures. You keep watch over the master's remains, and let me ride the horse to whatever prefecture or department or county, village or market town there may be, and sell it for a few taels of silver, and buy a coffin, and bury the master; and then the two of us will each go our own way and break up the company.”
Sha Monk could not bring himself to give him up. He turned the Tang Monk's body over, laid his own face against his master's face, and cried out: “Master, master of bitter fate!” And then he saw warm breath coming from the elder's mouth and nose, and warmth in his breast, and called out again and again: “Bajie, come here! The master's life is not gone yet.”
Only then did the Idiot come up and raise the elder. He came round, groaned a while, and cursed: “That wretched baboon — he has beaten me to death.”
“Which baboon?” asked Sha Monk and Bajie.
The elder said nothing, and only sighed.
He got some water and drank a few mouthfuls, and only then said: “Disciples, no sooner had you gone than that Wukong came back to plague me again. I stood firm and would not take him back, so he struck me a blow with his rod and carried off the blue felt bundles, every one.”
Bajie heard it out, ground the teeth in his mouth till they rang, and felt the fire rise in his heart. “Insufferable, that wretched monkey! How dare he be so outrageous?” And he ordered: “Sha Monk, you attend on the master, and let me go to his house and demand the bundles back.”
“Do not lose your temper yet,” said Sha Monk. “Let us get the master to that house in the fold of the hills and beg some hot tea-broth, warm up the rice we begged earlier, put him to rights, and then go and look for him.”
Bajie did as he said. He helped the master up onto the horse, took the alms-bowl, carried the cold rice in his robe, and went straight to the door of that house. There was nobody at home there but an old woman, and when she suddenly caught sight of them she hurried out of the way. Sha Monk put his palms together and said: “Venerable mother, we are men sent by the Tang court of the Land of the East to go to the Western Heaven. Our master is somewhat unwell. We come to your house expressly to beg a cup of hot tea-broth, so that he may take a little food.”
“There was a monk with a wasting sickness here only just now who said he had been sent from the Land of the East,” said the old dame. “He has had his alms and gone. And now here is another one from the Land of the East? There is nobody at home. Go and try somewhere else.”
The elder heard her, leaned on Bajie, came down from the horse and bowed. “Venerable dame, this disciple has three disciples of his own, of one mind and one purpose, who are escorting me to the country of India, to the Great Thunderclap Monastery, to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures. It is only that my eldest disciple (he is called Sun Wukong) has been savage all his life and would not hold to the way of goodness, so I sent him back. I did not expect him to come stealing up on me and lay a blow of his rod across my back, and carry off my baggage, my robe and my bowl. Now I mean to send one of my disciples to look for him and get them back; and since the open road out there is no place to sit, I have come to your honoured house to rest a little while. As soon as the baggage has been fetched we shall be on our way, and I would not presume to stay long.”
“Only just now there was a sallow, bloated monk with a wasting sickness,” said the old dame. “He has had his alms and gone, and he too said he came from the Land of the East on his way west. How is it there is another party of you?”
Bajie could not keep in his laughter. “That was me. Because I was born with a long snout and big ears, I was afraid your household would take fright and give me nothing, so I changed myself into that shape. If you do not believe me — is that not your own crusted rice in my brother's robe?”
The old dame saw that the rice really was what she had given, and so did not turn them away, but let them sit down. She boiled a pot of hot tea and passed it to Sha Monk to soak the rice, and Sha Monk soaked the cold rice at once and handed it to his master. The master ate a few mouthfuls, and when he had steadied himself a good while he said: “Which of you will go and demand the baggage back?”
“The year before last, when the master drove him off, I went looking for him once, and I know his Water-Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit,” said Bajie. “Let me go, let me go.”
“You must not go,” said the elder. “That baboon was never on good terms with you, and your tongue is rough besides; a word or two out of place, some small slip, and he will strike you. Send Wujing.”
Sha Monk undertook it. “I will go, I will go.”
The elder charged him further: “When you get there, be sure to see how things stand. If he is willing to give you the bundles, then thank him — however feigned the thanks — and bring them away; and if he is not willing, on no account fall to quarrelling with him, but go straight to the Bodhisattva at the Southern Sea, lay the whole matter before her, and ask her to go and demand them of him.”
Sha Monk took in every point of it. Then he turned to Bajie. “I am off to look for him now. Whatever you do, do not fret and grumble; look after the master properly. And you are not to make a scene at this house either, or they may refuse to feed us. I shall go and come straight back.”
Bajie nodded. “I take your meaning. But when you go — whether you get them or not — come back quickly. Do not make it a sharp carrying-pole shouldering firewood, that slips off at both ends.”
So Sha Monk pinched the finger-sign, mounted his cloud-light, and made straight for the Eastern Continent of Superior Spirit. Truly it was a case of:
The body is here, the spirit has flown and no longer keeps its house;
there is a furnace and no fire in it — how shall the cinnabar be fired?
The Yellow Dame parts from her lord and goes to seek the Elder of Metal;
the Wood Mother waits upon a master and must put up with a sick face.
This going — who knows what day will bring him back;
this turn of things — hard to reckon when there will be a return.
The Five Phases in their generating and conquering run against the grain:
all waits upon the Mind-Monkey coming back within the pass.
Sha Monk went on through the upper air for three days and nights together, and so came to the Eastern Ocean, where he suddenly heard the sound of the breakers. He looked down, and truly it was black mist swelling to heaven and the shadowy vapour at its height, the dark deep swallowing the sun and the dawn light cold. He had no heart to stop and look, but went on past the fairy mountains, crossed over Yingzhou, and held east until he reached the marches of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. Riding the sea wind and treading the set of the water, after a long while he saw peaks ranked like halberds and sheer cliffs hanging like screens. Coming to the summit he set down his cloud, found the path, went on down the mountain and looked for the Water-Curtain Cave. As he stepped up closer he heard countless monkey-spirits in the mountain, clamouring and shouting in a flood.
He went nearer still and looked carefully again — and there was Sun Pilgrim, seated high on a stone terrace, holding a sheet of paper in both hands and reading it out in a clear ringing voice:
“Li, King and Emperor of the Great Tang in the Land of the East. By command given before the throne, Our sworn younger brother the holy monk Chen Xuanzang, Master of the Law, goes up to the Great Thunderclap Monastery on Sahā Spirit Mountain in the country of India in the west, expressly to do reverence to the Buddha Tathāgata and to seek the scriptures.
“Whereas We were beset by a sudden sickness and Our soul wandered in the courts of the dead; and whereas it was Our good fortune that the years allotted Us were found to run long, so that by the favour of the Lord of the Shades We were sent back to the living; We thereupon spread a great assembly of merit and set up a rite for the deliverance of the departed.
“And whereas We were greatly favoured by the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin, who saves from bitterness and saves from calamity, appearing in her golden body and showing that in the west there are Buddhas and there are scriptures able to ferry over the shades of the dead and set them free: We have therefore charged the Master of the Law, Xuanzang, to pass over a thousand mountains and seek out the scriptures and their gathas.
“Should he pass through the several states of the west, let them not cut off this good affinity, but act upon this rescript.
“Given on an auspicious day in autumn of the thirteenth year of the Zhenguan reign of the Great Tang. Rescript of the imperial presence.”
And after it, in another hand: “Since parting from the great country, and passing through its several states, I have taken along the way a first disciple, Sun Wukong the Pilgrim; a second disciple, Zhu Wuneng, called Bajie; and a third disciple, Sha Wujing, the monk.”
Having read it through, he began again from the top.
Sha Monk heard that it was the travel rescript, and could not hold back. He came forward and called out in a hard voice: “Elder brother, that is the master's rescript. What are you reading it for?”
That Pilgrim heard him and raised his head sharply. He did not recognise Sha Monk. “Seize him, seize him!” he called. The monkeys crowded round in a body, dragged and hauled Sha Monk up close, and shouted: “Who are you, that you dare come near our immortal cave?”
Sha Monk saw that his face had changed and that he would not own the acquaintance, and could only make his bow toward the seat above. “I report to my elder brother. Formerly it was truly the master's hasty temper: he blamed you wrongly, recited the spell over you several times, and drove you home. For one thing, we your juniors had not spoken up to smooth it over; and for another, we had gone to look for water and beg food because the master was hungry and thirsty. We did not expect that when elder brother came back with good intent, he would take it ill that the master held to the rule and would not keep him, and would knock the master down so that he lay senseless on the ground. And carried the baggage off. Afterwards we brought the master round, and I have come expressly to pay my respects to my elder brother. If you do not hate the master, and still remember the kindness of your deliverance in former days, then come back with your junior and the baggage to see the master, and let us go west together and bring this true fruit to completion; but if your resentment runs deep and you will not come, then by all means grant your junior the bundles, and elder brother may stay in the deep mountains and enjoy the mulberry-and-elm of his later years — and that too would truly be a way to suit us both.”
Pilgrim heard him out and laughed a cold laugh. “Worthy brother, this argument of yours does not suit me at all. I beat the Tang Monk and seized the baggage, and it was not because I would not go west, nor because I am fond of living here. I have now read the rescript through until I know it by heart. I shall go west myself to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures, and send them up to the Land of the East; the merit will be mine alone, and I shall make the people of the Southern Jambū Continent set me up as a patriarch and hand my name down for ten thousand generations.”
Sha Monk laughed. “Elder brother's words are not quite apt. From of old there has been no talk of a Sun Pilgrim fetching scriptures. Our Buddha Tathāgata made the three baskets of true scripture, and it was he who originally charged the Bodhisattva Guanyin to go to the Land of the East and seek out a scripture-pilgrim to come for them, and required us to toil over a thousand mountains and enquire through many states, and guard that scripture-pilgrim. The Bodhisattva said once: the scripture-pilgrim is a disciple of the Tathāgata's own gate, styled the Elder Golden Cicada. It was only because he would not listen to the Buddha Patriarch expounding the scriptures that he was demoted from Spirit Mountain and reborn in the Land of the East, and was made to attain the right fruit in the west and take up the great Way again. On the road he was bound to meet with demon-barriers like these, and so we three were released to be his guardians of the Law. If elder brother cannot get the Tang Monk to go, which Buddha Patriarch will hand the scriptures over to you? Would that not be a whole labour of spirit spent for nothing?”
“Worthy brother, you are muddled after all,” said that Pilgrim. “You know the one and not the other. You reckon that because you have a Tang Monk and are guarding him along with me, I have no Tang Monk of my own? I have chosen another holy monk of the Way here, and shall go and fetch the scriptures myself; Old Monkey will support him single-handed. What is there against it? I have already fixed on setting out early tomorrow morning. If you do not believe me, wait while I have them brought out for you to see.” And he called: “You little ones, be quick and ask the old master to come out.”
And sure enough they ran in and led out a white horse, and brought out a Tang Tripitaka; behind him followed a Bajie, carrying the baggage; and a Sha Monk, holding the priestly staff.
This Sha Monk saw it and flew into a rage. “I, old Sha, do not change my name when I walk nor alter my surname when I sit. Where is there another Sha Monk? Do not be insolent — take a stroke of my staff!” Fine Sha Monk! He raised the demon-quelling staff in both hands and brought it down full on the head of that false Sha Monk and killed him — and it turned out he was a monkey-spirit.
That Pilgrim was enraged. He whirled up the gold-banded rod, led the monkeys on, and had Sha Monk surrounded. Sha Monk charged east and battered west, fought his way out at the mouth of the path, and mounting cloud and mist made his escape. “This wretched monkey is past all bearing,” he said. “I shall go and lay it before the Bodhisattva.”
That Pilgrim, seeing that Sha Monk had killed a monkey-spirit and that the Sha Monk had been forced to flee, did not come after him. He went back into the cave and had the little ones drag the dead monster's carcass to one side, skin it, take the flesh and fry it, and bring out coconut wine and grape wine, and he and the troop of monkeys ate it all together. Then he picked out another demon monkey skilled in transformation, had him change into a Sha Monk once more, and set about training him afresh, meaning to go west; and of this, no more.
Sha Monk rode his cloud away from the Eastern Sea, travelled a day and a night, and came to the Southern Sea. As he went he saw Mount Potalaka not far off. He hurried on, brought his cloud and mist down low and looked — what a fine place it was! Truly:
Wrapping the mystery of Qián, enclosing the tract of Kūn.
Gathering in the hundred rivers, it bathes the sun and floods the stars;
drawing back all the currents, it breeds the wind and sets the moon rippling.
The tide rises, mounting and surging, and the great kun is transformed;
the waves turn, vast and rolling, and the giant ao swims.
Its waters run through to the sea of the north-west; its billows meet the true Eastern Ocean.
The four seas are linked in a single vein of the earth;
the isles and continents of the immortals have each their palaces.
Say nothing of a Penglai filling the earth — look rather on the cloud-cave of Potalaka.
What fine scenery!
On the mountain-top the rose-coloured light makes strong the prime essence;
below the crags an auspicious wind sets the moon's crystal rippling.
In the purple bamboo grove the peacocks fly;
on the green willow boughs the sacred parrots speak.
Jasper flowers and jade grasses are fair year upon year;
jewelled trees and golden lotuses come forth age upon age.
White cranes many a time turn toward the summit;
plain simurghs come time and again to the mountain pavilion.
Even the fish that swim there know how to cultivate the true nature;
they leap the billows and pierce the waves to hear the scriptures expounded.
Sha Monk walked slowly up Mount Potalaka, taking in the immortal scene. Then he saw Mokṣa the Pilgrim come to meet him face to face. “Sha Wujing, you are not guarding the Tang Monk on his scripture-quest — what business brings you here?”
Sha Monk finished his salutation. “I have a matter and have come expressly to seek audience with the Bodhisattva. I beg you, announce me, announce me.”
Mokṣa knew at once that he had come looking for Pilgrim, and said nothing whatever of it, but went in first and told the Bodhisattva: “Outside is the Tang Monk's junior disciple, Sha Wujing, come to pay homage.”
Sun Pilgrim, below the terrace, heard it and laughed. “This will be the Tang Monk in trouble for certain, and Sha Monk come to ask the Bodhisattva for help.” The Bodhisattva at once ordered Mokṣa to call him in from the gate.
This Sha Monk threw himself down and bowed; and the bowing done, as he raised his head and was just about to lay the whole matter before her, he suddenly saw Sun Pilgrim standing at her side — and without waiting to say a word he drew out the demon-quelling staff and struck straight at Pilgrim's face. This Pilgrim did not return the blow at all, but drew back and let it pass.
Sha Monk cursed him wildly: “You baboon, guilty of the Ten Evils and risen in rebellion! And now you come here to throw dust in the Bodhisattva's eyes.”
“Wujing, no hands!” the Bodhisattva shouted. “If you have a matter, tell it to me first.”
Sha Monk put up his treasure staff, bowed again below the terrace, and said to the Bodhisattva, still panting with anger: “This monkey has done violence the whole way along the road, past all reckoning. The day before yesterday, at the foot of a hillside, he beat two highway robbers to death, and the master reproached him. Then, past all expectation, we lodged that evening at the house of the chief of a band of thieves, and he beat a whole gang of them to death besides, and came holding up a man's head all dripping with blood for the master to see. The master was so startled that he tumbled off the horse, and scolded him a few words, and drove him home.
“After we had parted from him, the master's hunger and thirst grew too much for him, and he sent Bajie to look for water. He waited a long while and Bajie did not come, so he sent me to look for him too. Past all expectation, Sun Pilgrim saw that the two of us were away, came back, gave the master a blow with his iron rod, and carried off the two blue felt bundles. When we came back we brought the master round, and I came expressly to his Water-Curtain Cave to look for him and demand the bundles; but to my surprise he had changed his face and would not own me, and read the master's rescript over and over. I asked him what he was reading it for, and he said he would not guard the Tang Monk; that he meant to go west himself and fetch the scriptures and send them up to the Land of the East, so that the merit should be reckoned his, and he be set up as a patriarch and his name handed down through ten thousand ages.
“And I said: ‘Without a Tang Monk, which Buddha would hand the scriptures over to you?’ He said he had chosen a true monk possessed of the Way. And when they were brought out, there really was a white horse, and a Tang Monk, with a Bajie and a Sha Monk following behind. I said: ‘I am Sha the monk myself — where is there another Sha Monk?’ I went up and struck him a blow with my treasure staff, and he turned out to be a monkey-spirit. At that he led the whole troop to seize me, and I have come expressly to lay the matter before the Bodhisattva. I did not know he could ride the cloud-somersault and would be here before me. Nor do I know what fine words and flowery speech he has used to throw dust in the Bodhisattva's eyes.”
“Wujing, do not lay it on an innocent man,” said the Bodhisattva. “Wukong came here, and it is now four days; I have not once let him go back. How should he have any intention of engaging another Tang Monk and going off for the scriptures on his own?”
“But there is a Sun Pilgrim at the Water-Curtain Cave this very moment. How should I dare deceive you?”
“If that is so, do not fret. Let Wukong go with you to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit and take a look. What is true is hard to destroy and what is false is easy to be rid of; when you get there you will see for yourselves.”
The Great Sage heard her, and took leave of the Bodhisattva together with Sha Monk. And on this journey, where they were bound was:
Before the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, the black shall be parted from the white;
at the mouth of the Water-Curtain Cave, the true shall be told from the false.
In the end there is no knowing how the two were to be told apart; listen to the explanation in the next chapter.