The Pilgrim and Sha Monk took their leave of the Bodhisattva, raised two shafts of auspicious light, and quitted the Southern Sea. Now the Pilgrim's cloud-somersault was swift and the Sand Monk's immortal cloud was slow to the feel, so the Pilgrim would go on ahead. Sha Monk caught hold of him. “Elder Brother, there is no need of this hiding of the head and showing of the tail, of going on first to lay a root. Wait for your younger brother, and we shall go together.” The Great Sage was of an honest heart at bottom; Sha Monk, however, harboured a doubt. Truly the two of them mounted the clouds and went together, and in no great while the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit came into view.
They pressed down their cloud-heads and looked closely from outside the cave. Indeed they saw a Pilgrim seated high upon the stone terrace, drinking wine and making merry with the host of monkeys. His likeness differed in nothing from the Great Sage's: his too was the yellow hair and the golden fillet, the fiery eyes with golden pupils; on his body too a direct-cut robe of cotton cloth, at his waist a tiger-skin kilt made fast; in his hand too he held a golden-hooped iron rod; on his feet too he trod a pair of deerskin boots; and his too was this same hairy face and thunder-god's beak, the sunken cheeks and the jutting Saturn of a nose, the splayed ears and broad crown, the fangs growing outward.
The Great Sage's rage broke out. With a fling of his hand he left the Sand Monk behind, drew out his iron rod, went forward and railed at him. “What manner of fiend are you, that you dare take on my appearance, dare seize my children and grandchildren, usurp my immortal cave and arrogate to yourself this authority?” That Pilgrim, seeing him, made no answer at all, but likewise used his iron rod to meet him.
The two Pilgrims closed in one place, and truly there was no telling true from false. A fine fight it was:
Two rods of iron, two ape-sprites,
this bout of matched foes was no light thing.
Both would guard and uphold the Tang Imperial Brother,
each plied his merits to set up a hero's name.
The true ape in truth received the teaching of the Śrāmaṇa gate;
the false monster falsely laid claim to the Buddha-son's feeling.
Because their spirit-powers were many in transformation,
with no true and no false the two stood level.
The one was the Primal-Unity Breath, Sage Equal to Heaven;
the one was a long-refined thousand-spirit earth-shrinking sprite.
This one had the As-You-Will gold-hooped rod;
that one had a follow-the-heart iron-shafted arm.
Parrying and blocking, there was no victory or defeat;
propping and withstanding, there was no losing or winning.
At first they crossed hands outside the cave;
in a little while the contest rose into mid-air.
The two of them each trod their cloud-light and leapt fighting up into the ninefold empyrean. Sha Monk stood by and dared not put out a hand. Seeing them do battle in this one bout, he found in all sincerity that true and false could not be told apart. He would have drawn his blade to help, but feared he might wound the true one. Having borne it a good while, he leapt down the mountain cliff instead, used his demon-quelling treasure staff, beat his way up to the outside of the Water-Curtain Cave, scattered the throng of fiends in fright, overturned the stone benches, and smashed to pieces every vessel they had been drinking and eating from. Then he looked for their blue felt bundle, but in all four directions it was nowhere to be seen.
Now this Water-Curtain Cave of theirs was in origin a single cataract of flying spring-water, hung across the cave mouth to screen it. Seen from afar it resembled a single curtain of white cloth; seen from near it was a single vein of water. Hence its name, the Water-Curtain Cave. Sha Monk did not know the way of getting in, and for that reason found the searching hard. So he mounted his cloud at once, hastened up into the ninefold empyrean, brandished his treasure staff, and yet again could not well put out a hand.
The Great Sage said: “Sha Monk, since you can lend no strength to it, go back and report to our master. Tell him such and such of us, and that old Sun will fight this fiend up to the Bodhisattva on Potalaka Mountain in the Southern Sea and there have the true and false told apart.” When he had done speaking, that Pilgrim said the very same thing. Sha Monk saw that the two of them, in appearance and in voice, had not so much as a hair's difference between them. Black and white could not be told apart, and he could only do as he was bidden: he turned his cloud-head about and went back to report to the Tang Monk — of which no more here.
Look at those two Pilgrims: going and fighting as they went, they came straight down to the Southern Sea and made directly for Potalaka Mountain, striking and reviling, their shouting never once breaking off. Early on they startled the Dharma-guarding devas, who at once reported into the Tide-Sound Cave: “Bodhisattva, sure enough two Sun Wukongs have come fighting hither.” That Bodhisattva, with Mokṣa the Pilgrim, the Boy Sudhana and the Dragon Maiden, came down from the lotus dais and called out at the door: “Where are you going, you cursed beasts?”
The two of them, gripping each other by turns, said: “Bodhisattva, this fellow does indeed resemble your disciple's own likeness. We fell to fighting from the Water-Curtain Cave onward, and have battled a long while without dividing victory from defeat. Sha Wujing's fleshly eyes are dull and benighted; he could not tell us apart, and having strength could yet lend no help. So your disciple bade him go back to the westward road and report to our master. I have fought this fellow all the way to your treasure mountain to borrow the Bodhisattva's eye of wisdom, that she may tell your disciple's true from false and make plain which is deviant and which upright.”
When he had done speaking, that Pilgrim said the very same thing over again. The host of devas and the Bodhisattva looked a good while together, and could not by any imagining tell them apart. The Bodhisattva said: “Let go your hands for now, stand down on either side, and let me look again.” Sure enough they let go, and stood firm on either side. This side said: “I am the true one.” That side said: “He is the false one.”
The Bodhisattva summoned Mokṣa and Sudhana forward and quietly instructed them: “Each of you take hold of one of them. Let me silently recite the Tight-Fillet Spell; watch which one suffers pain — that is the true one — and the one who does not is the false.” The two of them did indeed each take hold of one. The Bodhisattva silently recited the true words. Both of them cried out in pain together, both clutched their heads and rolled upon the ground, crying only: “Stop the recitation, stop the recitation.” The Bodhisattva stopped reciting, and the two of them at once seized each other again and brawled on as before.
The Bodhisattva, at her wits' end, straightway ordered the devas and Mokṣa to go forward and lend their strength. But the host of spirits, fearing they might wound the true one, likewise dared not put out a hand. The Bodhisattva called out the name “Sun Wukong”, and both of them answered together. Then she said: “In your day you held office as Ban-Horse Plague, and when you made your great uproar in Heaven the divine generals all knew you by sight. Go up to the upper realm and have the matter argued out there.” This Great Sage gave thanks for the favour, and that Pilgrim gave thanks for the favour too.
The two of them, tugging and hauling at each other, brawling ceaselessly out of their mouths, went directly to the outside of the South Heaven Gate. This so alarmed Virūpākṣa the Broad-Eyed Deva King that he led the four great heavenly generals Ma, Zhao, Wen and Guan, together with the gate-keeping spirits great and small, and each plying his weapon they barred the way. “Where are you going? Is this a place for quarrelling?”
The Great Sage said: “Because I was guarding the Tang Monk on his journey west to fetch the scriptures, I killed some bandits on the road; that Tripitaka drove me back, and I went straight to Putuo Cliff to see the Bodhisattva Guanyin and pour out my grievance. I never thought that at some point this fiend would change himself into my likeness, strike the Tang Monk down and carry off the bundle. Sha Monk went to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit to seek it out, and found only that this fiend had seized my lair. Afterward he came to Putuo Cliff to lay his petition before the Bodhisattva, and saw me standing in attendance below the dais. Sha Monk wrongly alleged that I had ridden my cloud-somersault and got in first to gloss things over in the Bodhisattva's presence. The Bodhisattva, however, is one of upright discernment: she did not listen to Sha Monk's words, but ordered me to go with him to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit and see for ourselves. And sure enough this fiend was the very image of old Sun. We fought from the Water-Curtain Cave all the way to Potalaka Mountain to see the Bodhisattva, and the Bodhisattva too could not tell which was which. So we have fought our way to this place. I beg the devas to use the strength of their eyes and tell my true from my false.”
When he had done speaking, that Pilgrim likewise recited the same such and such all over again. The host of heavenly spirits looked their fill for a good long while, and they too could not distinguish them. The two of them shouted: “Since you cannot tell either, clear the road and let us go and see the Jade Emperor!”
The host of spirits could not fend them off. They flung the Heaven Gate wide, and the pair went straight to the Hall of Divine Mists. Marshal Ma, together with the four Celestial Masters Zhang, Ge, Xu and Qiu, memorialised: “In the world below there are two Sun Wukongs of one sort, come fighting in at the Heaven Gate, declaring they would see the King.” Before he had finished speaking, the two of them came brawling straight in. This so frightened the Jade Emperor that he came down and stood in the hall, demanding: “For what matter do you two presume to disturb the Heavenly Palace, brawling before Our person and courting death?”
The Great Sage declared: “Ten thousand years, ten thousand years to Your Majesty. Your subject has now taken refuge and upholds the teaching of the Śrāmaṇa gate; never again would he dare deceive in his heart or lie to his sovereign. It is only that this fiend has changed himself into your subject's likeness …” And so on and so forth; he set out the whole prior matter in full, one time through. “I beg only that Your Majesty tell your subject's true from false.” That Pilgrim likewise set it out one time through.
The Jade Emperor at once issued a decree summoning Devarāja Li the Pagoda-Bearer, ordering: “Take the demon-revealing mirror and shine it on these fellows, to see who is true and who false; make the false perish and the true remain.” The Devarāja took up the mirror and held it steady upon them, inviting the Jade Emperor and the host of spirits to look together. Within the mirror were the reflections of two Sun Wukongs. Golden fillet and clothing — there was not a hair's difference between them. The Jade Emperor too could not tell them apart, and drove them out of the hall.
This Great Sage gave a cold sneering laugh; that Pilgrim too roared with delight. Seizing each other by the hair and clutching at each other's necks, they fought their way back out of the Heaven Gate and dropped down onto the westward road, saying: “You and I shall go and see our master. You and I shall go and see our master.”
Now it is told that Sha Monk, having taken his leave of the two of them at the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, travelled another three days and nights, returned to the farmstead, and set out the whole prior matter to the Tang Monk, one time through. The Tang Monk, repenting to himself, said: “At the time I said only that it was Sun Wukong who struck me with his cudgel and carried off the bundle. How was I to know it was in fact a fiend falsely changed into the Pilgrim?”
Sha Monk further reported: “This fiend had also falsely conjured an elder and a white horse; and there was another Eight Rules shouldering our bundles, and another changed into the likeness of me. I could not contain my rage, and with one blow of my staff I killed him — and he turned out to be a monkey-sprite. At that the rest scattered in fright, and I went again to the Bodhisattva to pour out my grievance. The Bodhisattva sent me to go with my elder brother and identify him again, and that fiend was of one and the same likeness as my elder brother. I could lend no strength to it, and so came back first to report to our master.”
When Tripitaka heard this he was greatly startled and lost the colour of his face. Eight Rules roared with laughter: “Good, good, good! It has come true, what the goodwife of our benefactor's house said. She told us there were several parties of scripture-seekers — and is this not another party?”
The household, old and young alike, all came to ask Sha Monk: “These few days, where have you been off to, seeking travelling money?” Sha Monk said with a smile: “I went to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit in the Eastern Continent of Superior Spirit to seek our eldest brother and get back our luggage; then to Mount Putuo in the Southern Sea to pay respects to the Bodhisattva Guanyin; then back again to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit; and only just now have I turned round and got here.” The old man asked further: “And how much road is there, going and returning?” Sha Monk said: “Something over two hundred thousand lǐ.”
The old man said: “Good heavens! In these few days, to have walked so much road as that — unless you rode the clouds, there would be no way of getting there!” Eight Rules said: “If we did not ride the clouds, how should we have got across the sea?” Sha Monk said: “How should we count that as walking? If it were our eldest brother, he would need only a day or two, and could go and come back again.” That household, hearing him speak, all said they must be immortals. Eight Rules said: “Though we are not immortals, the immortals are still our juniors!”
Just as they were speaking, they heard a clamour and wild brawling in mid-air. In alarm they all came out to look, and it was the two Pilgrims come fighting hither. Eight Rules saw them, and could not contain the itching of his hands. “Let me go and have a try at telling them apart.” Good idiot! He sprang up in haste, leapt aloft, and called out high into the air: “Elder brother, stop your brawling — old Hog is here!” The two of them answered together: “Brother, come and fight the fiend! Come and fight the fiend!”
The household, half startled and half delighted, said: “So it is several cloud-riding, mist-driving arhats who are lodging in our house! Even a man who had vowed to feed monks could never manage to feed such good people as these.” They haggled even less over tea and rice, and grew all the more lavish in their provision. Then they said: “These two Pilgrims — we only fear they may fight their way to some bad end, turning earth over and heaven upside down, and wreak havoc goodness knows where!”
Tripitaka saw that the old man was all cheer to his face and all worry behind it, and spoke up at once: “Old benefactor, set your heart at rest; do not give way to sighing and worry. When this poor monk has subdued his disciple, put away the evil and returned to the good, I shall thank you as a matter of course.” The old man answered with his mouth full of it: “I dare not, I dare not.”
Sha Monk said: “Benefactor, say no more. Master, you may sit here. Let me and second brother go, and each of us drag one of them before you; then you recite that spell of yours, and see which one suffers pain — that is the true one — and the one who does not is the false.” Tripitaka said: “What you say is exceedingly apt.”
Sha Monk accordingly rose into mid-air and said: “You two, stay your hands. I shall go with you before our master and have the true and false told apart.” This Great Sage let go his hands; that Pilgrim let go his hands too. Sha Monk took hold of one and called out: “Second brother, you take hold of one as well.” Sure enough they took hold, dropped down from their cloud-heads, and came directly to the door of the thatched cottage.
Tripitaka saw them and recited the Tight-Fillet Spell. The two of them cried out in pain together: “We are locked in such bitter combat — why do you go cursing us as well? Stop the recitation, stop the recitation.” That elder was compassionate at heart, and so shut his mouth and stopped reciting — but neither could he tell the true from the false.
The two of them wrenched their hands free and fell to fighting as before. This Great Sage said: “Brothers, guard our master. Let me fight this one all the way to King Yama and have it argued out there.” That Pilgrim said the very same thing. The two of them clawed and grappled, and in a moment were gone from sight again.
Eight Rules said: “Sha Monk, since you got as far as the Water-Curtain Cave and saw the false Eight Rules shouldering our luggage, how was it you did not snatch it back?” Sha Monk said: “When that fiend saw me strike his false Sha Monk with my treasure staff, he came crowding round in a rabble to seize me, and I made off to save my life. Then I went and told the Bodhisattva, and came back with the Pilgrim to the cave mouth. While the two of them were fighting up in the air, I went and overturned his stone benches and scattered his little fiends. I saw only a single cataract of spring-water flowing, and truly could not tell where the cave door opened. I could not find the luggage, and so came back empty-handed to report to our master's command.”
Eight Rules said: “So you did not know, after all. The year before last, when I went to invite him back, I met him first outside the cave door. Afterwards, when I had talked him round and he jumped down and went into the cave to change his clothes, I saw him take his body and dive straight into the water. That single cataract of flowing water is the cave door. It must be that the monster has put our bundles away in there.”
Tripitaka said: “Since you know this door, you may take advantage of their all being away, go first into his cave and fetch out the bundles, and let us be off to the Western Heaven. Even if he comes, I shall have no more use for him.” Eight Rules said: “I will go.” Sha Monk said: “Second brother, there are a thousand-odd little monkeys before that cave. I fear that you alone could not handle them, and it would turn out badly instead.” Eight Rules said with a laugh: “No fear, no fear.” He hurried out of the door, mounted the cloud-mist, and went straight up to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit to fetch the luggage — of which no more here.
Now it is told that the two Pilgrims went brawling on to the back of the Shadowy Mountain, frightening the ghosts of the whole mountain into trembling and quaking, hiding and dodging. Some of the swifter runners dashed in at the gate of the shades and reported up to the Hall of Judgement: “Great King, there are two Great Sages Equal to Heaven come fighting hither on the Shadowy Mountain.”
This so alarmed King Qinguang of the First Court that he passed word to King Chujiang of the Second Court, King Songdi of the Third, King Biancheng of the Fourth, King Yama of the Fifth, King Impartial of the Sixth, King Taishan of the Seventh, King of the Metropolis of the Eighth, King Wuguan of the Ninth, and King of the Turning Wheel of the Tenth. Court passed to court, and in a moment the Ten Kings had gathered; and they further dispatched men to fly word to King Kṣitigarbha. All of them were in the Hall of Judgement, mustering their shadow-troops and waiting to seize the true and the false. They heard only a roaring of fierce wind and a spreading of dismal mist, and the two Pilgrims came tumbling and rolling down before the Hall of Judgement.
The Lords of Darkness came forward and barred the way: “Great Sage, what business have you, to make this uproar in our realm of shades?” This Great Sage said: “Because I was guarding the Tang Monk on his way west to fetch scriptures, we passed through the Kingdom of Western Liang and came to a mountain, where fierce bandits waylaid and robbed my master. Old Sun killed several of them; my master blamed me, and drove me back. I went thereupon to the Bodhisattva in the Southern Sea to lay my complaint. I do not know how this fiend then snatched up the drift of my words, falsely changed himself into my likeness, struck my master down on the road and made off with the luggage. My junior brother Sha Monk went to my own mountain to seek back the bundles, and this fiend had falsely set up a master's name, meaning to go west and fetch scriptures himself. Sha Monk fled away to the Southern Sea to see the Bodhisattva, and I was standing right at her side. He set out the whole cause of it, and the Bodhisattva ordered me to go with him to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit and see; and sure enough this fellow had seized my lair. I argued it out with him as far as the Bodhisattva's place; but in truth his appearance and his speech and the rest are of one and the same sort, and the Bodhisattva too could not tell true from false. Again I fought this fellow up to the halls of Heaven, and the host of spirits likewise could not tell in the end. Then I saw my master, and my master recited the Tight-Fillet Spell to test us, and the pain was the same to me as to him. So I have made this uproar as far as the realm of shades. I beg the Lords of Darkness to look into the Register of Life and Death for me, and see what origin the false Pilgrim has, and swiftly pursue his soul, that the two minds may be kept from confusion.” That monster said the very same thing over again.
When the Lords of Darkness heard this, they at once summoned the Registrar Judge to check through from the beginning, one by one; and there was no name of a false Pilgrim at all. They looked again in the register of hairy creatures. The monkey kinds numbered a hundred and thirty entries — but already, in the year when the Great Sage Sun gained the Way in his youth, he had made his uproar in the courts of the shades, struck out the names of the dead, and cancelled them with a stroke of the brush. Ever after that, all who belong to the monkey kind have been without name or title. The checking done, they reported back before the hall. The Lords of Darkness each held up their tablets of office and said to the Pilgrims: “Great Sage, since there is no name or title to be searched for in the realm of shades, you had best go back to the world of light and have it argued out there.”
Just as they were speaking, they heard the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha say: “Hold, hold. Let me set Diting to listen out the true and false for you.” Now this Diting was the name of a beast that crouches beneath the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha's scripture desk. If it lies down upon the ground, then in one instant, throughout the mountains and rivers and altars of the four great continents and among the cave-heavens and blessed lands — the shelled, the scaled, the hairy, the feathered and the insect kinds, and the heavenly, earthly, divine, human and ghostly immortals — it can mirror out good and evil and listen out the worthy from the foolish. That beast, receiving Kṣitigarbha's august command, crouched down upon the ground there in the courtyard of the Hall of Judgement.
In a moment it raised its head and said to Kṣitigarbha: “The monster's name I do have — but it may not be spoken out to his face, and neither can I lend strength to seize him.” Kṣitigarbha said: “What would come of speaking it out to his face?” Diting said: “If it were spoken out to his face, I fear the fiend would turn violent, would harry this hall, and bring the courts of the shades to disquiet.” He asked further: “And why can you lend no strength to seize him?” Diting said: “The fiend's spirit-powers are not two things from the Great Sage Sun's. What magic power can the gods of the shades command? Therefore we cannot seize him.” Kṣitigarbha said: “In a case like this, how is he to be driven out?” Diting said: “The Buddha's Law is without bound.”
Kṣitigarbha had already understood, and said at once to the Pilgrims: “You two are as one in form and countenance, and not two in spirit-power. If you would have it made plain, you must go to Śākyamuni Tathāgata at the Thunderclap Monastery, and only there will you get clarity.” The two of them shouted together: “Rightly said! Rightly said! You and I shall go and have it argued out before the Buddha Patriarch of the Western Heaven.” The Ten Kings of the shades saw them out, thanked Kṣitigarbha, returned up to the Halcyon Cloud Palace, and had their ghost-runners close the passes of the shades — of which no more here.
Look at those two Pilgrims, flying the clouds and racing the mists, fighting their way up to the Western Heaven. There is a poem in witness of it:
When a man has two minds, calamity is bred;
to the sky's edge and the sea's corner, suspicion comes.
He covets the precious horse and the rank of the Three Dukes;
he yearns again for the Golden Bells and the terrace of the first grade.
Campaigning south and punishing north, without rest or ceasing;
warding east and clearing west, and never yet settled.
At the gate of Chan one must study the art of no-mind;
in stillness nourish the Infant, and knit the holy embryo.
The two of them, up there in mid-air, tugging and hauling, clawing and grappling, going and fighting as they went, brawled their way to the outside of the precious monastery of Thunderclap on the immortal Vulture Peak of the Great Western Heaven. Already there were seen the four great Bodhisattvas, the eight great Vajrapāṇis, the five hundred Arhats, the three thousand Guardians, the bhikṣuṇīs and bhikṣus, the upāsakas and upāsikās — all the great holy host — come below the seven-jewelled lotus dais, purely attending upon the Tathāgata's exposition of the Law.
That Tathāgata was just then expounding this:
Within not-being, being; within not-nothing, nothing.
Within not-form, form; within not-emptiness, emptiness.
What is not being is taken for being; what is not nothing is taken for nothing.
What is not form is taken for form; what is not emptiness is taken for emptiness.
Emptiness is just emptiness; form is just form.
Form has no fixed form; form is precisely emptiness.
Emptiness has no fixed emptiness; emptiness is precisely form.
To know emptiness as not empty; to know form as not form —
this is called illumined comprehension, and only then is the wondrous sound attained.
The whole assembly bowed their heads and took refuge; and in the midst of their circulating and reciting, the Tathāgata sent down heavenly flowers scattered in profusion, left his precious seat at once, and said to the multitude: “You are all of one mind. Now behold: two minds come contending hither.”
The whole assembly raised their eyes and looked; and sure enough there were two Pilgrims, bawling at heaven and shouting at earth, fighting their way into the holy precinct of Thunderclap. This so alarmed the eight great Vajrapāṇis that they came forward and barred the way: “Where would you two be going?” This Great Sage said: “A fiend has changed himself into my likeness. I would go below the precious lotus dais and trouble the Tathāgata to tell the false from the true for me.”
The host of Vajrapāṇis could not hold them back. They brawled their way straight below the dais, knelt before the Buddha Patriarch and made their plea: “Your disciple has been guarding the Tang Monk, coming to this treasure mountain to seek the true scriptures. All along the road we have refined demons and bound monsters, and I know not how much spirit it has cost. Lately, midway on the road, we chanced on fierce bandits who robbed and plundered, and it is true that your disciple twice struck and wounded several men. My master blamed me and drove me back, and would not allow me to come and worship the Tathāgata's golden body with the rest. Your disciple, having no recourse, could only make for the Southern Sea to see Guanyin and pour out his grievance. Unlooked for, this fiend falsely changed himself into your disciple's voice and appearance, struck my master down and carried the luggage off. My junior brother Wujing sought as far as my mountain, and was met by this fiend with a false and artful tale, saying that there was a true monk fetching scriptures. Wujing got himself away to the Southern Sea and set it all out in detail. Guanyin knew of it, and thereupon ordered your disciple to go with Wujing back again to my mountain. Because of this, the two of us have matched ourselves true against false: we fought as far as the Southern Sea, and fought on to the Heavenly Palace, and have fought before the Tang Monk and fought before the courts of the shades — and in all of them none could tell us apart. Therefore we have made bold to intrude. I beg you a thousand times to throw wide the gate of expedient means and let fall the thought of your broad compassion; tell your disciple's deviant from upright, that he may guard the Tang Monk to worship the golden body in person, fetch the scriptures back to the Eastern Land, and exalt the great teaching for ever.”
The assembly heard the two mouths speak with one voice, both saying it through together, and they too could not tell. Only the Tathāgata knew it through and through. He was on the point of declaring it when he saw, in the coloured clouds descending from the south, Guanyin come to pay homage to Our Buddha.
Our Buddha joined his palms and said: “Venerable Guanyin, look at those two Pilgrims — which is the true and which the false?” The Bodhisattva said: “The other day, in your disciple's poor domain, I truly could not tell. He went on again to the Heavenly Palace and the courts of the earth, and there too none could recognise them. I have come especially to lay it before the Tathāgata: I beg you a thousand times, make it plain for them, make it plain.”
The Tathāgata said with a smile: “Your powers are broad and great, yet they can only survey the affairs of the whole heavens; they cannot know through all the things of the whole heavens, nor can they comprehend at large the kinds and classes of the whole heavens.” The Bodhisattva asked further to be shown the kinds and classes of the whole heavens.
The Tathāgata then said: “Within the whole heavens there are five sorts of immortal: the heavenly, the earthly, the divine, the human and the ghostly. There are five sorts of worm: the shelled, the scaled, the hairy, the feathered and the insect. This fellow is not heavenly, not earthly, not divine, not human, not ghostly; neither is he shelled, nor scaled, nor hairy, nor feathered, nor insect. There are also four monkeys that confound the world, not entering into the kinds of the ten classes.”
The Bodhisattva said: “May I ask which four monkeys?” The Tathāgata said: “The first is the Numinous Bright Stone Monkey, who penetrates transformations, knows the seasons of heaven, understands the advantages of earth, and shifts the stars and moves the Dipper. The second is the Red-Buttocked Horse Monkey, who understands the yin and yang, is versed in human affairs, is skilled at going in and coming out, and evades death to prolong life. The third is the Long-Armed Gibbon Monkey, who takes hold of sun and moon, shrinks a thousand mountains, discerns the auspicious from the ill, and handles heaven and earth at will. The fourth is the Six-Eared Macaque, who is skilled at listening to sounds, can examine principles, knows what came before and what comes after, and to whom all the ten thousand things are plain.
“These four monkeys do not enter into the kinds of the ten classes, and are not reached by the names of the two realms. As I observe him, the false Wukong is a Six-Eared Macaque. If this monkey stands in one place, he can know affairs a thousand lǐ away; and whatever a man says, he can know that too. Therefore he is skilled at listening to sounds, can examine principles, knows what came before and what comes after, and to him all the ten thousand things are plain. One of the same form and the same voice as the true Wukong — that is the Six-Eared Macaque.”
When that macaque heard the Tathāgata declare his original form, his gall shook and his heart quailed. He sprang up in haste, leapt to his feet and made to run. The Tathāgata, seeing him go, at once ordered the assembly to lay hands on him. At once there were the four Bodhisattvas, the eight Vajrapāṇis, the five hundred Arhats, the three thousand Guardians, the bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs, the upāsakas and upāsikās, Guanyin and Mokṣa — all in one ring about him. The Great Sage Sun made to go forward as well, but the Tathāgata said: “Wukong, stay your hand. Wait, and I shall take him for you.”
That macaque's hair stood on end. Reckoning it hard to get away, he shook himself in haste and changed, turning into a honeybee, and flew straight up. The Tathāgata flung up his golden alms bowl, which came down square over that bee and dropped it. The assembly did not know it, and took it that he had got away. The Tathāgata said with a laugh: “No more talk, assembly. The fiend has not got away; he is here beneath this alms bowl of mine.”
The assembly came forward all together and lifted the alms bowl up; and sure enough they saw the original form — a Six-Eared Macaque. The Great Sage Sun could not contain himself. He swung up his iron rod and with one blow split his head and killed him — and from that day to this the kind has been extinct. The Tathāgata could not bear it, and said: “Alas! Alas!”
The Great Sage said: “The Tathāgata should not pity him. He wounded my master and robbed me of the luggage. By the statute he would be charged with taking goods and injuring the person, and with robbery in broad daylight — that too deserves a sentence of death.” The Tathāgata said: “Go quickly then, and guard the Tang Monk on his way here to seek the scriptures.”
The Great Sage knocked his head and gave thanks: “I report to the Tathāgata for your knowing: that master of mine is certainly resolved not to want me. If I go now and he will not take me in, shall I not have troubled you for nothing all over again? I beg the Tathāgata's expedience: recite the Loosening-Fillet Spell just once, slip this golden fillet down off me, give it back to the Tathāgata, and let me return to lay life.”
The Tathāgata said: “Give over your wild thoughts and do not play the rogue. I shall have Guanyin see you there, and never fear that he will not take you in. Guard him well on his way; and in that day, when the work is accomplished and you return to Ultimate Bliss, you too shall sit upon the lotus dais.”
Guanyin, standing by and hearing this, joined her palms at once, gave thanks for the holy grace, took charge of Wukong and straightway mounted the clouds and went. Behind them Mokṣa the Pilgrim and the white parrot came up together. In no great while they came to the thatched cottage of the household midway on the road. Sha Monk saw them, and hurriedly asked his master to come to the door and receive them.
The Bodhisattva said: “Tang Monk, the one who struck you the other day was the false Pilgrim, a Six-Eared Macaque. By the Tathāgata's good knowledge of him, he has already been struck dead by Wukong. You must now take Wukong back in. The demon-barriers along the road are not yet done with; you will have to have him guard you, and only so will you get to the Numinous Mountain, see the Buddha and fetch the scriptures. Give over your resentment.” Tripitaka knocked his head and said: “I shall respectfully obey the instruction.”
Just as they were making their thanks, they heard a wild wind come rolling up out of the east, and Pig Eight Rules arrived riding the wind with two bundles on his back. The idiot saw the Bodhisattva, threw himself down and bowed: “Your disciple took leave of our master the other day and went to the Water-Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit to fetch back the bundles. Sure enough there was a false Tang Monk and a false Eight Rules, and your disciple struck them both dead — they turned out to be two monkey bodies. Then I got inside, and only then found the bundles. I checked them over at the time and not one thing was missing, so I rode the wind back here. But I do not know how it went with the two Pilgrims.”
The Bodhisattva told over the matter of the Tathāgata's knowing the monster. That idiot was delighted beyond measure, and gave thanks without end. Master and disciples made their thanks, and the Bodhisattva returned to the sea. And they were all as before, of one accord and one mind, their wrongs washed away and their anger dissolved. They thanked the people of the village cottage once more, put their baggage and horse in order, and found the high road westward.
Truly it was:
Parted midway, the Five Phases fell into disorder;
the demon subdued and the gathering rejoined, the Primal Brightness is made whole.
The spirit returns to the heart's dwelling, and Chan is at last settled;
the six consciousnesses dispelled and subdued, the elixir forms of itself.
In the end, going on from here, we do not know in what season Tripitaka got to face the Buddha and seek the scriptures. Let us listen to the explanation in the next chapter.