Natures, however many, were one at the root;
the sea takes in what has no end.
A thousand thoughts, ten thousand cares, come at the last to delusion;
form upon form melts into one accord.
There shall come a day when the work is finished and the practice full,
when the round-bright dharma-nature towers high.
Suffer no discriminating mind to go running east and west —
lock it fast, and cage it.
Gather it in and settle it within the cinnabar furnace;
refine it until it glows like the golden crow.
Bright and blazing, lovely to look upon —
then let it ride the dragon, going out and coming in.
The tale relates that Tripitaka, obedient to the Bodhisattva’s instruction, took Pilgrim back; and with Eight Rules and Sha Monk he severed the two minds, caged the ape and the horse, joined heart and strength together, and hastened on toward the West. There is no telling how the light and shade flew by like arrows, how sun and moon shot past like a weaver’s shuttle. They had come through the blazing heat of the summer months, and now met the frosted scenes of deep autumn.
And this is what they saw:
Thin cloud broken and scattered, the west wind keen;
a crane calling from far peaks, the frosted woods like brocade.
The prospect all bleak and grey;
the mountains long, the waters longer.
Travelling geese come down to the northern marches;
the dark birds go home to the southern lanes.
On a traveller’s road one shrinks from being alone;
a patched robe grows cold soon enough.
As master and disciples, four in all, pressed forward on their way, they felt by degrees a steaming heat upon them. Tripitaka reined in his horse. “It is autumn now — how is it that instead there should be this heat?”
“So you did not know,” said Eight Rules. “On the westward road there is a kingdom called Sihali, the place where the sun goes down, and common speech calls it the End of the Sky. When the hours of shēn and yǒu come round, the king sends men up onto the wall to beat drums and blow horns, so that the din is confounded with the boiling of the sea. The sun is the true fire of the Great Yang, and when it drops into the western ocean it is as fire quenched in water — the two meet with a roar. Were there no drums and horns to confuse the ear, the sound would shake the children of the city to death. This steaming heat here — we must surely have reached the place where the sun goes down.”
When the Great Sage heard this he could not hold in his laughter. “Idiot, don’t talk nonsense. As for the kingdom of Sihali, we are a very long way too early for that. At the rate Master dawdles — three things by morning and two by dusk — we could go from young to old, and from old to young again, three lifetimes of it, and still not arrive.”
“Brother!” said Eight Rules. “By your account this is not the place where the sun sets — then why should it be so fiercely hot?”
“It must be that the seasons are out of joint,” said Sha Monk. “Autumn keeping summer’s ordinance.”
While the three of them were still disputing, they saw beside the road a farmstead: a house roofed in red tile, a wall laid up in red brick, door-leaves oiled red, plank benches lacquered red — a whole stretch of it, and every part red. Tripitaka dismounted. “Wukong, go over to that house and ask for news. Find out what the cause of this burning heat may be.”
The Great Sage put away his gold-banded cudgel, straightened his robes, and arranged himself into a genteel bearing; then he cut down onto the main road and went straight up to the gate to look. Out of that gateway there came all at once an old man, and this is how he looked:
He wore a long gown of kudzu cloth, of a yellow that was not yellow and a red that was not red;
on his head a cool hat of bamboo strips, of a blue that was not blue and a black that was not black.
In his hand he leaned on a bamboo staff of knotted joints, bent and yet not bent, straight and yet not straight;
on his feet he trod a pair of shafted shoes, loose at the heel, new and yet not new, old and yet not old.
His face was like red copper, his beard like a length of white silk.
Two long brows of longevity overhung his blue-green eyes;
one wide laughing mouth showed a tooth of gold.
The old man jerked his head up, saw Pilgrim, and started with fright. Propping himself on his bamboo staff, he shouted, “What sort of monster are you, and where have you come from? What is your business at my door?”
Pilgrim returned the bow. “Old benefactor, do not be afraid of me. I am no monster of any kind. This poor monk is one commissioned by the Great Tang in the Land of the East to go westward and seek the scriptures. We are four, master and disciples together, newly arrived in your honoured district. Seeing the weather so steaming hot, we neither understand the cause, in the first place, nor know the name of the region, in the second; and so we make bold to ask that you instruct us in a thing or two.”
Only then was the old man’s mind at ease, and he said with a smile, “Venerable Elder, take no offence. This old fellow’s eyes clouded for a moment, and I failed to recognise your honoured face.”
“You are too kind,” said Pilgrim.
“And which road is your master on?”
“Is that not he, standing there on the main road at the southern end?”
“Ask him to come,” said the old man, “ask him to come.”
Pilgrim was delighted. He gave one wave of his hand, and Tripitaka came forward at once with Eight Rules and Sha Monk, leading the white horse and shouldering the baggage; and all of them made their bows to the old man.
When the old man saw how handsome and well-favoured Tripitaka was, and how rare and strange the features of Eight Rules and Sha Monk, he was alarmed and delighted at once. He could do nothing but invite them inside to sit, tell the servants to bring tea, and have a meal put in hand at the same time.
Hearing this, Tripitaka rose and gave thanks. “May I venture to ask, sir: your honoured district has come round to autumn — how is it that instead it should be burning hot?”
“This poor region is called the Mountain of Flames,” said the old man. “It has no spring and no autumn; all four seasons are hot.”
“And whereabouts is this Mountain of Flames? Does it block the road westward?”
“Westward there is no getting through at all. That mountain lies sixty lǐ from here, and it is precisely the road one must take going west; but there are eight hundred lǐ of flame upon it, and for its whole circuit not a blade of grass grows. If one tried to get across that mountain, then though one had a skull of bronze and a body of iron, one would still be melted down to liquid.”
Hearing this, Tripitaka went pale with alarm and did not dare ask any further.
Just then, outside the gate, a young man came pushing a little red cart. He stopped beside the door and called out, “Cakes for sale!”
The Great Sage plucked out a hair, changed it into a copper coin, and asked the man for a cake. The man took the coin without troubling over whether it was good or bad, lifted the cloth wrapping on the cart — steam came billowing up — took out a piece of cake, and handed it to Pilgrim. Pilgrim held it up in his palm, and it was like a live coal burning in a fire, like a nail heated red in a coal stove. Just look at him: shifting it from the left hand into the right, changing it from the right hand back into the left, and saying nothing but “Hot, hot, hot! Can’t eat it, can’t eat it!”
The young man laughed. “If you’re afraid of heat, don’t come here. Here it is as hot as that.”
“You fellow, how little sense you talk,” said Pilgrim. “The common saying has it: neither cold nor hot, and the five grains will not set. If it is as fiercely hot here as all that, then where does the flour for your cakes come from?”
“If you want to know where the cake-flour and the rice come from,” said the man, “one must reverently petition the Iron-Fan Immortal.”
“And what of this Iron-Fan Immortal?”
“The Iron-Fan Immortal has a banana-leaf fan. Get it by petition, and one fanning puts out the fire, a second raises wind, a third brings down rain. Then we sow our seed and reap in season, and so we get the five grains to live on; otherwise not so much as a blade of grass could truly grow.”
Hearing this, Pilgrim turned away at once and went inside. Handing the cake to Tripitaka, he said, “Master, set your mind at rest — don’t go catching next year’s panic today. Eat the cake, and I’ll tell you.”
The Elder took the cake in his hand and said to the old man of the house, “Sir, please take some cake.”
“My own tea and rice have not yet been served,” said the old man. “How should I dare eat your cake?”
Pilgrim said with a laugh, “Old sir, as for tea and rice, there’s no need to bestow them. Let me ask you this: where does the Iron-Fan Immortal live?”
“What do you ask after her for?”
“That cake-seller just now told me this immortal has a banana-leaf fan. Get it by petition, and one fanning puts out the fire, a second raises wind, a third brings down rain; then this district of yours can sow and reap, and only so do you get the five grains to live on. I mean to seek her out and ask for the loan of it, fan out the Mountain of Flames and get across; and at the same time let this district sow and reap in season, so that you may live at ease.”
“That is indeed what is said,” said the old man. “But you have no gifts, and I fear that holy personage will not consent to come.”
“What gifts does she require?” asked Tripitaka.
“The households hereabouts petition her once in ten years. Four pigs and four sheep, red silk and cloth for gown and lining, rare incense and fruits in season, fowl and geese and good wine; then, bathed and in full reverence, we make our way to that immortal mountain and beg her to come out of her cave and exert her power here.”
“Where does that mountain lie?” said Pilgrim. “What is the place called? How many lǐ is it? Let me go and ask her for the fan.”
“That mountain lies to the southwest, and it is called Mount Cuiyun. In the mountain there is an immortal’s cave, and it is called the Banana-Leaf Cave. When the faithful from hereabouts go to worship at that immortal mountain, the journey out and back takes a month — some fourteen hundred and fifty or sixty lǐ by reckoning.”
“That’s nothing at all,” laughed Pilgrim. “I’ll go and be back directly.”
“Wait a moment. Take some tea and rice, have dry rations put up, and you’ll need two men to go with you. There are no houses on that road, and wolves and tigers in plenty. It cannot be reached in a day. Don’t take it for a game.”
Pilgrim laughed. “No need, no need. I’m off.”
He had barely spoken when all at once he was gone.
“Good heavens!” said the old man in a fluster. “So he was a divine being, one who rides the clouds and drives the mist!”
We shall say no more of how that household redoubled its attentions to the Tang Monk. Instead we take up Pilgrim, who in a moment had come straight to Mount Cuiyun. Checking his auspicious light, he was casting about for the mouth of the cave when he caught a steady ringing of blows — a woodcutter felling timber in the forest on the hill. Pilgrim hurried forward at once, and heard him singing:
Faint at the cloud’s edge I pick out the old wood;
broken cliff, rank grass, and the path hard to find.
From the western hill I watch the rain that came at dawn;
returning by the southern stream, the ford runs deep.
Pilgrim went up, made his bow, and said, “Brother woodcutter, my greetings.”
The woodcutter laid down his axe and returned the bow. “Where is the Venerable Elder bound?”
“May I ask, brother woodcutter — is this Mount Cuiyun?”
“It is.”
“And the Banana-Leaf Cave of the Iron-Fan Immortal — whereabouts is that?”
The woodcutter laughed. “There is a Banana-Leaf Cave right enough, but there is no Iron-Fan Immortal — only an Iron-Fan Princess, who goes also by the name of the Rākṣasī.”
“People say she has a banana-leaf fan that can put out the Mountain of Flames. Would that be her?”
“Just so, just so. That holy personage has this treasure, and is skilled at quenching fire and protecting the people of those parts; and that is why she is called the Iron-Fan Immortal. We hereabouts have no use for her, and know her only as the Rākṣasī — the wife of the Bull Demon King of Great Strength.”
When Pilgrim heard this he went pale with alarm, and thought privately, “So it is an old enemy again. The year I subdued the Red Boy, they said he was this creature’s child. Before this, at the Cave of the Broken Child on the Mountain of Dissolved Male, I met his uncle, who would not so much as give me water and meant to take revenge for the boy; and now I run into his father and mother. However am I to borrow this fan?”
The woodcutter, seeing Pilgrim sunk in thought and sighing without stopping, laughed and said, “Venerable Elder, you are a man who has left the household — what have you to be anxious about? Take this little path eastward — not five or six lǐ — and you come to the Banana-Leaf Cave. There is no need to fret.”
“I’ll not deceive you, brother woodcutter. I am the senior disciple of the Tang Monk, sent by the Tang court in the Land of the East to fetch scriptures from the West. Some years ago at the Fiery Cloud Cave I had words with the Rākṣasī’s son, the Red Boy; and I am afraid she may hold the grudge and refuse me — which is why I am uneasy.”
“A great man reads the face and judges the manner,” said the woodcutter. “Just make the fan your business and don’t bring up the foul words of former days — depend upon it, you’ll get the loan.”
Pilgrim heard him out, made a deep and ceremonious salutation, and said, “My thanks for your instruction, brother woodcutter. I’ll be off.”
So he took leave of the woodcutter and went straight to the mouth of the Banana-Leaf Cave. There he saw the two leaves of the door shut fast and barred, and the prospect outside the cave exceedingly fine. What a fine place it was! And it was just this:
The mountain takes stone for its bones;
the stone is the very essence of earth.
Mist and rosy cloud hold the damp of the night;
moss and lichen lend it a new green.
Jagged, its heights rear up to shame Penglai;
still and secluded, its flowers breathe as if from the ocean isles.
A few tall pines give lodging to wild cranes;
several withered willows converse with mountain orioles.
Truly this is an ancient site of a thousand years,
a trace of the immortals of ten thousand.
In the green wutong a bright phoenix cries;
in the living water a grey dragon lies hidden.
Down the winding path bramble and creeper hang;
over the stone stair vines and kudzu climb and cage it.
Gibbons cry on emerald crags, glad at the rising moon;
birds call in the high trees, delighting in the clear sky.
The bamboo shade of two groves is cool as rain;
along one path the flowers lie so thick they drown the embroidered nap.
Now and then white cloud comes in from the far peaks —
with no settled shape at all, drifting wherever the wind goes.
Pilgrim went up and called, “Brother Bull! Open the door, open the door!”
With a creak the cave door opened, and out came a hairy girl, a flower basket in her hand and a hoe over her shoulder. She was indeed all in rags and without an ornament on her, yet her whole face was alive with the mind of the Way. Pilgrim stepped forward to meet her, put his palms together and said, “Little maid, may I trouble you to take word in to the Princess: I am a monk who goes to fetch the scriptures. On the westward road I cannot get past the Mountain of Flames, and I have come expressly to beg the loan of the banana-leaf fan.”
“Which temple’s monk are you?” said the hairy girl. “What is your name? I must have it to announce you.”
“I am from the Land of the East, and I am called the monk Sun Wukong.”
The hairy girl turned about at once and went back into the cave, where she knelt before the Rākṣasī and said, “Mistress, outside the cave door there is a monk from the Land of the East called Sun Wukong who wishes to see you. He begs the loan of the banana-leaf fan, to get past the Mountain of Flames.”
When the Rākṣasī heard those three words — Sun Wukong — it was as though salt had been flung into a fire, or oil poured on a flame. The red came welling up into her face, and a black fury broke out in her heart. She cursed aloud: “That wretched ape! So he has come at last.” And she called out, “Maid! Fetch my armour and bring my weapons.”
She got into her armour straight away, took up two blue-edged treasure swords, belted herself and came out. Pilgrim slipped aside outside the cave and stole a look at how she was turned out. And this is what he saw:
On her head a kerchief of rounded flowers;
on her body a cloud-robe of stitched brocade.
At her waist a double-bound sash of tiger sinew,
letting the embroidered skirt and its slanted gauze just show.
Phoenix-beaked bow-shoes of three cùn;
dragon-whisker leggings worked with gold.
A treasure sword in her hand, her angry voice pitched high —
of fiercer aspect than the Moon Hag herself.
The Rākṣasī came out of the door and cried aloud, “Where is Sun Wukong?”
Pilgrim stepped forward, bowed from the waist and said, “Sister-in-law, old Sun presents his respects.”
The Rākṣasī snapped at him: “Who is your sister-in-law? Who wants your respects?”
“The Bull Demon King of your honoured house swore brotherhood with old Sun in years gone by — we were seven brothers by that bond. And now I hear that the Princess is Elder Brother Bull’s lawful wife. How should I not address you as sister-in-law?”
“You wretched ape! If you were bound to him as a brother, how came you to entrap my son?”
“And who might your son be?” asked Pilgrim, feigning ignorance.
“My child is the Great King Holy Infant, the Red Boy, of the Fiery Cloud Cave at Withered Pine Ravine on Mount Hao. You destroyed him, and we had nowhere to look for you to take our revenge. Now you come to my very door to yield up your life — do you suppose I will let you go?”
Pilgrim, all smiles, said, “Sister-in-law, you have not looked into the matter, and you blame old Sun wrongly. It was your son who seized my master and meant to steam him and boil him. It was by the good fortune of the Bodhisattva Guanyin that he was taken into her keeping and my master got out alive. He is at this moment with the Bodhisattva, serving as the Boy of Goodly Wealth. He has truly received the Bodhisattva’s true fruit — neither born nor perishing, neither defiled nor pure, of one lifespan with heaven and earth, of one age with sun and moon. And instead of thanking old Sun for the kindness of preserving his life, you turn round and blame him. What sort of reasoning is that?”
“You glib-tongued wretch of an ape! That child of mine may not have lost his life — but how is he ever to come before me again? When shall I ever see his face?”
Pilgrim laughed. “Sister-in-law, if you want to see your son, where is the difficulty in that? Just lend me the fan. Let me fan the fire out and see my master across, and I will go straight to the Bodhisattva in the Southern Sea and ask her to send him to see you — and give you back the fan into the bargain. What could be wrong with that? And then you may look him over and see whether he has taken so much as a hair’s harm. If there is the least injury on him, you would have every right to blame me; and if he is handsomer than he was before, you ought rather to thank me.”
“Wretched ape! Less of your prating. Put your head out here and let me lay a few sword-strokes on it. If you can take the pain, I will lend you the fan; and if you cannot bear it, I will send you to see King Yama the sooner.”
Pilgrim folded his hands before him, stepped up and said with a laugh, “Sister-in-law, say no more about it. Old Sun will put out his bald head. Strike as often as your honour pleases — only when you have no strength left, let us have done. But the fan I must borrow, and use.”
The Rākṣasī would hear no explanation. She gripped her sword in both hands and brought it down on Pilgrim’s head — thwack, thwack — a dozen strokes or so; and this Pilgrim would not take it seriously at all. The Rākṣasī took fright and turned to go.
“Sister-in-law, where are you off to?” said Pilgrim. “Be quick and lend it me to use.”
“My treasure is not lightly lent.”
“If you will not lend it, then take a taste of your old uncle’s cudgel.”
Fine Monkey King! With one hand he held her fast, and with the other he reached into his ear and drew out the cudgel; he gave it a shake, and it was as thick as a rice-bowl. The Rākṣasī wrenched her hand free and raised her sword to meet him, and Pilgrim at once swung up his cudgel and struck. The two of them, before Mount Cuiyun, spoke no more of kinship but only of the grudge. And a fine fight it was:
Skirt and hairpin — she was at bottom a monster grown perfected;
for her son’s sake she nursed her hatred of the wretched ape.
Pilgrim, for all that fierce anger rose in him,
gave way to the fair one because his master’s road was blocked.
He had begun by asking to borrow the banana-leaf fan;
he would not display his valour, but bore it with a patient softness.
The Rākṣasī, understanding nothing, swung her sword and hacked;
the Monkey King, meaning well, spoke of the ties of kin.
How should a woman contend with a man?
In the end the male hardness bears the female down.
This one’s gold-banded iron cudgel, how fierce it was;
that one’s frost-bright blue-edged blade, how thick and close it fell.
Striking at the face, hurling at the head,
in bitter hatred they held to it and would not leave off.
Warding left and screening right, they plied their skill;
meeting in front and parrying behind, they gave their cunning rein.
Only when the fight had reached its deepest pitch
did they notice the sun going down in the west.
Then the Rākṣasī quickly brought out the true fan,
and with a single fanning she stirred up what would make gods and demons grieve.
The Rākṣasī had held her ground against Pilgrim until evening; but seeing how heavy his cudgel was and how close-knit his play of arms, and reckoning that she could not beat him, she brought out the banana-leaf fan, gave it a shake, and with one fan of the dark wind she blew Pilgrim away without shadow or shape, so that there was no hope of keeping hold of anything. So the Rākṣasī returned home victorious.
That Great Sage went drifting and tumbling. Sink to the left as he might, he could not reach the ground; drop to the right as he might, he could find no place to rest. It was as when a whirlwind turns over a withered leaf, or running water carries off the last of the blossom. He rolled about the whole night, and only at daybreak did he come down at last on a mountain, where he caught hold of a crag with both arms. When he had steadied himself a good while and looked carefully about, he recognised the place at last as the Little Sumeru Mountain.
The Great Sage let out a long sigh. “What a formidable woman! However did she send old Sun all the way out here? I remember that in that year it was here that I petitioned the Bodhisattva Lingji to subdue the Yellow Wind Fiend and rescue my master. Yellow Wind Ridge lies some three thousand lǐ due south of here; and now, coming round from the westward road, this is the southeastern quarter, and there is no telling how many tens of thousands of lǐ it may be. Let me go down and ask the Bodhisattva Lingji for news of the way, so that I may get back to the old road.”
While he was still hesitating, he heard the sound of a bell ringing clear. He hurried down the slope and came straight to the Chan monastery. The Daoist at the gate knew Pilgrim’s face, and went in at once to report: “That hairy-faced Great Sage who came the year before last to ask the Bodhisattva to subdue the Yellow Wind Fiend is here again.”
The Bodhisattva, knowing it was Wukong, came down from his jewelled throne at once to meet him, brought him inside and greeted him: “Congratulations! Have you come back with the scriptures?”
“Not yet, not by a long way — early days, early days!”
“If you have not yet reached the Thunderclap, what brings you back to this poor hill?”
“Since last year, when by your generous kindness the Yellow Wind Fiend was subdued, there is no telling how many hardships we have been through along the road. Now we have come to the Mountain of Flames and can go no further. I asked the local people, and they said there is an Iron-Fan Immortal whose banana-leaf fan can fan the fire out, so old Sun went expressly to seek her. It turns out this immortal is the wife of the Bull Demon King, and the mother of the Red Boy. She says I made her son into the Bodhisattva Guanyin’s attendant boy, so that she cannot see him often; she hates me for an enemy, will not lend me the fan, and fought with me. Seeing my cudgel too heavy to hold off, she took out the fan and gave me one fanning with it — fanned me drifting and floating all the way here, and only then did I come to rest. And so I make bold to intrude upon your monastery, and ask the way home. From this place to the Mountain of Flames — how many lǐ might it be?”
Lingji said with a smile, “That woman is called the Rākṣasī, and she is also known as the Iron-Fan Princess. That banana-leaf fan of hers is from behind the Kunlun Mountains. Since the parting of primal chaos it has been a numinous treasure brought forth by heaven and earth — the very leaf-essence of the Great Yin — and that is why it can quench the breath of fire. If it fans a person, he will be blown eighty-four thousand lǐ before the dark wind lets him rest. From this mountain of mine to the Mountain of Flames is only some fifty thousand lǐ. That is because the Great Sage has the art of staying the clouds, and so was brought up short; had it been an ordinary mortal, he would have gone the whole way and not been able to stop at all.”
“Terrible, terrible!” said Pilgrim. “But how then is my master ever to get across to the other side?”
“Set your mind at rest, Great Sage. This coming of yours is part of the Tang Monk’s destined course, and it is fitting that the Great Sage should succeed by it.”
“How am I to succeed?”
“In that year I received the Tathāgata’s instruction, and he bestowed on me one Wind-Stilling Pill and one Flying-Dragon Staff. The Flying-Dragon Staff has already subdued the wind-demon. This Wind-Stilling Pill has never yet been used. I shall give it to the Great Sage now, and I warrant that creature will not be able to fan you an inch. Then you may take the fan, fan out the fire — and would that not be your merit established?”
Pilgrim bowed his head in salutation, thanking him without end. The Bodhisattva then took from his sleeve a little brocade bag, put that one Wind-Stilling Pill in it for Pilgrim, set it inside his collar, and sewed it fast with needle and thread. He saw Pilgrim to the gate and said, “I cannot detain you with hospitality. Go to the northwest, and there is the Rākṣasī’s mountain domain.”
Pilgrim took his leave of Lingji, mounted his cloud-somersault, and went straight back to Mount Cuiyun, arriving in an instant. He beat on the cave door with his iron cudgel and shouted, “Open up, open up! Old Sun has come to borrow that fan of yours!”
The maid inside the door was thrown into a fluster and went at once to report: “Mistress, the one who wants to borrow the fan is here again.”
When the Rākṣasī heard it, her heart shook with dread. “This wretched ape really does have powers. My treasure fans a man eighty-four thousand lǐ before he can come to a stop; how is it that he has only just been blown away and is back already? This time let me give him two or three fannings one after another, and see if he can find his way back then.”
She sprang up, made herself trim, took her swords in both hands and came out of the door. “Sun the Pilgrim! Are you not afraid of me, that you come looking for death a second time?”
Pilgrim said with a laugh, “Sister-in-law, don’t be so grudging. I must borrow it and use it; and once I have got the Tang Monk safely over the mountain, I’ll send it back to you. I am a gentleman with sincerity to spare — not one of those small men who borrow a thing and never return it.”
The Rākṣasī cursed him again: “You wretched macaque! What an outrageous want of reason — no sense of what is fitting at all. The wrong of my stolen son is not yet requited — and you expect to borrow my fan and have your heart’s wish? You shall not go. Take a stroke of your old mother’s sword!”
The Great Sage was quite unafraid, and met her stroke with his iron cudgel as she struck. The two of them went back and forth, and after five or seven bouts the Rākṣasī’s arm grew too weak to swing, while Sun the Pilgrim was strong of body and good at the fight. Seeing that things were going badly, she took out the fan at once and fanned one fanning at Pilgrim — and Pilgrim stood towering and did not move.
Pilgrim put away his iron cudgel and said, laughing all over his face, “This time is not like the last. Fan as you please — if old Sun so much as stirs, I’m no man at all.”
The Rākṣasī fanned two more fannings. Sure enough, he did not move. She was thrown into a panic. She snatched up her treasure, turned back, went into the cave and shut the door fast behind her.
Seeing that she had shut the door, Pilgrim worked a trick: he opened up his collar, took out the Wind-Stilling Pill and held it in his mouth. He shook himself and changed into a tiny gnat, and slipped in through the crack of her door. He saw the Rākṣasī call out, “I’m thirsty, I’m thirsty! Bring tea, quickly.”
The maid in attendance took a pot of fragrant tea at once and poured a full bowl with a soft splashing, so that the froth came bubbling up. Pilgrim saw it and was delighted. With a thin whirr of his wings he flew down under the froth of the tea.
The Rākṣasī was parched. She took the tea and drank it off in two or three breaths. Pilgrim was already inside her belly. He resumed his own shape and shouted at the top of his voice, “Sister-in-law! Lend me that fan of yours!”
The Rākṣasī went pale with terror and cried, “Little ones! Is the front door shut?” They all said, “It is shut.”
“If the door is shut, how is Sun the Pilgrim calling out from inside the house?”
“He’s calling from inside you,” said the maid.
“Sun the Pilgrim,” said the Rākṣasī, “where are you working this conjuring of yours?”
“Old Sun has never in his life known how to work a conjuring trick. It is all true skill and solid ability. I am already taking my ease inside my honoured sister-in-law’s honoured belly, and have had a good look at her lungs and liver. I know you must be hungry and thirsty too. Let me first send you down a seat-bowl to quench your thirst.”
And with that he planted his foot downward. The Rākṣasī’s lower belly was seized with pain past bearing. She sat down on the ground and cried out in agony.
“Sister-in-law, don’t refuse me,” said Pilgrim. “Let me send you down a pastry to stay your hunger.” And he butted his head upward. The Rākṣasī’s heart was in pain past bearing. She could only roll about on the ground, and the pain turned her face yellow and her lips white, till she could only call out, “Uncle Sun, spare my life!”
Only then did Pilgrim draw in his hands and feet. “So you know your uncle now, do you? For the sake of Elder Brother Bull’s feelings I will spare your life. Be quick and fetch the fan for me to use.”
“Uncle — there is a fan, there is a fan. Come out and take it.”
“Bring out the fan and let me see it, and I’ll come out.”
The Rākṣasī at once told the maid to bring a banana-leaf fan and hold it there at her side.
Pilgrim reached up as far as her throat, saw it, and said, “Sister-in-law, since I have spared your life, I will not poke a hole out under your ribs — I shall come out by the mouth instead. Open your mouth three times.”
The Rākṣasī did indeed open her mouth. Pilgrim turned himself back into a gnat, flew out first, and alighted on the banana-leaf fan. The Rākṣasī knew nothing of it, and opened her mouth three times running, calling, “Come out, Uncle.”
Pilgrim changed back to his own shape, took up the fan, and called out, “Am I not over here? Thanks for the loan, thanks for the loan!” He strode off and made straight for the door, and the little ones hurriedly opened it and let him out of the cave.
This Great Sage turned his cloud about and went straight back along the eastward road. In a moment he set his cloud down and stood beneath the red brick wall. Eight Rules saw him and said with delight, “Master! Elder brother is back, he’s back!” Tripitaka went out at once with the old man of the household and Sha Monk to meet him, and they came together into the house.
He leaned the banana-leaf fan against the wall beside him and said, “Old sir, is this the fan?”
“Just so, just so,” said the old man.
Tripitaka said happily, “Disciple, this is a very great achievement. In seeking this treasure you have laboured hard indeed.”
“The labour is nothing to speak of,” said Pilgrim. “But this Iron-Fan Immortal — who do you suppose she is? That creature turns out to be the wife of the Bull Demon King and the mother of the Red Boy. Her name is the Rākṣasī, and she is also called the Iron-Fan Princess.
“I found my way to the mouth of her cave and asked to borrow the fan, and she began at once upon the grudge between us, and cut at me with her sword a good few times. So I frightened her with my cudgel, and she fanned me one fanning with the fan — and off I went drifting and tumbling, blown clean to the Little Sumeru Mountain. By good fortune I met the Bodhisattva Lingji, who gave me a Wind-Stilling Pill and pointed me the way back. I came again to Mount Cuiyun and saw the Rākṣasī a second time.
“The Rākṣasī used the fan on me again — and it could not move me, so back she went into the cave. So old Sun changed into a little gnat and flew into the cave. That creature was just then calling for tea to drink, so I slipped in under the froth of it, got down into her belly, and set to work with hands and feet. Her pain was past all bearing, and she called me Uncle without stopping and begged for her life, and was willing enough then to lend me the fan. So I let her go, and brought the fan away. Once we are past the Mountain of Flames, we shall send it back to her.”
Tripitaka, hearing him out, thanked him without end.
Master and disciples all took their leave of the old man and set out westward on the road. When they had gone some forty lǐ or thereabouts, little by little a fierce heat came steaming up at them. Sha Monk could only say, “The soles of my feet are being scorched.” Eight Rules said as well, “My trotters are burning.” The horse went quicker than usual too — only because it could not bear the heat and stand still, and was in a great fret to be on.
“Master, pray dismount; brothers, don’t go on,” said Pilgrim. “Let me fan the fire out; and when the wind and rain have come and the ground is a little cooler, then we will go over the mountain.”
Pilgrim did indeed raise the fan, went straight to the edge of the fire and fanned with all his strength — and the flames on that mountain came roaring and leaping up; he fanned a second time, and it blazed a hundredfold; he fanned a third time, and that fire stood a full thousand zhàng high, and began little by little to burn against his body.
Pilgrim scrambled back at once — and the hair on both his legs was already burnt away. He ran straight to where the Tang Monk stood and shouted, “Back, get back! The fire is coming, the fire is coming!”
That master scrambled onto the horse and came back eastward with Eight Rules and Sha Monk more than twenty lǐ before they halted at last. Then he said, “Wukong — how did it go?”
Pilgrim threw down the fan. “It would not do, it would not do. That creature has tricked me.”
Hearing this, Tripitaka knitted his brows in grief and heaped care upon his heart. He could not hold back the tears that ran down both cheeks, and could only say, “What is to be done?”
“Brother,” said Eight Rules, “what did you mean, shouting at us in such a desperate hurry to get back?”
“I gave the fire one fanning with the fan, and the flames came roaring up; at the second fanning the fire grew fiercer still; and at the third fanning the head of the flame flew a full thousand zhàng high. If I had not run fast, every hair on me would have been burnt away.”
Eight Rules said with a laugh, “You are always telling us that thunder cannot hurt you and fire cannot harm you. How is it you are afraid of fire now?”
“You idiot, you understand nothing at all. On those occasions I was guarding myself with care, and so took no hurt; today, because I was wholly taken up with fanning the fire out, I never made the fire-averting sign nor used the body-protecting spell, and that is why the hair on both my legs got burnt.”
“With the fire as fierce as this and no road through to the west,” said Sha Monk, “what is to be done?”
“We need only pick a way round where there is no fire, and be done,” said Eight Rules.
“Which quarter has no fire?” asked Tripitaka.
“East, south and north — none of them has any fire.”
“And which quarter has the scriptures?”
“The scriptures are in the west.”
“I want only to go where the scriptures are,” said Tripitaka.
“Where there are scriptures there is fire,” said Sha Monk, “and where there is no fire there are no scriptures. Truly we can neither go on nor go back.”
While master and disciples were still talking wildly among themselves, they heard someone calling: “Great Sage, there is no need to fret. Come and take a little fasting fare, and then we will talk it over again.” The four of them looked back and saw an old man. He wore a cloak that streamed in the wind and a crescent-moon cap on his head; he carried a dragon-headed staff, and on his feet he trod boots of iron shafts. Behind him came a demon with a beak like a hawk’s and cheeks like a fish’s, carrying on its head a brass basin; and in the basin were steamed cakes, millet gruel and yellow-grain rice. Bowing there on the road to the west, he said, “I am the Local Spirit of the Mountain of Flames. Knowing that the Great Sage is escorting the holy monk and cannot go forward, I have brought this fasting fare as an offering.”
“Eating is a small matter,” said Pilgrim. “When can this fire be put out, so that my master may pass?”
“To put out the fire you must beg the banana-leaf fan of the Rākṣasī.”
Pilgrim went to the roadside, picked up the fan and said, “Is this not it? The more that fire is fanned the more it burns. How is that?”
The Local Spirit looked at it and said with a smile, “This fan is not the true one. She has tricked you.”
“Then how am I to get the true one?”
That Local Spirit bowed low with his back curved, and said with a slight smile:
If you would borrow the true banana fan,
then you must go and seek out the King of Great Strength.
In the end there is no knowing what cause the King of Great Strength may have in this. Listen to the explanation in the next chapter.