Rank, wealth, fame and merit are fixed by bonds formed long before; as a man, never deceive your own heart.
Upright, grand, bright and clear — loyalty and goodness ripen into ever-deeper fruit.
A little arrogance, and Heaven adds its censure; what is not met now awaits its appointed hour.
Ask the Lord of the East: why is it that calamity now comes to assail?
Only because the heart, soaring high, schemed without limit, refusing high and low — and so threw rule and precept into chaos.
The tale tells how the Great Sage Equal to Heaven was marched by the host of Heaven's troops to the foot of the Execution Scaffold and bound to the demon-subduing pillar. They hewed at him with knife and axe, stabbed him with spear and slashed him with sword, and none of it so much as grazed his body. The Star of the Southern Dipper sharply commanded the gods of the Fire Bureau to set him ablaze and roast him, and still they could not burn him. Then the gods of the Thunder Bureau were sent to strike him with thunder-shards, and these could injure not a single hair.
“Your Majesty,” the mighty Demon-King and the rest reported to the throne, “we cannot tell where this Great Sage learned his art of body-warding. Your servants have hewn him with knife and axe, struck him with thunder and burned him with fire, yet cannot harm a single hair of him. What is to be done?”
The Jade Emperor heard them out. “This wretch — so-and-so, just so,” he said. “How shall he be dealt with?”
At once Laozi, the Most High Lord, memorialized. “That monkey has eaten the immortal peaches, drunk the imperial wine, and stolen the elixir of the immortals. My five gourds of elixir, some raw and some refined, he swallowed whole into his belly; working the Fire of Samādhi, it has forged into a single mass, so that his whole frame has become a body of adamant and cannot be harmed in haste. Better let this old Daoist take him away and set him in the Brazier of the Eight Trigrams. With civil and martial fire I shall refine him and draw out my elixir, and his body will of itself become ash.”
The Jade Emperor heard this and at once ordered the Six Ding and Six Jia to unbind him and hand him over. Laozi received the command and departed.
On the other side, Erlang the Manifest Sage was summoned and rewarded — a hundred golden flowers, a hundred bottles of imperial wine, a hundred pellets of reverted elixir, rare gems and bright pearls, brocades and the like, to be shared with his sworn brothers. The True Lord gave thanks for the grace and returned to Guanjiangkou; and of him we say no more here.
Laozi came to the Tushita Palace, loosed the Great Sage's cords, drew out the spike that had pierced his collarbone, and thrust him into the Brazier of the Eight Trigrams; and he ordered the brazier-tending Daoist and the fire-stoking lad to fan the flames up and refine him.
Now that brazier was set out by the Eight Trigrams — Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun and Dui — and the monkey at once thrust himself in beneath the Xun position. Xun is Wind, and where there is wind there is no fire. Only, the wind churned up smoke, which seared his pair of eyes fire-red and left them like an old man's chronic sore eyes; and so they came to be called the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils.
Truly time speeds swiftly. Before he knew it, seven times seven had made forty-nine days, and Laozi's fire-cycle was complete. Of a sudden, one day, the brazier was opened to take out the elixir.
The Great Sage, both hands shielding his eyes, was just then rubbing them and weeping when he heard a sound at the brazier's mouth. He opened his eyes suddenly and saw the light; and unable to hold back, he flexed his body in a single bound, leapt out of the elixir-brazier, and with a clattering crash kicked the Eight-Trigram Brazier over and made straight for the door. In a fluster the fire-stokers, the brazier-tenders and the Ding-Jia crew rushed to seize him, and one by one he knocked them all flat, like a white-browed tiger gone epileptic, like a wind-mad single-horned dragon. Laozi gave chase and grabbed at him; but with one wrench the monkey threw him head over heels, and slipped free.
At once he drew the As-You-Will cudgel from his ear, faced the wind and gave it a shake, and it grew bowl-thick as before, gripped firm in his hand. Heedless of good or ill, once more he threw the Palace of Heaven into uproar, beating the Nine Luminary Stars behind barred doors and the Four Heavenly Kings into formless flight. A fine monkey-sprite! There is a poem to prove it:
His Primal-Unity body squares true with the Before-Heaven; through ten thousand kalpas, a thousand turns, it is only Self-So.
Vague and boundless, doing-nothing, one with the Great Monad; Thus-and-Thus, unmoving, it is named First Mystery.
Long refined in the brazier, yet no lead and mercury; beyond all things, deathless — this is the root-immortal.
Transformations without end, and still he transforms; of the Three Refuges and Five Precepts, say nothing at all.
And another:
A single point of numinous light pierces the Great Void; that staff of his is likewise so.
Now long, now short, used as one wills; crosswise or upright, ranged at will, free to furl or unfurl.
And another:
The ape-and-monkey, body of the Way, is matched to the human mind; the mind is the ape-and-monkey — the meaning runs deep.
Great Sage Equal to Heaven is no empty boast; but the post of Bì-mǎ — how could that know his true note?
Horse and ape working as one, mind in accord with intent; bind them fast and tether them tight — seek not outside.
Let the ten thousand forms return to the true, following the single principle; one in tally with the Tathāgata, dwelling in the Twin Groves.
This time the Monkey King, heeding neither high nor low, wielded his iron cudgel, striking east and warding west; not one god could withstand him, and he beat his way clear to the Hall of Universal Brightness and out to the very front of the Hall of Divine Mists. Luckily the True Lord Yousheng's aide-officer, Wang the Numinous Officer, was holding the hall. Seeing the Great Sage run riot, he drew his golden whip and pressed forward to block him.
“Where to, you rascally ape?” he cried. “With me here, by no means run wild!”
The Great Sage allowed him no word of explanation, but raised his cudgel and struck, and the Officer's whip rose to meet it. The two grappled and tangled together before the Hall of Divine Mists — a fine fight!
A red-blooded loyal heart, great in fair repute; one who cheats Heaven and deludes its lord — a name gone foul.
One base, one fine — happily they hold each other off; hero against hero, joined in the same wager-match.
The iron cudgel fierce, the golden whip swift — how can the upright and selfless endure it?
This one is the Taiyi Thunder-Sound Responsive-Manifestation Honored One; that one is the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, the ape-and-monkey fiend.
Golden whip and iron cudgel — both houses have their skill; both are immortal arms of the divine palace.
Today before the Treasure Hall of Divine Mists they flaunt their might, each displaying heroic talent — truly a sight to love.
The one, heart-cheating, would seize the Dipper-and-Ox Palace; the other strains every sinew to uphold the realm of the Dark Sage.
Bitterly they strive, neither yielding, displaying their powers; whip and cudgel come and go with no victor and no vanquished.
The two fought locked together, and victory was undecided. Soon the True Lord Yousheng dispatched his officers to send word to the Thunder Mansion, and thirty-six Thunder Generals were summoned to come all at once, ringing the Great Sage in their midst, each unleashing his ferocity in pitched battle. The Great Sage showed not the least trace of fear. Wielding his one As-You-Will cudgel, he warded left and blocked right, parried behind and met in front.
All at once, seeing the Thunder Generals' sabers, spears, swords and halberds, their whips, maces, bludgeons and hammers, their battle-axes, war-hammers and gold-melon maces, their banner-blades, sickles and crescent-spades all pressing in hard, he shook his body and changed: he made himself three heads and six arms, gave the cudgel a shake, and turned it into three cudgels worked by six hands. Plying the three cudgels, whirling just like a spinning-wheel, he twirled round and round in the heart of the ring and danced through the air, and the Thunder Gods could come nowhere near. Truly it was:
Round and full, dazzling-bright — abiding from all antiquity: how could a man learn it?
Enter fire, it cannot burn; enter water, when was it ever drowned?
A single luminous maṇi-pearl: sword and halberd, saber and spear cannot wound it.
It can be good, it can be evil; good and evil before us, it works as it will.
In its good, it becomes Buddha or immortal; in its evil, it takes on fur and grows horns.
With boundless transformations he troubles the Heavenly Palace; the Thunder Generals and divine troops cannot catch him.
At that time the assembled gods pressed the Great Sage into their midst and still could not get near him, all shouting, all fighting in confusion. Soon the Jade Emperor was alarmed, and at once issued a decree dispatching the Roving Inspector Officer together with the True Lord Yisheng to go to the Western Quarter and invite the Old Buddha to subdue him.
The two sage-envoys received the decree and went straight to the Spirit Mountain's fair domain. Before the Treasure-Temple of Thunderclap they paid their respects to the Four Vajra-guardians and Eight Bodhisattvas and begged that their coming be announced. The gods went down to the foot of the Jeweled Lotus Dais and made it known, and the Tathāgata summoned the two sages. They circled the Buddha thrice in reverence and stood attending below the dais.
“On what matter,” the Tathāgata asked, “does the Jade Emperor trouble you two sages to descend?”
“Some time ago,” they reported, “Flower-Fruit Mountain bore a monkey who there worked his magic powers, gathered a host of monkeys, and threw the world into disorder. The Jade Emperor sent down an edict of amnesty and enfeoffed him as Bì-mǎ-wēn; but he scorned the post as too low and rebelled. Then Heaven sent Heavenly King Li and the Prince Nezha to seize him, without success, so it amnestied him again and titled him Great Sage Equal to Heaven — at first an office with rank but no stipend. It set him to oversee the Peach Garden, and he stole the peaches; he went on to the Jasper Pool, stole the viands and the wine, wrecked the Grand Assembly in his cups, then secretly entered the Tushita Palace, stole Laozi's elixir, and rebelled out of Heaven.
“The Jade Emperor sent a hundred thousand heavenly troops again, and still could not capture him. Then Guanyin recommended the True Lord Erlang and his sworn brothers to hunt him down; and his transformations being so manifold, it was only because Laozi hurled the adamant-ring and struck Erlang's mark that he was at last seized, delivered to the throne, and ordered beheaded. Knife-hewing and axe-chopping, fire-burning and thunder-striking — none could harm him. Laozi got leave by memorial to take him away, refined him with fire for forty-nine days, and opened the cauldron; but out he leapt again from the Eight-Trigram Brazier, drove back the heavenly soldiers, and pressed into the Hall of Universal Brightness and outside the Hall of Divine Mists, where Wang the Numinous Officer, the True Lord Yousheng's aide, blocked him in bitter combat. Then thirty-six Thunder Generals were summoned to trap him in their midst, and still none could come near. The matter being urgent, the Jade Emperor therefore specially invites the Tathāgata to come to his rescue.”
The Tathāgata heard this and addressed the assembled Bodhisattvas. “Sit firm here in the Hall of the Law,” he said, “and let none disturb the meditation-seats. Wait while I go subdue this fiend and rescue the throne.”
He then called the two venerables Ānanda and Kāśyapa to attend him, left Thunderclap, and went straight to the gate of the Hall of Divine Mists. Suddenly he heard shouts that shook the ears: it was the thirty-six Thunder Generals besieging the Great Sage. The Buddha issued a dharma-decree ordering the Thunder Generals to cease their arms, open their lines, and call the Great Sage out. “Let me ask him what powers he has,” he said; and the generals duly withdrew.
The Great Sage too withdrew his magic form and showed his true body. He came forward in a surge of fury and shouted shrilly: “What manner of holy man are you, who dares come halt the fighting and question me?”
“I am Śākyamuni, the Honored One of the Western Paradise of Ultimate Bliss — Namo Amitābha Buddha,” said the Tathāgata with a smile. “Now I hear you are wild and boorish, rebelling against Heaven again and again. I wonder where you were born and grew, in what year you gained the Way, and why you are so violent and overbearing?”
And the Great Sage answered him in verse:
I am by origin a numinous immortal, formed of Heaven and Earth, an old ape of Flower-Fruit Mountain.
In the Water-Curtain Cave I made my home and trade; I sought friends and a master, and awoke to the Grand Mystery.
I refined to life-everlasting through arts past counting; I learned transformations boundlessly wide.
Because, in the mortal world, I found the ground too cramped, I set my heart firmly on dwelling in the Jasper Heaven.
The Treasure Hall of Divine Mists is no one's for long; through the ages, the kings of men each have their portioned turn.
The strong should be honored — the seat should yield to me! A hero like none other, I dare to claim the foremost place.
The Buddha heard him out and laughed a cold ha-ha. “You wretch are but a monkey become a spirit! How dare you cheat your own heart and scheme to seize the honored seat of the Jade Emperor? He has cultivated himself from infancy, bitterly passing through one thousand seven hundred and fifty kalpas, and each kalpa is one hundred twenty-nine thousand six hundred years. Reckon how many years that makes — only then may one enjoy this Boundless Great Way.
“You beast, only first entering upon human form, how dare you utter such big words! Unbecoming of a human! Unbecoming of a human! You shorten your own allotted span. Submit at once, and by all means talk no nonsense! I fear only that you will meet a cruel hand and your life be ended in an instant — and what a pity that would be for your Original Face.”
“Though he is young in years and long in cultivation,” said the Great Sage, “still he ought not to hold this place forever. As the saying goes, 'The throne is taken in turn — next year it comes to my house.' Just make him move out and yield the Palace of Heaven to me, and there's an end of it. But if he still won't yield, I'll surely make havoc, and there will never be peace!”
“Besides your arts of deathless life and transformation,” said the Buddha, “what other power have you, that you dare seize the fair realm of Heaven's Palace?”
“My skills are many!” said the Great Sage. “I have seventy-two transformations, life everlasting unaging through ten thousand kalpas, and I can ride the cloud-somersault — one bound, a hundred and eight thousand lǐ. Why should I not sit upon the heavenly throne?”
“Let me make a wager with you,” said the Buddha. “If you have the skill to somersault clear of my right palm, I'll count you the winner: no more need of weapons or bitter war — I'll ask the Jade Emperor to go dwell in the West and yield the Palace of Heaven to you. But if you cannot leap free of my palm, then go back down to the world as a fiend, cultivate yourself a few more kalpas, and come quarrel again.”
The Great Sage heard this and laughed to himself. “This Tathāgata is a great fool! My one somersault goes a hundred and eight thousand lǐ, and his palm is not a chǐ across — how could I fail to leap clear?”
Quickly he called out: “If you put it so, can you make good your word?”
“I can, I can!” said the Buddha — and spread open his right hand, which was about the size of a lotus leaf.
The Great Sage put away his As-You-Will cudgel, roused his spirit-might, flexed his body in a single bound, and stood in the center of the Buddha's palm. “And out I go!” he cried. Look at him — a streak of cloud-light, gone formless and shadowless. The Buddha watched with his wisdom-eye and saw the Monkey King spinning along just like a pinwheel, never stopping, pressing ever onward.
As the Great Sage went, he suddenly saw five flesh-pink pillars propping up a mass of blue vapor. “This must be the end of the road,” he said. “When I go back this time, with the Tathāgata as witness, the Hall of Divine Mists will surely be mine to sit in.” Then he thought again. “Wait! Let me leave some mark, so I'll have proof when I speak to the Tathāgata.” He pulled out a hair, blew on it with magic breath, cried “Change!” — and turned it into a thick-inked double-tipped brush; and on the middle pillar he wrote a line of large characters: The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here. Having written it, he took back his hair, and then — most unseemly — let loose a gush of monkey-piss at the foot of the first pillar.
He flipped his cloud-somersault over, went straight back, stood in the Tathāgata's palm, and said: “I've gone and now I'm back. Tell the Jade Emperor to yield me the Palace of Heaven.”
“You piss-spirit of a monkey!” the Tathāgata cursed. “You never once left my palm.”
“You don't know,” said the Great Sage. “I went to the very end of the sky, saw five flesh-pink pillars propping a mass of blue vapor, and left my mark there. Dare you go with me to look?”
“No need to go,” said the Tathāgata. “Just lower your head and look.”
The Great Sage opened wide his fiery eyes and golden pupils and looked down; and there on the Buddha's right middle finger was written The Great Sage Equal to Heaven was here, while in the fork of the thumb there yet lingered the rank reek of monkey-piss.
The Great Sage was startled. “Can such a thing be? Can such a thing be?” he said. “I wrote these words on a sky-propping pillar — how can they be on his finger? Unless he has some art of foreknowing without divining? I won't believe it! I won't! Let me go again.”
Fine Great Sage! He sprang up swiftly to leap out again — but the Buddha turned his palm and gave a push, thrust the Monkey King out beyond the Western Heaven-gate, and changed his five fingers into five joined mountains of Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth, named the Mountain of Five Phases, and lightly pressed him down beneath them. The Thunder Gods and Ānanda and Kāśyapa, every one, joined their palms in praise. “Excellent, excellent!” they said.
And of him it was written:
In the year he hatched from the egg and learned to be human, he set his will on cultivation and truly attained the Way.
Through ten thousand kalpas, unmoved, he might have dwelt in the fair realm; but in one morning, a single change scattered his spirit.
Cheating Heaven, deceiving its lord, he lusted for the high seat; affronting the sages, stealing the elixir, he threw the great order into chaos.
His cup of evil now brim-full, today he meets requital; who knows on what day he will turn himself over again?
The Buddha, having quelled the fiendish monkey, at once called Ānanda and Kāśyapa to return with him to the Western Paradise of Ultimate Bliss. Just then the Marshals Tianpeng and Tianyou hurried out of the Treasure Hall of Divine Mists. “Pray, Tathāgata, wait a little,” they said. “Our Lord's great carriage is coming.”
The Buddha heard them and turned to look up in reverence. In a moment there indeed appeared the eight-scened phoenix-carriage and the nine-radiance treasure-canopy; sounding mystic songs and wondrous music, chanting numberless divine stanzas, scattering jeweled flowers and breathing true fragrance, the procession came straight before the Buddha and gave thanks.
“We are deeply indebted to your great Dharma for capturing and quelling the fiend,” they said. “We beg the Tathāgata to stay one day, that we may invite all the immortals to a banquet of thanksgiving.”
The Tathāgata dared not refuse. He joined his palms and said in thanks: “This old monk came at the Great Heavenly Honored One's command — what power have I? It is rather the blessing of the Honored One and the gods. How dare you trouble to thank me?”
The Jade Emperor issued a decree, ordering the gods of the Thunder Bureau to go in all directions and invite the Three Pure Ones, the Four Sovereigns, the Five Elders, the Six Directors, the Seven Primes, the Eight Poles, the Nine Luminaries, the Ten Capitals, and all the thousand-true and myriad-holy, to come to the gathering and join in thanking the Buddha's grace.
He further ordered the Four Heavenly Masters and the Nine-Heaven Immortal Maidens to throw open the Jade-Capital Golden Towers, the Grand-Mystery Treasure Palace and the Cavern-Yang Jade Lodge; to invite the Tathāgata to the high seat on the Seven-Jewel Numinous Dais; to arrange the seating of each rank; and to lay out dragon-liver and phoenix-marrow, jade nectar and immortal peaches.
In no time at all the Primal-Origin Honored One of Jade Purity, the Numinous-Treasure Honored One of Upper Purity, the Way-and-Virtue Honored One of Grand Purity, the Five-Vapor True Lords, the Five-Dipper Star Lords, the Three Officials and Four Sages, the Nine-Luminary True Lords, the Left-Aide and Right-Assistant, the Heavenly Kings, Nezha, and every numinous power of the Mystic Void — rank on rank of banners, pair on pair of canopies — all came bearing bright pearls and rare treasures, longevity-fruits and wondrous flowers, and offered them in homage before the Buddha.
“We are grateful to the Tathāgata's boundless Dharma-power for subduing the fiendish monkey,” they said. “At the Great Heavenly Honored One's bidding to this banquet, we have all come to give thanks. We beg the Tathāgata to give this gathering a name — what shall it be?”
The Tathāgata accepted the gods' charge. “If a name is wanted,” he said, “let it be called the 'Assembly for Pacifying Heaven.'” And the assembled immortals cried with one voice: “A fine Assembly for Pacifying Heaven! A fine Assembly for Pacifying Heaven!” When this was said, each took his seat; goblets passed and wine-cups went round, flowers were pinned and zithers struck — truly a fine assembly. There is a poem to prove it:
The Peach Banquet was set, and the monkey threw it into chaos; the Assembly for Pacifying Heaven surpasses the Peach Banquet itself.
Dragon-banners and phoenix-carriages, auspicious light aglow; jeweled standards and pennoned flags, propitious vapors adrift.
Immortal music and mystic song, the tones and rhymes so fair; phoenix pan-pipes and jade flutes, their sound ringing high.
Jasper incense curling, the host of immortals gathered; the universe at peace, they hail the holy court.
All were merry at the glad gathering when in came the Queen Mother, leading a troop of immortal maids and lasses, fair girls and lovely women, drifting and floating, dancing up before the Buddha to make obeisance.
“Before, the fiendish monkey wrecked the Peach Banquet, when I had invited all the immortals and Buddhas, and none could be accomplished,” she said. “Now, by the Tathāgata's great Dharma, the stubborn monkey is chained, and we joyfully keep the Assembly for Pacifying Heaven. Having nothing to offer in thanks, I now wash my hands and pick with my own hands a few peaches from the great trees to present.”
Truly they were:
Half red, half green, breathing sweet fragrance; gorgeous immortal roots, enduring ten thousand years.
Laughable, the strains grown at the Wuling source — how could they match Heaven's garden, rarer and finer still?
Purple-veined, tender and delicate, rare in all the mortal sphere; apricot-pit, pure and sweet, without a match in the world.
Lengthening life and extending years, able to transform the body; those with the karmic affinity to eat them become extraordinary of themselves.
The Buddha joined his palms and thanked the Queen Mother. She then bade the immortal maidens and lasses sing, those who would sing, and dance, those who would dance; and all the host of immortals filling the assembly praised them in admiration. It was just:
Faint celestial fragrance fills the seats; in riotous profusion, immortal pistils and immortal flowers.
The Jade Capital and Golden Towers, in great magnificence; rare wares and wondrous treasures, beyond all price.
Pair on pair, equal in age with Heaven; couple on couple, increasing through ten thousand kalpas.
Let mulberry-fields and blue seas change as they will — they themselves know neither alarm nor surprise.
The Queen Mother was just having the immortal maidens and lasses sing and dance, horn-cups and tallies crossing merrily, when before long there suddenly came a waft of strange fragrance to the nose, startling all the stars and constellations and heavenly immortals filling the hall. The Buddha set down his cup; each raised his head and watched expectantly. In the midst of the cloud-river appeared an old man, bearing in his hands a numinous mushroom amid drifting mist, an embroidered gourd storing the ten-thousand-year elixir, and a treasure-register inscribing a lifespan of a thousand cycles. And of him it was said:
In his grotto, heaven and earth are his to roam at will; within his gourd, sun and moon attend his attainment.
He wanders the Four Seas, delighting in ease; idle and free, the Ten Continents gather to him.
He has gone to the Peach Banquet and been drunk how many times; waking, the bright moon is still as it was.
Long of head, big of ear, short of frame — in the quarter of the South Pole he is called the Elder of Long Life.
The Star of Longevity arrived, paid his respects to the Jade Emperor, and then, seeing the Tathāgata, expressed his thanks.
“I first heard that the fiendish monkey had been taken by Laozi to the Tushita Palace to be refined, and thought peace was surely assured — but unexpectedly he broke out again,” he said. “Happily the Tathāgata has well subdued this fiend, and a banquet is set in thanks; so, catching word of it, I have come. Having no other gift, I bring only purple mushroom and jasper herb, blue lotus-root and golden elixir, to present.”
The poem says:
Blue lotus-root and golden elixir, offered to Śākyamuni; may the Tathāgata's myriad years be as the sands of the Ganges.
In pure peace and eternal joy, the brocade of the Three Vehicles; in health and long life, the flowers of the Nine Grades.
In the gate of the Signless, the true Lord of the Law; on the heaven of Form-and-Emptiness, he is the immortals' own house.
Heaven, earth and the great ground all call him Patriarch; his sixteen-chǐ golden body, vast in fortune and long life.
The Tathāgata gladly accepted the thanks. The Star of Longevity took his seat, and again the wine-cups went round. Then the Barefoot Immortal arrived, bowed his head before the Jade Emperor, completed his obeisance, and turning to the Buddha gave thanks.
“I deeply feel your Dharma-power in subduing the fiendish monkey,” he said. “Having nothing worthy to show my respect, I bring only two crossed-pears and several fire-dates to present.”
The poem says:
The Barefoot Immortal's dates and pears are fragrant; reverently offered to Amitābha, that his reckoned years be long.
His Seven-Jewel Lotus Dais, steady as a mountain; his thousand-gold flower-throne, adorned like brocade.
His years equal to heaven and earth — the words are no falsehood; his fortune likened to the vast waves — the saying is no boast.
His fortune and long life fulfilled as appointed — truly it is the pure, idle, utmost bliss of that Western land.
The Tathāgata again gave thanks, bade Ānanda and Kāśyapa gather up one by one the things that had been offered, and then before the Jade Emperor gave thanks for the banquet. All were dead drunk. Then a Patrolling Officer came to report: “That Great Sage has poked his head out.” The Buddha said: “No matter, no matter.”
From his sleeve he took out a single slip of paper, on which were six golden words: “Oṃ, ma, ṇi, pad, me, hūṃ.” He handed it to Ānanda and told him to paste it on the mountain's summit. The venerable one took the slip, carried it out of the Heaven-gate, came to the summit of the Mountain of Five Phases, and pasted it fast upon a square stone. That mountain at once took root and sealed its seams; yet he could still draw breath, and work a hand out to scrabble and wriggle a little.
Ānanda returned and reported: “The slip is pasted.” The Tathāgata then took leave of the Jade Emperor and the gods, and with the two venerables went out beyond the Heaven-gate; and there he gave rise to a compassionate thought, intoned a true-word incantation, and summoned a local Earth-god to the Mountain of Five Phases, to join with the Five-Quarter Guardians and dwell there keeping watch over the captive.
“But when he hungers, give him iron pellets to eat; when he thirsts, give him molten bronze to drink. When the days of his calamity are fulfilled, there will of itself be one to save him.”
It was just:
The fiendish monkey, bold of heart, rebelled against the Heavenly Palace; yet by the Tathāgata's hand he was subdued.
Thirsty, he drinks molten bronze to bear out the years; hungry, he eats iron pellets to pass the hours.
Heaven's calamity, bitter and confining, brings grinding torment; human affairs grown desolate — yet he rejoices that his life endures.
If ever the hero should once more stir and struggle free, in some year to come he will serve the Buddha and go up to the West.
And another:
He had unleashed his bravery, his great force flourishing; subduing dragons and taming tigers, plying his clever powers.
He stole the peaches and stole the wine, roaming the heavenly mansions; received the register and enjoyed grace, dwelling in the Jade Capital.
His cup of evil brim-full, his body falls captive; his root of goodness unbroken, his vital breath yet rises.
If indeed he is to slip free of the Tathāgata's hand, then let him wait till the Tang dynasty brings forth its holy monk.
After all, there is no knowing in what year, in what month hereafter his calamity will at last be fulfilled — so listen to the next chapter for the explanation.