Now the ruler of Bhiksu, his ministers and the common folk all escorted the Tang Monk and his three disciples out of the city, and when they had gone some twenty lǐ they were still unwilling to part. Tripitaka, pressed, came down from the royal carriage, mounted his horse, took his leave and rode on; and those who watched him go stood there until not a trace of him could be seen before they turned back.
The four of them travelled a good long while, and winter's remnant and the last of spring went by, with more wild flowers and hill-trees than the eye could take in, and the whole landscape sweet with growth. Ahead of them there rose once again a high mountain with steep ridges. Tripitaka took fright and asked, “Disciples, on that high mountain ahead of us, is there a road or no road? You must take care.”
Pilgrim laughed and said, “Master, that is not the talk of a man who has walked long roads. It is more like some lordling or young nobleman, the sort who sits at the bottom of a well and calls it the sky. As the old saying has it: 'A mountain does not block a road; a road makes its own way through a mountain.' How can you ask whether there is a road or no road?”
Tripitaka said, “Granted that a mountain does not block a road. Still I fear that among such steeps there are strange creatures bred, and out of the deep places in the thickets come demons.” Bajie said, “Relax, relax. We are getting near to Ultimate Bliss now, and it is not far. I guarantee peace and quiet, with nothing to worry about.”
Master and disciples were still talking when, before they knew it, they arrived at the foot of the mountain. Pilgrim brought out his gold-hooped rod, walked up onto the stone crag and called, “Master, this is the path that goes round the mountain, and it is very easy going. Come on, come on!”
The elder had no choice but to put his mind at ease and whip up the horse. Sha Monk said, “Second brother, take the luggage on your shoulder for a spell.” Sure enough Bajie took the load and hoisted it up; Sha Monk gathered in the reins; and the old master sat firm in the carved saddle as they all followed Pilgrim up onto the high road along the cliff.
And this was the mountain they saw:
Cloud and mist cap the summit, / a rushing spring wells in the gorge.
A hundred flowers scent the whole road, / ten thousand trees stand close in their thickets.
Plum green and plum-blossom white, / willow green and peach red.
Where the cuckoo cries, spring is nearly over; / the purple swallows twitter, and the spring rites are done.
Jagged rocks, / pines like green parasols.
Rough and broken ridge-paths, / abrupt and intricately wrought.
Sheer walls and hanging cliffs, steep; / creeper and grass and trees, rank with growth.
A thousand crags contend in beauty like halberds ranked for battle; / ten thousand gorges race their streams, and the far waves run high.
The old master took in the mountain scenery slowly, and hearing all at once the cries of the birds, his longing for home rose in him again. He reined in his horse and called out, “Disciples!
“From the heavenly tablet the imperial will came down to me; / beneath the brocade screen I received the travel rescript.
“On the fifteenth, at the Lantern Feast, I left the Land of the East; / only then did I part from the Tang king, as heaven parts from earth.
“Barely had dragon and tiger met with wind and cloud / when master and disciples were crossed by baulking cavalry.
“I have walked out the twelve peaks of Wushan entire; / when will I stand before my sovereign face to face?”
Pilgrim said, “Master, you are forever making a matter of longing for home. It is not at all like a man who has left the household life. Set your mind at rest and keep walking. Do not fret so much. As the ancients said: 'If you would live in wealth and honour, you must put in deadly hard work.'”
Tripitaka said, “What you say has reason in it, disciple, but I do not know where the road to the Western Heaven still lies.” Bajie said, “Master, our Buddha Tathagata cannot bear to part with those Three Baskets of scripture. Knowing that we mean to fetch them away, I expect he has moved them;
“otherwise, how is it that we simply never arrive?” Sha Monk said, “Talk no nonsense. Just keep following eldest brother. Only put the work in and wear the road down, and there will surely come a day of arriving.”
Master and disciples were chatting idly along when they saw before them a great stand of black pine. The Tang Monk took fright and called out again, “Wukong, we have only just come through that rough mountain road. How is it we now meet this deep black pine wood? You must mind yourself.”
Pilgrim said, “What is there to fear in it?” Tripitaka said, “What kind of talk is that? 'Do not trust the straightest of the straight; be on your guard against the kind who are not kind.' You and I have walked through a good many pine woods together — was any of them as deep and far-reaching as this one?
“Just look:
“East and west they stand packed, / north and south they are ranked in rows.
“East and west they stand packed, piercing the clouds; / north and south they are ranked in rows, invading the blue.
“Close-set thorn and bramble knot themselves round about; / smartweed twines the branches, coiling above and below.
“Creeper comes to bind the kudzu, / kudzu goes to bind the creeper.
“Creeper comes to bind the kudzu: east and west, no traveller can get through;
“kudzu goes to bind the creeper: north and south, how is a merchant to pass?
“Live half a year in this wood and how would you tell day from month;
“walk a few lǐ and you would not see the Dipper.
“Look there — on the shaded side, a thousand kinds of scene; / on the sunward side, ten thousand thickets of flowers.
“And there are the thousand-year pagoda tree, the ten-thousand-year juniper, the cold-enduring pine, the mountain peach, the wild peony, the drought hibiscus, clustered thick and heaped in layered banks, so wildly scattered that no immortal could paint them.
“And a hundred birds are heard calling: the parrot whistles, the cuckoo cries;
“magpies thread the branches, and the crow feeds its parents in turn;
“orioles dance in flight, and the hundred-tongue tunes its notes;
“the partridge calls, the purple swallow speaks;
“the mynah learns to speak like a man, and the thrush too can read the scriptures.
“And there you see the great beast lash its tail, and the old tiger grind its teeth;
“foxes and badgers of many years got up as pretty women, and wolves grown grey with age howling till the wood shakes.
“Were the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King himself to come to this place, for all his skill at subduing demons he would lose his wits.”
The Great Sage Sun was plainly unafraid. He went ahead with his iron rod and hacked a broad path open, and led the Tang Monk straight into the deep wood. Easy and unhurried, they travelled half a day and still saw no road out of the wood. The Tang Monk called out, “Disciples, all this way westward, through mountains and forests beyond counting, rough and steep — how fortunate that this place is clean and quiet, and the whole road peaceful.
“The rare flowers and uncommon plants in this wood are truly pleasing to the heart. I should like to sit here a while: first, to rest the horse; second, my stomach is empty. Go somewhere and beg a little food for me to eat.”
Pilgrim said, “Please dismount, Master. Old Monkey will go and beg some food.” The elder did indeed get down from the horse, and Bajie tied the horse to a tree. Sha Monk set down the luggage, took out the alms bowl, and handed it to Pilgrim.
Pilgrim said, “Sit tight, Master. Do not be alarmed at anything. I shall be back as soon as I have gone.” Tripitaka sat upright beneath the shade of the pines, while Bajie and Sha Monk went off to hunt for flowers and fruit and amuse themselves.
Now the Great Sage rode his somersault up into mid-air, steadied himself on the light of his cloud, and looked back. All he could see was auspicious cloud drifting over the pine wood, and lucky vapours thick upon it. All at once he cried out, “Fine! Fine!”
And what was he calling out for? It turned out he was praising the Tang Monk, saying that he was the Elder Golden Cicada come back into the world, a good man of ten lifetimes of cultivation, and that this was why such a lucky sign hung over his head.
“As for Old Monkey, five hundred years ago at the time I made havoc in Heaven, I roamed the corners of the sea as a cloud roams and ranged loose to the ends of the sky; I gathered the host of spirits about me and styled myself Great Sage Equal to Heaven; I subdued dragons and tamed tigers, and struck my name off the register of the dead.
“On my head I wore a triple-arched cap of gold, on my body I wore mail of yellow gold, in my hand I held the gold-hooped rod, and on my feet I trod cloud-walking shoes. Under my command were forty-seven thousand fiends of every kind, and every one of them called me Grandfather Great Sage. I was truly somebody then.
“Now I have shed that calamity from Heaven, and I make myself small and keep myself low, and I have become your disciple. Considering that lucky cloud and auspicious vapour settled over my master's head, if we go straight back to the Land of the East there will certainly be something good in it, and Old Monkey will certainly attain the true fruit himself.”
In the middle of congratulating himself in this fashion, he suddenly saw, away to the south of the wood, a gout of black vapour come bubbling up. Pilgrim was greatly alarmed and said, “There is certainly something evil in that black vapour.
“That Bajie and Sha Monk of mine could hardly be giving off any sort of black vapour.” The Great Sage hung in mid-air and looked hard, and could not make it out.
Now Tripitaka was sitting in the wood, his mind clear and his nature in view, reciting the Heart Sutra of the Great Perfection of Wisdom, when all at once he heard a thin whimpering voice calling, “Save me!”
Tripitaka was greatly startled and said, “Mercy, mercy! In a deep wood like this, who could be calling? I expect it is somebody frightened off their feet by wolves and tigers. Let me go and look.”
The elder rose and stepped out, passing through thousand-year cypresses, putting aside ten-thousand-year pines, clinging to the kudzu and hauling on the creeper, and drew near to look. All he could see was a woman bound to a great tree, her upper half tied to the trunk with kudzu vine and her lower half buried in the earth.
The elder planted his feet and put a question to her: “Lady Bodhisattva, what has befallen you, that you are bound here?” Well now! Plainly this creature was a demon, and the elder, with his eyes of flesh and his common womb, could not tell.
When the fiend saw him come and ask, her tears welled like a spring. Look at her: tears down peach-blossom cheeks, with a face to make the fish sink and the wild geese drop; starry eyes brimming with grief, with a look to shut the moon away and shame the flowers.
The elder really did not dare go closer, and opened his mouth to ask again, “Lady Bodhisattva, what exactly is the offence you have committed? Tell it to this poor monk, and then I can properly rescue you.”
That fiend, with cunning words and flowery speech, all counterfeit feeling and false sentiment, answered hurriedly, “Master, my family lives in the Kingdom of the Poor Woman, some two hundred lǐ and more from here. My father and mother are living, they are exceedingly given to good works, and all their lives they have been kind to kin and loving to friends.
“At the season of Clear and Bright, they invited all our relatives and the whole household, old and young, to sweep the ancestral graves; and the whole party of chairs and horses came out to the empty country beyond the town. Before the graves they laid out the offerings, and had only just burned the paper horses when we heard gongs and drums sounding, and a band of brigands came running out brandishing swords and clubs, shouting murder as they came, and we were so terrified that our souls flew and our spirits scattered.
“My father and mother and all our kin, those who could get a horse or get a chair, each fled for their lives; and I, your handmaid, was young.
“I could not run, and fell to the ground in terror, and was carried off by the brigands into the mountains. The great king wanted me for his lady, the second king wanted me for his wife, and the third and fourth both doted on my looks; seventy or eighty of the households were all quarrelling over it at once, and none of them would give way, and so they bound your handmaid here among the trees, and the brigands broke up the meeting and went their ways.
“It is now five days and five nights, and my life is visibly at its end, and before long I shall be dead. I do not know which generation of ancestors laid up such merit, that today I should meet with you, venerable master, come to this place.
“I beg you, of your great mercy, save my life, and beneath the Nine Springs I shall never forget the debt.” When she had finished speaking, her tears fell like rain.
Tripitaka was truly tender-hearted, and could not hold back his own tears, and with a catch in his voice he called, “Disciples.” Bajie and Sha Monk were in the wood hunting for flowers and fruit when they suddenly heard how mournfully their master was calling, and the Idiot said, “Sha Monk, our master has found relations here.”
Sha Monk laughed and said, “Second brother, you are talking nonsense. We have travelled all this time and never once run into a decent person — where would relations come from?” Bajie said, “If they are not relations, how would our master be standing there crying with somebody? You and I had better go and see.”
Sha Monk did indeed go back to where they had been, led out the horse, shouldered the load, and came up saying, “Master, what is it?” The Tang Monk pointed up at the tree and said, “Bajie, cut that Lady Bodhisattva down and save her life.” The Idiot, without stopping to sort good from bad, went straight to work.
Now the Great Sage, up in mid-air, saw that the black vapour had grown thick and had covered over the auspicious light entirely, and he said aloud, “This is bad, this is bad! Black vapour darkening the lucky light — is that not some fiend harming my master?
“Begging food is a small matter; let me go and see to my master.” So he turned his cloud back, came down into the wood, and saw Bajie tugging wildly at the ropes. Pilgrim came up, seized him by the ear with one hand, and with a thump sent him sprawling.
The Idiot lifted his head and saw who it was, scrambled up and said, “The master told me to save somebody. Why do you trade on your strength to throw me down like that?” Pilgrim laughed and said, “Brother, do not untie her. She is a demon, working a trick on us, deceiving us.”
Tripitaka shouted at him, “You wretched ape, here you come talking nonsense again! How is it that with a girl like this you can tell at once that she is a demon?” Pilgrim said, “Master, you would not know. This is all business I have been in myself. The trick of wanting human flesh to eat — how would you recognise it?”
Bajie thrust out his snout and said, “Master, do not believe this Protector of Horses when he cozens you. This girl belongs to some household hereabouts. We have come far from the Land of the East, we have no quarrel with her, and she is no relation of ours — so how can he say she is a demon?
“He packed us off and threw us out ahead, and then he turns his somersault and works his magic to come back and get up to something clever with her — marrying himself in by the back door.” Pilgrim shouted, “Blockhead, talk no rubbish. All this way westward, where have I ever been slack?
“A sack of rot like you, who thinks more of a pretty face than of his own life and forgets what is right the moment he sees a profit, who cannot tell good from bad — you are the one who would let himself be gulled into being taken on as somebody's son-in-law and tied to a tree for it.” Tripitaka said, “Very well, very well.
“Bajie, your elder brother is usually not far wrong in what he sees. Since he says so, let us pay no attention to her and be on our way.” Pilgrim was overjoyed and said, “Good! The master has a fate to live out.”
“Please mount up. Outside the pine wood there are households where I can beg you some food.” So the four of them went on along the road, and left that fiend behind.
Now that fiend, bound to the tree, ground her teeth in spite and said, “For years I have heard people say that Sun Wukong has vast magic powers. Today I have seen him, and the talk is no idle talk after all.”
“That Tang Monk has cultivated himself in a virgin body, and not one drop of his original yang has been spent. I meant to take him off and couple with him, and so become a Golden Immortal of the Great Monad — and I never expected this ape to see through my method and carry him away.”
“If he had only untied the rope and let me down, I could have seized him there and then, and would he not have been mine? Now he has taken him off with a heap of loose talk and scraps of argument — is that not all my work for nothing? Let me call to him twice more and see how that goes.”
The demon did not stir the ropes at all, but took a few words of kind and gentle speech and, on a following wind, blew them thinly into the Tang Monk's ear. And what did she call? She called, “Master! You leave a living person's life unsaved, and go with a darkened heart to worship the Buddha — what scripture do you think you will get?”
The Tang Monk, up on his horse, heard the calling come again in this fashion, and at once reined in and cried, “Wukong, go and get that girl down and save her.” Pilgrim said, “Master, you are on the road. How have you come to be thinking about her again?”
The Tang Monk said, “She is calling over there again.” Pilgrim asked, “Bajie, did you hear it?” Bajie said, “My ears are so big they covered it up. I did not hear anything.”
He asked again, “Sha Monk, did you hear it?” Sha Monk said, “I was walking ahead with the load. I was not attending, and I did not hear it either.”
Pilgrim said, “Old Monkey did not hear it either. Master, what is she calling? Why should you alone hear it?”
The Tang Monk said, “What she says has reason in it. She said, 'You leave a living person's life unsaved, and go with a darkened heart to worship the Buddha — what scripture do you think you will get?' 'Save one human life, and it is better than raising a seven-storey pagoda.'
“Go quickly and get her down. It is worth more than fetching scriptures and worshipping the Buddha.” Pilgrim laughed and said, “Master, once you start being good there is no medicine for it.
“Think back: since you left the Land of the East and came west along this road, you have crossed several ranges of mountain country and met a great many demons, and they have carried you off into their caves times without number. Old Monkey came to save you, used the iron rod, and killed them by the thousand and the ten thousand.
“Today it is one demon's life, and you cannot bear it, and you want to go and save her?” The Tang Monk said, “Disciple, the ancients said: 'Do not leave a good thing undone because it is small; do not do an evil thing because it is small.'
“Go and save her after all.” Pilgrim said, “If that is how it is with you, Master — only this is a load Old Monkey cannot shoulder.
“If you want to save her, I do not dare argue you out of it. I argue for a while and you take offence. Save her as you please.” The Tang Monk said, “Monkey head, no more talk. You sit there — Bajie and I will go and save her.”
The Tang Monk went back into the wood and had Bajie untie the rope from her upper half and dig her lower half out of the ground with his rake. The fiend shook out her shoes and settled her skirt, and followed the Tang Monk out of the pine wood in high spirits, and saw Pilgrim.
Pilgrim only went on smiling coldly and would not stop. The Tang Monk scolded him: “Wretched monkey head, what are you laughing at?” Pilgrim said, “I am laughing that when your luck comes in you meet good friends, and when your luck runs out you meet a beautiful woman.”
Tripitaka scolded him again: “Wretched ape, you talk nonsense. From the moment I came out of my mother's belly I have been a monk. Now I travel west by imperial command, worshipping the Buddha with a sincere heart and seeking scriptures. I am not one of your seekers after profit and place — what fall in fortune could I be having?”
Pilgrim laughed and said, “Master, you may have been a monk from childhood, but all you know is reading sutras and calling on the Buddha. You have never looked at the articles of the law.
“This girl is young and good-looking, and you and I are men who have left the household life. If we travel the road in her company and happen to run into bad characters who haul us before a court, then whatever we say about fetching scriptures and worshipping the Buddha, the whole thing will be written up as fornication.
“Even if there were nothing in that, we should still be charged with abducting a person: the master would have his ordination certificate revoked and take a light beating; Bajie would be sentenced to the frontier garrisons; Sha Monk would be put to post-station duty;
“and Old Monkey would not come out of it clean either. However good my mouth is, however I argued, they would still get me on doing what ought not to be done.” Tripitaka shouted at him, “Talk no nonsense. Surely, if I save her life, what trouble could it possibly bring on us?
“Take her along, and whatever happens is on me.” Pilgrim said, “Master, you may say the trouble will fall on you, but you do not realise that you are not saving her. You are doing her harm.”
Tripitaka said, “I have brought her out of the wood and got her a living life. How is that doing her harm?” Pilgrim said, “When she was tied up in the wood, in three or five days, or ten days or a fortnight, with no food to eat, she would have starved — and she would still have gone down to the shades with her body whole.
“Now you have brought her out, and what you are sitting on is a fast horse that goes like the wind, and we have no choice but to keep up with you — while that girl has small feet and moves with difficulty. How is she to keep pace? The moment we leave her behind, if she runs into wolves and tigers and is swallowed at a gulp — is that not doing harm to her life instead?”
Tripitaka said, “Quite so. That is a thing you have thought of and I had not. What is to be done about it?” Pilgrim laughed and said, “Lift her up and let her ride the horse alongside you.”
Tripitaka hesitated and said, “How could I properly share a horse with her?” — “Then how is she to get there?” Tripitaka said, “Have Bajie carry her on his back.”
Pilgrim laughed and said, “The Idiot's luck has come in.” Bajie said, “'On a long road there is no light load.' You have me carry a person, and what luck is there in that?”
Pilgrim said, “That snout of yours is long. Carry her, turn your snout round, and work out a little private business with her — would that not suit you nicely?” When Bajie heard this he beat his chest and leapt in the air. “No, no.
“If the master wants to hit me a few times, I would sooner bear the pain. Carrying her on my back, I shall certainly not come out of it clean. Elder brother has spent his whole life planting stolen goods on people. Carry her I will not.”
Tripitaka said, “Very well, very well. I can still walk a few steps myself. Let me get down and we shall go along slowly together, and have Bajie lead the empty horse.”
Pilgrim laughed loudly and said, “The Idiot has a trade after all — the master has found you a place leading the horse.” Tripitaka said, “This monkey head is talking nonsense again.”
“The ancients said: 'A horse may go a thousand lǐ, but without a man it cannot go of itself.' Suppose I walk slowly on the road — would you really go off and leave me? If I am slow, you will all be slow.
“We shall all go down the mountain together with this Lady Bodhisattva, and if we come to a hermitage or a Daoist house or a temple, anywhere with people in it, we shall leave her there — and that will have been our saving of her.” Pilgrim said, “What the master says has reason in it. Please go on ahead.”
Tripitaka strode out in front, Sha Monk shouldered the load, Bajie led the empty horse and brought the girl along, and Pilgrim carried the iron rod; and so the whole party went forward. Before they had gone twenty or thirty lǐ, the light was failing, and they saw towers and terraces, halls and pavilions.
Tripitaka said, “Disciples, that over there must surely be a hermitage or a temple. Let us borrow a night's lodging here and set out early tomorrow.” Pilgrim said, “What the master says is right. Let us all step out a little.”
In no time they reached the gate, and he gave his orders: “Stand off a little way, the rest of you, and let me go and ask for lodging first. If it can conveniently be done, I shall send someone out to call you.” They all stood under the shade of the willows; only Pilgrim held his iron rod, keeping the girl in check.
The elder strode up close, and saw that the gate was leaning every way and falling to pieces. When he pushed it open and looked, he could not keep down the desolation in his heart: the long galleries silent, the ancient monastery bare and thin;
moss filling the courtyard, weeds choking the paths; only fireflies for flying lamps, and only frog-song in place of the water-clock. All at once the elder let his tears fall.
It was truly a case of:
Hall and shrine decayed and fallen, / gallery and cell forlorn and toppled.
Broken brick and shattered tile in ten heaps and more, / all of it crooked beams and snapped pillars.
Green grass growing everywhere before and behind, / dust burying the rotted kitchen where the incense was kept.
The bell tower collapsed and the drum without its skin, / the glazed lamps for the incense broken and spoiled.
The Buddha's golden body without its colour, / the arhats lying toppled east and west.
Guanyin rained on until she has gone entirely to clay, / the willow spray and the pure vase dropped to the ground.
By day there is no monk at all, / and by night nothing lodges here but foxes.
You hear only the wind roaring like thunder, / and it is all a place for tigers and leopards to hide their bodies.
The walls have fallen on every side, / and there is not a gate-leaf left to shut anyone in.
There is a poem in evidence. The poem says:
An ancient monastery of many years with no one to mend it, / wretched and decayed, and fallen further still.
Fierce winds have split the guardian's face, / heavy rains have worn away the Buddha's head.
The vajra-holder has fallen and taken the rain as it comes, / the earth god has no house and is not gathered in at night.
And there are two things more to sigh over here: / the bronze bell on the bare ground with no tower to hang it in.
Tripitaka hardened his courage and walked in through the second gate. He saw that the bell tower and the drum tower had both fallen, and there was only a single bronze bell planted in the ground, its upper half as white as snow and its lower half as blue as indigo.
It turned out that over long years and deep, the upper part had been bleached white by the rain, and the lower part had taken the green of bronze from the damp of the earth. Tripitaka laid his hand on the bell and called out loudly, “Bell! You too once hung in a high tower and roared, you too once rang from painted beams and carried far.
“You too once announced the dawn when the cock crowed, you too once saw the yellow dusk away at the end of the day. I do not know where the Daoist who smelted the bronze has gone, nor on what side the founder who cast it remains. I suppose the two of them have gone down to the shades, and he leaves no trace and you make no sound.”
The elder had been praising the bell aloud, and without meaning to he had roused somebody inside the monastery. Inside there was a Daoist attendant who kept the incense. Hearing a human voice, he scrambled up, picked up a piece of broken brick, and flung it at the bell — and the bell went off with a clang.
It frightened the elder off his feet. He struggled up to run, caught his foot on a tree root, and went down again with a thump. The elder lay on the ground, lifted his head and called again, “Bell! Here was I in the middle of feeling sorry for you, and all at once you go ding with a clang. I suppose nobody comes along the road to the Western Heaven, and after all these long years you have turned into a spirit.”
The attendant hurried up and took hold of him with one hand. “Get up, sir.” “The bell had nothing to do with turning into a spirit. It was I just now, striking the bell and making it sound.”
Tripitaka raised his head and saw how dark and ugly the man looked, and said, “Surely you are not some goblin or fiend? I am no ordinary man. I have come from the great Tang, and I have disciples under me who subdue dragons and tame tigers. If you run into them, your life will be hard to keep.”
The attendant knelt down and said, “Do not be afraid, sir. I am no fiend. I am the attendant of this monastery who keeps the incense.”
“Just now I heard you speaking kind words in praise, and I meant to come out and welcome you; but I was afraid it might be some evil ghost knocking at the door, and so I picked up a piece of broken brick and struck the bell once to steady my nerves before I dared come out. Get up, sir.”
Then the Tang Monk collected himself and said, “Prior, you very nearly frightened me to death. Take me inside.”
The attendant led the Tang Monk right through into the third gate, and when he looked about it was altogether unlike the outside. And this is what he saw:
Green brick laid up into cloud-painted walls, / green tiles roofing halls of glazed ware.
Yellow gold dressing the holy images, / white jade making the steps and terraces.
Blue light dancing above the Hall of the Great Hero, / a keen air rising beneath the Vairocana Pavilion.
The Manjushri Hall knotted with coloured flying cloud, / the revolving-canon hall painted with flowers and heaped with kingfisher green.
Treasure-vase finials sharp on the triple eaves, / embroidered canopies level in the Tower of the Five Blessings.
A thousand stems of green bamboo swaying by the meditation couch, / ten thousand kinds of dark pine throwing their shade on the Buddha's gate.
Golden light let loose in the Halls of the Blue Cloud, / lucky vapours drifting among the purple mists.
At dawn one hears the scented wind carried far across the fields, / at dusk one hears the painted drum sounding high on the hill.
Surely there is one here who mends his tattered robe facing the sun, / and how should there not be one who finishes the last of a sutra by the moon?
And there is half a wall of lamplight bright in the back courtyard, / a line of scented mist lighting the middle court.
When Tripitaka saw it he did not dare go in, and called out, “Attendant, the front of this place of yours is in a wretched state, and the back is as trim as this. Why is that?”
The attendant laughed and said, “Sir, there are a great many fiends and strong robbers in these mountains. When the weather is clear they go along the hills robbing, and when it clouds over they come into the monastery to shelter, and they have pushed the images over to sit on and carried off the timber to burn.”
“The monks of this house are weak and do not dare argue it out with them, and so they have given up all these broken buildings at the front for the robbers to lodge in, and gone out and got new donors, and built that one monastery behind.”
“The pure and the muddled each have their own place. That is how things are in the West.” Tripitaka said, “So that is how it is.”
As they went on he saw five great characters over the mountain gate: Sea-Calming Chan Grove Monastery. He had just taken a step and trodden his way in through the gate when all at once he saw a monk coming. Look what he was like:
On his head a hair-pinned cap of fleecy brocade, / a pair of copper rings hanging from his ears.
On his body a coat of foreign woollen stuff, / a pair of pale eyes as bright as silver.
In his hand a shaken pellet-drum, / in his mouth a foreign scripture, and one cannot make it out.
Tripitaka did not know him at all: / this was a lama monk of the western road.
The lama monk came out of the gate and saw Tripitaka — clear brows and fine eyes, a broad forehead and a flat crown, ears hanging to his shoulders and hands reaching past his knees, for all the world like an arhat come down among men, and wonderfully handsome.
He came up and took hold of him, and all over smiles pinched his hands and pinched his feet, felt his nose and tugged his ears, by way of showing friendliness. He led him into the abbot's room, and when the courtesies were done he asked, “Where have you come from, venerable master?”
Tripitaka said, “Your disciple is sent by commission from the court of the great Tang in the Land of the East, going to the Monastery of the Great Thunderclap in the country of India in the West, to worship the Buddha and fetch scriptures. I have travelled as far as your worthy place and the day has grown late, and I have hurried to your monastery to borrow a night's lodging and go on early tomorrow.
“I beg you will oblige me in this small matter.” The monk laughed and said, “The wickedness of it, the wickedness of it!
“We are not people who left home out of any good intention. It is only that our parents bore us, our fate fell foul of the Canopy star, the family could not raise us, and so they cut us loose to leave the household. Having once become disciples of the Buddha, do not go telling empty tales.”
Tripitaka said, “I am telling the honest truth.” The monk said, “From that Land of the East to the Western Heaven, how much road is there? There are mountains on the road, and caves in the mountains, and spirits in the caves.
“Look at you, all on your own, and turned out so tender and delicate — how do you look anything like a man fetching scriptures?” Tripitaka said, “The prior sees rightly. How could this poor monk have got here on his own?
“I have three disciples who open a road when we meet a mountain and lay a bridge when we meet water, and guard your disciple, and that is how I have come to your monastery.” The monk said, “And where are your three worthy disciples?” Tripitaka said, “They are waiting outside the mountain gate.”
The monk was alarmed and said, “Master, you do not know — we have tigers and wolves here, and fiendish robbers, and ghosts and monsters that do people harm. In broad daylight we dare not go far out, and we shut the gates before the day is even down.
“And at this hour you still have people standing outside?” He called out: “Disciples, go quickly and ask them in.”
Two little lama novices ran out, saw Pilgrim, and fell over in fright; then saw Bajie, and fell over again.
They scrambled up and ran flying back inside, saying, “Sir! Your luck has run low. Your disciples are nowhere to be seen — there are only three or four monsters standing at the gate.” Tripitaka asked, “What did they look like?”
The little monk said, “One with a thunder-god's beak, one with a snout like a rice-pounder, and one with a green face and jutting tusks. And beside them there is a girl, who is quite the picture, all oiled hair and powdered face.”
Tripitaka laughed and said, “You do not know them. Those three ugly ones are my disciples. And that one girl is somebody I rescued out of the pine wood.”
The lama said, “Good heavens, sir! Such a fine handsome master — how did you come to look out disciples as ugly as these?”
Tripitaka said, “Ugly they may be, but they are all of them useful. Ask them in quickly. If you delay a moment longer, the one with the thunder-god's beak has a way of making trouble. He was not born of any human parents, and he will come in by force.”
The little monk ran straight out and knelt down trembling. “Your honours, the venerable Tang invites you in.” Bajie laughed and said, “Brother, if he is inviting us then let him invite us — but why all this trembling?”
Pilgrim said, “He is frightened at the sight of how ugly we are.” Bajie said, “What rubbish. We were born the way we are. Which of us would want to be ugly on purpose?”
Pilgrim said, “Put that ugliness away a bit, and tidy yourselves up.” The Idiot really did tuck his snout into the front of his coat, put his head down and lead the horse; Sha Monk shouldered the load;
and Pilgrim came behind with the rod, keeping the girl in check: and so the whole party went in. They passed through the collapsed galleries, in through the third gate, tied up the horse and set down the load.
They went into the abbot's room, met the lama monks, and took their places in order. The monk went inside and brought out seventy or eighty little lamas, and when the courtesies had been done they set about getting a meal ready.
And so it is that:
Merit is piled up only in a compassionate thought; / when the Buddha's law flourishes, monks give praise to monks.
In the end we do not know how they got away from the monastery; listen to the explanation in the next chapter.