The story goes that the Tang Monk, in the best of spirits, took his leave of the prefect, and said to Pilgrim from the saddle, “Worthy disciple, this whole good work has outdone the rescue of the children in Bhiksu, and the credit for it is entirely yours.” Sha Monk said, “In Bhiksu only one thousand one hundred and eleven children were saved. How could that compare with this great rain, which came down in torrents and soaked the ground, and kept alive lives beyond counting? This disciple has been praising Elder Brother privately: his powers reach to heaven, and his mercy covers the earth.” Bajie said with a laugh, “Oh, brother has his kindnesses, and his good deeds too. It is only that he hands out benevolence on the outside and keeps a wicked heart inside. But let him travel with old Pig, and he must be trampling on someone.” Pilgrim said, “And where have I ever trampled on you?” Bajie said, “Often enough, often enough. You are forever seeing to it that I get tied up, seeing to it that I get hung up, seeing to it that I get boiled, seeing to it that I get steamed. Now that he has done a kindness to countless thousands in Fengxian Prefecture, we ought to have stayed half a year and he might have let me in for a few unhurried meals eaten to the full. Instead he does nothing but chivvy us along the road.” The elder heard this and shouted, “You Idiot, why is your mind always on stuffing your mouth? Get along the road, and no more of this squabbling.” Bajie dared say nothing more. He worked his snout about, shouldered the baggage, laughed it off, and master and disciples struck out along the high road.
By now the days were flying like a shuttle, and it had come round to deep autumn. This is what they saw:
The watermarks draw back; the mountains show their bones.
Red leaves whirl down; the season of yellow flowers.
Frost and clear skies, and the nights feel long; the moon is white and drives straight through the window.
House upon house, hearth smoke and a long low sun; place upon place, lake light and cold water running.
White duckweed is sweet; red knotweed grows thick.
Tangerines green, oranges yellow; the willows failing, the grain in ear.
At the deserted village geese drop among the broken reed flowers; at the country inn a cock crows, and the beans are gathered in.
The four of them had travelled a good while when city walls came dimly into sight. The elder raised his whip, pointed into the distance and called, “Wukong, look there — another walled city. But what place can it be?” Pilgrim said, “Neither you nor I has ever been here. How should I know? Let us go on to the outskirts and ask someone.” Before he had finished speaking, an old man came out of a thicket: a bamboo staff in his hand, light clothes on his body, a pair of palm-fibre sandals on his feet, and a flat sash tied round his waist. The Tang Monk in his haste rolled from the saddle, went up to him and made a greeting. The old man steadied himself on his staff, returned the greeting, and said, “Elder, from what quarter have you come?” The Tang Monk pressed his palms together and said, “This poor monk was sent from the Tang court in the Eastern Land to Thunderclap, to bow before the Buddha and seek the scriptures. Now I have reached your precious region, and seeing walls in the distance I do not know what place this is. I ask the old benefactor particularly to instruct me.” The old man heard this and said, “Chan master of the Way, this humble place of ours is a subordinate district of India, and it is called Yuhua County. The lord of the county town is a member of the imperial clan of India, enfeoffed as Prince of Yuhua. This prince is most worthy. He honours monks and Daoists particularly, and he holds the common people dear. If the old Chan master goes to see him, he will certainly be well received.” Tripitaka thanked him, and the old man went straight off through the trees.
Tripitaka turned back at once and told his disciples the whole of it. The three of them were delighted, and helped their master into the saddle. Tripitaka said, “It is no great distance. There is no need to ride.” So the four of them walked as far as the streets at the city's edge and looked about them. It turned out that in the households of the outer suburb, among those buying and selling, the smoke of many hearths gathered close and trade too was flourishing. Looking at their speech and their faces, there was no difference from China. Tripitaka gave his orders: “Disciples, be careful. On no account are you to behave outrageously.” Bajie hung his head, Sha Monk covered his face, and only Sun Pilgrim went on supporting his master. People on both sides came crowding to look, and cried out with one voice, “In our parts we have eminent monks who tame dragons and subdue tigers. We have never seen monks who tame pigs and subdue monkeys.” Bajie could not hold himself in. He thrust out his snout and said, “And have you ever seen the monk who tamed the Pig King?” It so terrified the people all down the street that they went stumbling and staggering, and dodged away to either side. Pilgrim laughed and said, “Idiot, put that snout away. Stop showing off — mind your feet, we are crossing the bridge.” The Idiot dropped his head and did nothing but grin. They crossed the drawbridge, passed inside the gate, and saw on the main street wine-shops and singing-houses, noisy and splendid — truly a city of the divine land.
There are verses to prove it. They run:
A brocade city, an iron urn, firm for ten thousand years; facing the water, leaning on the hills, every colour fresh.
A hundred goods come through by lake, and the boats put in to market; a thousand houses sell wine, their shop-curtains hanging.
Towers and terraces on every side, the hearth smoke spreading wide; in lane after lane, morning after morning, the merchants make their din.
No less lovely a prospect than Chang'an; even the crowing of cocks and barking of dogs is just the same.
Tripitaka rejoiced privately and said, “People speak of the many foreign lands of the Western Regions, but they have never come as far as this. Look closely at this place — how does it differ from our own Great Tang? What they call the Land of Ultimate Bliss — truly this is what is meant.” And he heard people saying that white rice was four mace the dàn and sesame oil eight lí the catty — truly a place where the five grains had come in well. They walked a good while and only then reached the palace of the Prince of Yuhua. To left and right of the palace gate stood the Administrator's Office, the Court of Judicial Review, the Office of Provisions and the Guest House. Tripitaka said, “Disciples, this is the palace. Wait while I go in to present myself to the prince, have the travel papers examined, and then we go on.” Bajie said, “Master goes in — but is it really all right for us to stand about in front of a government office?” Tripitaka said, “Can you not read the three characters over that door — Guest House? Go and sit yourselves down in there, see whether there is fodder, and buy some to feed the horse. When I have seen the prince, if he should grant us a meal, I shall come and call you to share it.” Pilgrim said, “Go on ahead with an easy mind, Master. Old Sun will see to things.” Sha Monk carried the baggage on its pole into the guest house. There were staff in the guest house who looked after the place, and seeing how hideous their faces were, they dared not question them and dared not tell them to leave, so they had no choice but to let them sit down. Of that no more.
Now the old master changed his robe and hat, took up the travel papers, and went straight to the front of the palace. At once a protocol officer came to meet him and asked, “Elder, from where have you come?” Tripitaka said, “I am a monk dispatched from the Great Tang in the Eastern Land to Great Thunderclap, to bow before the Buddha and seek the scriptures. Having now reached your honoured territory, I wish to have my papers exchanged and stamped, and I have come expressly to attend upon Your Highness.” The protocol officer at once passed the request up for him. The prince proved to be genuinely enlightened, and at once issued an order for him to be brought in. Tripitaka came before the hall and made his obeisance, and the prince at once invited him up into the hall and granted him a seat. Tripitaka presented the travel papers. The prince read them, saw the stamps and signatures of all the various countries, and cheerfully pressed on his own great stamp, signed his flourish, folded the papers and set them on the table. He asked, “Master of the nation, elder — from your Great Tang to here, passing through all those countries, what distance is it altogether?” Tripitaka said, “This poor monk has kept no record of the distance. But in an earlier year the Bodhisattva Guanyin showed herself before my sovereign and left a verse behind, which said the West lay one hundred and eight thousand lǐ away. This poor monk has been on the road, and has already passed through fourteen rounds of cold and heat.” The prince laughed and said, “Fourteen rounds of cold and heat is fourteen years. I suppose there were delays along the way?” Tripitaka said, “It cannot be told in a word. Ten thousand torments and a thousand demons — there is no telling how much suffering was borne before I reached your precious region.” The prince was greatly pleased, and at once directed the Provisions Officer to prepare a vegetarian meal and entertain him. Tripitaka said, “May it please Your Highness: this poor monk has three young disciples waiting outside. I dare not accept the meal, for fear of delaying our journey.” The prince gave the order: “Officer of the hall, go quickly and invite the elder's three disciples into the palace to share the meal.”
The officer of the hall went straight out to invite them, and everyone said, “Never seen them, never seen them.” One of the attendants said, “There are three hideous-looking monks sitting in the Guest House. It must surely be them.” The officer of the hall went with the others to the guest house and asked the keeper, “Which of them are the eminent disciples of the scripture-seeking monk of the Great Tang? My lord has issued an order inviting them to a meal.” Bajie was sitting there dozing. Hearing the single word “meal” he could not hold himself back, sprang to his feet and answered, “That is us, that is us.” The moment the officer of the hall saw him, his souls flew and his spirits scattered, and they all said, trembling, “It is a pig-goblin, a pig-goblin.” Pilgrim heard this, grabbed hold of Bajie and said, “Brother, be a little more refined. Do not play the yokel.” The officers looked at Pilgrim and said in their turn, “It is a monkey spirit, a monkey spirit.” Sha Monk cupped his hands and said, “Gentlemen, do not be alarmed. We three are all disciples of the Tang Monk.” The officers looked at him and said in their turn, “The Kitchen God, the Kitchen God.” Sun Pilgrim at once had Bajie lead the horse and Sha Monk shoulder the baggage, and they went with the party into the palace of the Prince of Yuhua. The officer of the hall went in first to report.
The prince raised his eyes, saw how hideous they were, and was frightened in his heart after all. Tripitaka pressed his palms together and said, “Set your mind at rest, Your Highness. My unruly disciples are ugly of face, but their hearts are all good.” Bajie faced up towards him, sang out a salute and said, “This poor monk gives you greeting.” The prince grew more alarmed than ever. Tripitaka said, “My unruly disciples were all picked up out of the wild hills. They do not know the forms. I beg you a thousand times to pardon them.” The prince bore his fright as best he could, and had the Provisions Officer invite the monks to eat in the Gauze-Airing Pavilion. Tripitaka gave thanks for the favour, took his leave of the prince, descended from the hall, went with the others into the pavilion, and there complained at Bajie: “You clod, you have not the least notion of proper conduct. If you had simply kept your mouth shut it would have been well enough. Why be so coarse? One sentence out of you, and it is enough to knock Mount Tai over.” Pilgrim laughed and said, “Better that I did not salute at all — and it saves a bit of effort into the bargain.” Sha Monk said, “He did not even wait for the rest of us to salute together. He shoved that snout of his out in front and bellowed.” Bajie said, “Maddening, absolutely maddening. The other day Master taught me that making a greeting when you meet someone is the proper thing. Today I make a greeting and he says it is no good. What am I supposed to do?” Tripitaka said, “I taught you to make a greeting when you meet a person. I did not teach you to carry on like that in front of a prince. As the common saying goes, “There are grades of things, and there are grades of men.” How can you fail to distinguish high from low?” Just as they were talking, the Provisions Officer arrived with his staff, moved the tables and chairs into place, and set out the meal. At that master and disciples said nothing more, and each of them ate his meal.
Now the prince withdrew from the hall and went into the inner apartments, where his three young sons were. Seeing that the colour had changed in his face, they asked at once, “Father, why are you so alarmed today?” The prince said, “Just now a monk dispatched from the Great Tang in the Eastern Land to bow before the Buddha and seek scriptures came to have his papers stamped, and a most uncommon figure he cut too. I kept him for a meal, and he said his disciples were outside the palace, so I gave orders to invite them in. Presently in they came, and instead of performing the full obeisance before me they made a greeting. I was displeased already; and then when I raised my head to look, every one of them was as ugly as a demon. Fright came over me before I knew it, and that is why the colour changed in my face.” Now these three young princes were not like other people. Every one of them loved fighting and loved to prove himself, and they rolled up their sleeves and made fists on the spot. “Could these be mountain fiends come down and got up to look like men? Let us fetch our weapons and go out and see.” Fine princes! The eldest took up a brow-high staff, the second swung a nine-toothed rake, and the third wielded a black oil-stained cudgel. Bristling and swaggering they marched out of the palace, bawling, “Where are these scripture-seeking monks?”
The Provisions Officer and his people knelt and said, “Young lords, they are eating in the Gauze-Airing Pavilion.” The young princes, without pausing to sort good from bad, burst straight in and shouted, “Are you men or monsters? Speak up quickly and your lives will be spared.” It so frightened Tripitaka that the colour left his face. He put down his rice bowl, bent his body and said, “This poor monk has come from the Tang court to seek scriptures. A man, and not a monster.” The young princes said, “You do at least look like a man. Those three ugly ones are monsters for certain.” Bajie just went on eating and paid no attention. Sha Monk and Pilgrim half-rose and said, “We are all of us men. Our faces are ugly but our hearts are good; our bodies are lumpish but our natures are kind. And where have you three sprung from, that you should be so loud-mouthed and reckless?” The Provisions Officer and the others standing by said, “These three are our prince's sons, the young Highnesses.” Bajie dropped his bowl and said, “Young Highnesses — what are you all doing with weapons? You would not be meaning to fight us?”
The second prince stepped out, swung his rake in both hands, and made to strike Bajie. Bajie grinned and said, “That rake of yours is fit to be a grandson to this rake of mine.” He lifted his robe, drew the rake out from his waist, gave it a shake, and ten thousand beams of gold shot out. He let fly a round of moves, and a thousand strands of auspicious vapour came off it. It so frightened the prince that his hands went soft and his sinews numb, and he dared not swing his own. Pilgrim saw the eldest working a brow-high staff, hopping about with it, and took the gold-banded rod out of his ear. He gave it a shake and it was as thick as a bowl and something over twelve chǐ long. He drove it once into the ground, sank it some three chǐ deep, and left it standing there. He laughed and said, “I will make you a present of this cudgel.” The prince heard this, dropped his own staff at once, went to take the rod, and pulled at it with both hands and all his strength — without shifting it a hair. He tried lifting it level, tried rocking it, and it was as though it had taken root. The third let his rashness loose, and came on swinging the black oiled cudgel. Sha Monk knocked it aside with one hand, brought out the demon-quelling treasure staff, gave it a twist, and light blazed off it in glowing waves. It so frightened the Provisions Officer and the rest that every one of them stood blank and rigid, unable to speak. The three young princes bowed down together and said, “Divine masters, divine masters! We are ordinary men and did not know you. We beg you to give us a display, so that we may bow and receive instruction.” Pilgrim stepped up, lifted the rod lightly, and said, “It is cramped here. There is no room to stretch my arms. Wait while I jump up into the air and play a round through, and you can watch.”
Fine Great Sage! With one whistle he shook out his somersault, set both feet on a five-coloured auspicious cloud, and rose into mid-air some three hundred paces above the ground. He set the gold-banded rod going in “Scattering Flowers Over the Crown” and “Yellow Dragon Turns Its Body”, up and down, spinning left and wheeling right. At the start, man and rod together were like flowers added to brocade; After a while the man could no longer be seen — only a whole sky of rolling rod. Bajie shouted his applause from below, then could not keep his hands and feet still either, and called out loudly, “Let old Pig go and have a turn too.” Fine Idiot! He rode up on a gust, reached mid-air himself, set his rake going — three up, four down, five left, six right, seven forward, eight back, a whole body of technique — and all that could be heard was the wind roaring. Just as it was getting lively, Sha Monk said to the elder, “Master, let old Sha go and drill a little too.” Fine monk! With both feet together he sprang, swung his staff, and rose into the air himself, and there was a keen vapour hanging thick and a gold light drifting. With both hands he worked the demon-quelling staff into “Red Phoenix Faces the Sun” and “Hungry Tiger Pounces on Prey”, meeting fast and blocking slow, turning sharply and darting quickly.
The three brothers unfolded their divine powers to the full, all of them together in mid-air, displaying their might and showing off their prowess as one. This is what it was:
The sight of true Chan is beyond the common run; the whole reason of the Great Way fills the vast sky.
Metal and Wood put forth their power to fill the dharma realm; the spatula turns and turns and joins in perfect penetration.
The divine weapons show their keenness as the moment asks; the cinnabar vessel flowers, and is honoured wherever it goes.
India stands high, yet still it disciplines the nature; the princes of Yuhua come home to the centre in the end.
It so overawed the three young princes that they knelt in the dust. Everyone great and small at the Gauze-Airing Pavilion, the old prince inside the palace, soldiers and civilians throughout the city, men and women, monks and nuns and Daoists and lay folk — every last one of them, house by house chanted and knocked their heads, door by door took up incense and bowed.
And truly it was:
Seeing the image, they turn to the true, and monks in their numbers ferry others across; making merit in the world of men, they enjoy peace and quiet.
From now the road of bodhi is made straight, and all of them are people who sit in Chan and bow to the Buddha.
The three of them each displayed his heroic gifts, ran through one full round, brought the auspicious cloud down and put their weapons away. They came before the Tang Monk, made their greeting, thanked their master for his kindness, and each of them sat down. Of that no more. The three young princes hurried back to the inner apartments and reported to the old prince: “Father, ten thousand joys! Today there has been a merit beyond all measure. Did you happen to see the display in mid-air just now?” The old prince said, “I saw the rosy light in mid-air just now, and I burned incense and made obeisance in the courtyard with your mother and the rest. I had no idea what immortals had come down and gathered there.” The young princes said, “They were no immortals from anywhere. They were the scripture-seeking monk's three ugly disciples.” One of them uses a gold-banded iron rod, one a nine-toothed muckrake, one a demon-quelling treasure staff — and against them our three weapons did not come to a hair. We asked them to run through a round, and they said, “The ground is cramped and there is no working here. Wait while I go up into the air and run one through for you to watch.” Then each of them rode up on a cloud-head, and the whole sky was full of auspicious cloud drifting and lucky vapour hanging thick. They had only just come down, and are all sitting in the Gauze-Airing Pavilion. Your sons are greatly pleased and wish to bow to them as masters, learn their arts, and so protect our state. This would truly be a merit beyond measure. We do not know what our father thinks of it.” The old prince heard them out and gave his belief and his consent.
“There and then the four of them, father and sons, set out no carriage and raised no canopy, but walked on foot to the Gauze-Airing Pavilion. The four pilgrims were packing their baggage, meaning to go into the palace, give thanks for the meal, take leave of the prince and set off, when they happened to see the Prince of Yuhua and his sons coming up to the pavilion, and prostrating themselves. It so flustered the elder that he stretched himself out and threw himself to the ground to return the courtesy; Pilgrim and the others slipped aside and smiled a faint cold smile. When the bowing was done, they invited the four of them to sit in the hall of the palace. The four of them went in gladly. The old prince rose and said, “Venerable master of Tang, I have a thing I would respectfully ask, and do not know whether your three eminent disciples might permit it.” Tripitaka said, “Only give the order, Your Highness, and my humble disciples will not dare to refuse.” The old prince said, “When I first saw you gentlemen I took you for nothing but wandering monks come a long way from Tang. With fleshly eyes in a mortal frame I slighted you a good deal. Just now, seeing Master Sun, Master Zhu and Master Sha dance up into the air, I knew at last that you are immortals or buddhas. My three worthless sons have been fond of playing at arms all their lives. They now respectfully set their hearts on it, and wish to bow as disciples and learn a little of the art. I beg the venerable masters to open a heaven-and-earth heart, set the boat of mercy universally in motion, and ferry my boys across. I shall certainly repay you with the wealth of the whole city.” Pilgrim heard this and could not help laughing aloud. “Your Highness, you have no idea how these things go. We who have left home are only too eager to pass the thing on to a few disciples. Since your sons have a heart set on the good, you must on no account speak of the smallest profit; let us simply deal with one another as feeling directs, and that will be affection enough.” The prince heard this and was greatly pleased. He at once ordered a great banquet laid out, arranged in the main hall of the palace itself. Ah! One word of command, and in a moment the whole thing was done.
“And this is what was there:
“Coloured silks tied up and fluttering, incense smoke rich and thick.
“Gold-inlaid tables hung with twisted gauze, dazzling to the eye;
“Bright-lacquered chairs spread with brocade, adding splendour to every seat.
“Tree fruit fresh, tea and broth fragrant and steaming.
“Three or five dishes of light food, clean and sweet; a course or two of steamed bread, ample and spotless.
“Steamed pastry and honeyed preserves, more marvellous still; deep-fried things with sugar poured over, truly delicious.
“Several bottles of fragrant glutinous vegetarian wine — poured out, it surpassed the jade nectar;
“Several servings of Yangxian immortal tea presented — brought to the hand, its fragrance shamed the cassia.
“Every kind and every grade all provided; every colour and every sort surpassingly fine.
“Off at one side he had the entertainers in attendance sing and dance, pipe and pluck, do tricks and act out plays. Master and disciples together with the prince and his sons took their pleasure the whole day long. Before they knew it evening had come, and the banquet broke up. He gave further orders to make up beds and hangings in the Gauze-Airing Pavilion at once, and invited the masters to rest for the night. The plan was to burn incense early next morning with all sincerity, and bow again to ask that the martial arts be transmitted.
“Everyone agreed, scented water was made ready at once, the masters were invited to bathe, and the rest went off to bed. And at this hour:
“The birds are all roosted high and the ten thousand hollows have sunk to silence; the poet steps down from his couch and gives over his chanting.
“The Silver River shows its light and the sky grows brighter still; the wild path lies desolate and the grass is deeper yet.
“Block and mallet sound their clatter from another courtyard; passes and mountains stretch away out of sight and stir the heart towards home.
“The cold cricket cries clear, as if it knew what a man is thinking; shrill at the bedside, it breaks the dreaming soul.
“So much for the night scene. Early next morning the old prince and his sons came again to see them. Yesterday the elder had met them with the ceremony due a prince; today he used the ceremony due a master. The three young princes knocked their heads on the ground before Pilgrim, Bajie and Sha Monk, and asked with a bow, “Would the venerable masters lend out their weapons again, for your disciples to look at?” Bajie heard this and cheerfully brought out his muckrake and threw it down on the ground. Sha Monk tossed his treasure staff out and stood it leaning against the wall. The second and third princes sprang up to take hold of them, and it was like dragonflies trying to shake a stone pillar. Every one of them strained till his head and face went scarlet, and there was no hope of shifting them by half a hair. The eldest prince saw it and called out, “Brothers, do not waste your strength. The masters' weapons are all divine arms. There is no telling how much they weigh.” Bajie laughed and said, “My rake is not so very heavy. It comes to the tally of one canon — five thousand and forty-eight catties, handle included.” The third prince asked Sha Monk, “Master, how much does the treasure staff weigh?” Sha Monk laughed and said, “Five thousand and forty-eight catties, the same.” The eldest prince asked to see Pilgrim's gold-banded rod. Pilgrim took a little needle out of his ear, gave it a shake into the wind, and there it was as thick as a bowl, standing bolt upright before them. The prince and his sons were all struck with awe, and every one of the officers took fright. The three young princes bowed and said, “Master Zhu's and Master Sha's weapons are both carried about the body under the clothes and can simply be taken out. Why does Master Sun bring his out of his ear, and why does it grow the moment it meets the wind?”
“Pilgrim laughed and said, “You do not know it, but this rod of mine is not the sort of thing the mortal world casually comes by. This rod is:
When primal chaos first divided, this iron was smelted; the divine man Yu the Great set it in place with his own hands.
Lakes and seas, rivers great and small, the shallow together with the deep — with this rod he took the exact measure of them all.
When the hills had been opened and the floods governed and peace had come, it drifted away to the Eastern Ocean to hold the sea-palace steady.
As the days lengthened into years it gave off coloured light; it could shrink, could grow, could shine clean.
Old Sun had the lot to fetch it away; it changes without limit at a word of the formula.
Want it large and it fills the whole space between heaven and earth; want it small and it is like the joint of a needle.
The rod is named As-You-Will and styled Gold-Banded; in heaven and among men it is called unmatched.
Its weight comes to thirteen thousand five hundred catties; thick or thin, it can come into being and vanish away.
It helped me once to make havoc in the Palace of Heaven; it went with me once to storm the halls below.
Subduing tigers and taming dragons, it gets through everywhere; refining demons and clearing off monsters, it reaches every quarter.
Lift it and point once, and the sun goes dim; heaven and earth, ghosts and gods, all lose their nerve.
Handed down by immortals from primal chaos to this very day — it was never iron of the mortal world.”
“The princes heard him out, and every one of them bowed without ceasing. The three came forward and bowed again and again with all reverence, begging with sincere hearts to be taught. Pilgrim said, “Which of the arts do you three not know, and would learn?” The princes said, “Let the one who wishes to use the staff learn the staff, the one used to the rake learn the rake, and the one who likes the cudgel learn the cudgel.” Pilgrim laughed and said, “Teaching is easy enough. It is only that you have not the strength — you cannot handle our weapons, and I am afraid the learning would not take, so that you would set out to paint a tiger and end with a dog. As the ancients said, “Instruction not strict is the master's idleness; learning that comes to nothing is the pupil's fault.” Since you have sincere hearts, go and burn incense and bow to heaven and earth. I shall first pass on to you some divine strength, and after that the arts can be taught.”
“The three young princes heard this and their hearts were filled with delight. They carried the incense table in with their own hands there and then, washed them, burned incense and bowed towards heaven. The bowing done, they asked the masters to transmit the method. Pilgrim turned and came down, made his obeisance to the Tang Monk and said, “I report to my venerable master, and beg pardon for this disciple's fault. Ever since that year at the Mountain of Two Frontiers, when my master's great virtue delivered me, I have held to the teaching of the Buddhist order and come west all this way. Though I have never richly repaid my master's kindness, I have crossed the waters and climbed the mountains and spent my heart and strength to the last. Now that we have come to the land of the Buddha's own country, we have had the good fortune to meet the worthy prince's three sons, who have thrown themselves down before us and wish to learn the martial arts. Since they are to be our disciples, they are therefore my master's disciple-grandsons. Having respectfully reported to my master, I may properly transmit and teach.” Tripitaka was greatly delighted. Bajie and Sha Monk saw Pilgrim make his obeisance, and at once turned and knocked their heads before Tripitaka too. “Master, we are dull and stupid, clumsy of mouth and blunt of jaw, and no good at speaking. We beg our master to take the high seat of the dharma and let the two of us each take on a disciple for the fun of it, as something to remember of the road to the west.” Tripitaka gladly consented to it all.
“Only then did Pilgrim have the three princes go into a quiet room behind the Gauze-Airing Pavilion, where he drew out the Dipper pattern. He had all three lie face down inside it, each of them with eyes closed and spirit stilled. Here he quietly set the true words going and intoned the spells, blew immortal breath into the hearts and bellies of the three of them, and gathered their primal spirits home to their own dwelling. He handed on the spoken formula, granting each of them the strength of ten thousand, worked in the added degree of fire, and it was very like a method for changing the bones and casting off the womb. When it had circulated the whole Zi-Wu round of heaven, the three young princes came to at last, scrambled up together, wiped their faces, shook themselves alert, and every one of them was strong of bone and firm of sinew. The eldest prince took up the gold-banded rod; the second swung the nine-toothed rake; the third lifted the demon-quelling staff.
“The old prince saw it and could not contain his delight. He laid on another vegetarian banquet and gave thanks to the master and his three disciples. There in front of the banquet each transmitted his own and each taught his own: the staff-learner drilled the staff, the rake-learner the rake, the cudgel-learner the cudgel. Though they turned about a few times and let fly a few rounds of moves, these were mortals when all is said, and it cost them something: one round through and they were puffing and blowing, unable to keep it up. For those weapons of theirs all have their transformations. In advancing and withdrawing, in attack and flourish, they shrink and lengthen as they go, and all of it has a natural marvel in it. These men are mortals when all is said — how could they come up to it in a hurry? That day the banquet was cleared away.
“Next day the three princes came again to give thanks. “We are deeply grateful that the divine masters have granted us strength. Even so, though we can swing the masters' weapons, they are hard to turn and handle. We should like to order smiths to follow the pattern of the divine masters' weapons, cut down the weight, and forge us the same. We do not know whether our masters would allow it.” Bajie said, “Good, good, good — that is well said. Our own gear you cannot handle, for one thing; and for another we need them to guard the dharma and subdue demons. Fresh ones are just the thing to have made.” The prince immediately summoned smiths, bought in ten thousand catties of steel, and had a shed put up in the front courtyard of the palace with a furnace set to cast them. The first day the steel was smelted ready. The next day they asked Pilgrim and the other two to bring out the gold-banded rod, the nine-toothed rake and the demon-quelling staff, and set them down in the shed to be copied from. And so they were left out day and night, and not put away.
“Ah! These weapons were treasures the three of them carried on their persons, never to be parted from for a moment. Kept hidden about the body, they gave off a great deal of radiance that guarded their owners. Now they had been left in the yard for some days, and their rosy light shot up in ten thousand beams to heaven, and their lucky vapour spread in a thousand kinds over the ground. That night there was a fiend some seventy lǐ from the city — the mountain was called Leopard Head Mountain and the cave Tiger Mouth Cave. Sitting there in the night he suddenly saw the rosy light and the lucky vapour, rode a cloud over to look, and saw that the brightness rose from inside the palace. He brought his cloud down, came up close and looked, and it was these three weapons giving off the light. The fiend, both delighted and covetous, said, “Fine treasures! Fine treasures!” What sort of person uses these, and why are they left lying here?
“This too is my destined lot. Take them away, take them away!” His covetous heart stirred once, he worked up a gust of force, gathered all three weapons in a single sweep and went straight back to his own cave. This is exactly it:
The Way may not be left for an instant; what can be left is not the Way.
The divine weapons have all come to nothing; the seekers have wasted their striving.
In the end there is no knowing how the weapons were to be found again. Listen to the next chapter and it will be explained.