The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 3

by Unknown

  An orchid nature fine like spring,

  A womanly mind firm as stone.

  Pink hues adorned her lovely face;

  Her rouged lips were most smoothly done.

  Her moth brows were slanted crescents;

  Her hair piled up a cobweb bun.

  If she stood among the flowers,

  The bees would mistake her for one.

  He waited there for at least half an hour, but the whole place was quiet, without even a sound from chickens or dogs. He thought to himself, “If I truly don’t have the ability to beg a meal, I’ll make my disciples laugh at me. They’ll dare say, if the master could not even succeed in begging food, how could the disciples go and worship Buddha?”

  The elder could not think of a better alternative; though he knew perhaps he should not proceed, he nonetheless walked up the bridge. After he had taken several steps, he could see that there was within the courtyard of the thatched hut a small pavilion made of sandalwood. Inside the pavilion, there were three other young women kicking a ball filled with air.2 Look at these three girls, who were quite different from the other four. You see

  Halcyon blue sleeves fluttering;

  Light yellow skirts swaying.

  Halcyon blue sleeves fluttering

  Enshroud dainty, jade-white fingers.

  Light yellow skirts swaying

  Half reveal shoes slender and shapely.

  Their postures and styles are perfection all;

  Moving or still, their heels take many forms.

  To pass overhead they must gauge the height;

  The long pass must be accurate and true.

  A turning kick is “Flower Beyond the Wall”;

  Backing up becomes “Traversing the Sea.”

  Trapping gently a lump of dirt;

  Charging alone to tackle legs.

  When “A Pearl Ascends Buddha’s Head,”3

  They seize and separate with the toe.

  They can pick up a slender brick;

  They kick, bending back, their feet arched.

  They squat with a straight torso;

  They twist and kick with their heels.

  Knees bent they can call for a pass,4

  Their shoulders swing like donning capes.

  Through the legs the ball freely goes

  Or it loops and swings round the neck.

  They kick like the Yellow River flowing upstream,

  Or like gold fishes beached on the sand.5

  That one by mistake thinks it is the head;

  This one whirling bumps at once the waist.

  Firmly the ball’s held by the calf;

  Squarely they slam with their toes.

  Heels lifted, straw sandals fall;

  Scissor kicks send backward the prize.

  Step back for the shoulder-pass style;

  The hairpin only once goes awry .

  As the hamperlike net hangs low,

  They will then kick toward the gate.6

  When the ball hits squarely the goal,

  All the fair ladies shout, “Bravo!”

  So, each one’s silk gowns is sweat-soaked and her makeup’s messy;

  Only when zeal’s all spent will they cry enough.

  We cannot end the description; therefore we offer also another testimonial poem. The poem says:7

  Third month’s the time they kick ball in a field,

  These fair ones blown down by immortal wind.

  Their faces perspire like flowers bedewed;

  Their dusty moth brows are willows in mist.

  Shrouding their fingers, the blue sleeves hang low;

  Light yellow skirts awhirl, they show their feet.

  They finish their kicking all faint and fair

  With jewels askew and disheveled hair.

  Tripitaka watched them until he could no longer tarry. He had to walk up to the arch of the bridge and call out in a loud voice, “Lady Bodhisattvas, this humble cleric has come here to beg for whatever amount of food you care to give me.” When they heard his voice, all the girls abandoned their needlework and their ball. Smiling broadly, they came out of the door to say, “Elder, pardon us for not coming to meet you first when you arrived at our rustic village. Since we dare not feed a priest by the wayside, please take a seat inside.”

  On hearing this, Tripitaka thought to himself, “My goodness! My goodness! The West is truly the land of the Buddha. If women are concerned to feed the priests, how could men not revere the Buddha?” The elder walked forward and bowed before he followed the girls into the thatched hut. After they passed the pavilion made of sandalwood, he looked around. Ah! There were actually neither rooms nor corridors, only

  Towering summits,

  Extensive ranges.

  Towering summits that touch the cloud and mist;

  Extensive ranges that reach sea and isle.

  The door’s near a stone bridge,

  Borne by flowing water of nine twists and turns;

  The yard’s planted with plums and peaches,

  Vying for splendor with a thousand stalks and fruits.

  Vines and creepers dangle from several trees;

  Orchid spreads its scent through ten thousand flowers.

  From afar the cave seems better than Isle Peng;

  Up close the mountain and woods surpass Mount Hua’s.

  It’s the bogus immortals’ reclusive place;

  No other household takes its neighboring space.

  One of the girls walked forward, pushed open two stone doors, and asked the Tang Monk to take a seat inside. The elder had little alternative but to walk inside, where he discovered no other furniture but stone tables and benches. It was dark, and the air seemed to have turned very chilly all of a sudden. Becoming alarmed, the elder thought to himself, “This place betokens more evil than good. It’s not a nice place at all.”

  Still all smiles, the girls said, “Please be seated, elder.” The elder had no choice but to sit down, and after awhile, he was so cold that he began to shiver. “From which monastery did you come, elder?” asked one of the girls. “What sort of alms are you seeking? To repair bridges and roads, to build a monastery or a pagoda, or to fund a festival and print scriptures? Please take out your alms book for us to see.” “I’m not a priest begging for alms,” replied the elder. “If you are not,” said the girl, “why have you come here?”

  The elder said, “I’m someone sent by the Great Tang in the Land of the East to go to the Great Thunderclap in the Western Heaven to acquire scriptures. Passing through your honored region, I became hungry, and that was the reason for my approaching your lovely mansion. After I have begged a meal from you, I shall leave.” “Fine! Fine! Fine!” said the girls. “As the proverb says, ‘Monks coming from afar can read sūtras better.’ Sisters, we must not slight our guest. Let us prepare a vegetarian meal quickly.”

  At that time, three of the girls kept the elder company by speaking with him, rather animatedly, on the subject of karma. Four of the girls, however, rolled up their sleeves and dashed into the kitchen, where they added fire and scrubbed the pans. What did they prepare, you ask? Human flesh sauteed and fried in human lard until black enough that it could pass for pieces of fried wheat gluten. They also pan-fried some freshly gouged human brains, which they then cut up to look like pieces of bean curd. Two dishes of these they took out to set on the stone table and said to the elder, “Please eat. In such a hurry, we haven’t been able to prepare a good vegetarian meal for you. But do eat some food to relieve your hunger; there’s more of it in the back.”

  Taking a whiff of the dishes, the elder clamped his mouth shut when he found the food to be so stinky and putrid. He rose and bowed with hands folded, saying, “Lady Bodhisattvas, this humble cleric has kept a vegetarian diet since his birth.” “Elder,” replied one of the girls, laughing, “these are vegetarian dishes.”

  “Amitābha!” cried the elder. “If I, a priest, partake of such vegetarian dishes, I won’t ever get to see the World-H
onored One or acquire the scriptures.”

  “Elder,” said the girl, “you are someone who has left the home. You should never be choosy with your patrons!” “Would I dare? Would I dare?” said the elder. “Since this priest received the decree of the Great Tang to go West, he has not destroyed even the tiniest creature and he has tried to relieve suffering wherever he sees it.

  I feed myself, picking up grain by grain;

  I clothe myself, knitting threads one by one.

  How could I dare be choosy with my patrons?”

  “Though you may not be choosy with your patrons, elder,” said another girl, laughing, “you are not afraid to put the blame on people after walking in the door. Don’t despise the coarse and the unseasoned. Eat a little, please!”

  “Indeed, I dare not,” replied the elder, “for I fear I may break the commandment. To nourish a life is not as good as delivering a life, lady Bodhisattvas. Please let me go.”

  The elder tried to struggle out of the door, but the girls barred the way, refusing, of course, to let him go. “A business right at our door,” they cried, “and you expect us not to do it? ‘You want to cover up a fart with your hand?’ Where do you think you are going?” All of them, you see, knew a little martial art, and they were also quite dexterous with their hands and feet. Grabbing the elder, they yanked him forward like a sheep and flung him to the ground. He was pinned down by all of them, trussed up with ropes, and pulled over a crossbeam to be hung up high. The way in which he was hung, in fact, had a name to it: it was called “Immortal Pointing the Way.” One of his arms, you see, was stretched forward and suspended by a rope; the other arm was tied up alongside the body, and the rope was then used to hang up the midsection. His two legs were bound together and hung up by a third rope. The elder thus dangled facedown from the crossbeam, held by three ropes. Racked by pain, his eyes brimming with tears, the elder thought morosely to himself, “How bitter is the fate of this priest! I thought that I could beg a meal from a good family, but I landed in a fiery pit instead! O disciples, come quickly to save me, and we’ll be able still to see each other again. Two more hours and my life will be finished!”

  Though the elder was sorely distressed, he nonetheless was also observing the girls carefully. After they had tied and hung him up properly, they began to take off their clothes. Greatly alarmed, the elder thought to himself, “They are disrobing because they want to beat me, or they may want to devour me.” But the girls were only taking off their upper garments. After they had their bellies exposed, they began to exercise their magic power. Out from their navels poured coils of thread, with the thickness of a duck egg; like bursting jade and flying silver, the threads had the entire village gate covered up in a moment.

  We tell you now instead about Pilgrim, Eight Rules, and Sha Monk, all waiting by the wayside. Two of them were watching the luggage and grazing the horse, but Pilgrim, always the mischievous one, was leaping from branch to branch as he picked the leaves and searched for fruits. He chanced to turn his head toward the direction his master had gone and saw all at once a mass of light. So alarmed was he that he leaped down from the tree, shouting, “It’s bad! It’s bad! Master’s luck is turning rotten!” Then he pointed with his fingers and said to his companions, “Look what happened to that village!” Eight Rules and Sha Monk stared at the place and saw the mass of light bright as snow and shiny as silver. “Finished! Finished!” cried Eight Rules. “Master must have run into monster-spirits! Let’s go rescue him, quickly!” “Don’t shout, Worthy Brother,” said Pilgrim, “for you haven’t seen the truth of the matter. Let old Monkey go up there.” “Be careful, Elder Brother,” said Sha Monk, and Pilgrim replied, “I know what to do.”

  Dear Great Sage! Tightening up his tiger-skin skirt and whipping out his golden-hooped rod, he bounded up there in two or three leaps. There he discovered a dense mass of cords that had to be a thousand layers thick, weaving up and down in a weblike pattern. He touched the cords with his hand, and they felt soft and sticky. Not knowing quite what it was, Pilgrim lifted his iron rod and said to himself, “One blow of my rod can surely snap ten thousand layers of this thing, let alone a thousand layers!” He was about to strike when he stopped and thought to himself some more: “I can snap something hard, but this is quite soft. All I can do probably is to flatten it a little. But if I disturb whatever it is, it may have Old Monkey all tangled up, and that won’t be good. Let me ask a few questions first before I strike.”

  Whom would he question, you ask? He made the magic sign, you see, and recited a spell, which had the immediate effect of causing an old local spirit to walk round and round in his shrine as if he were turning a millstone. His wife said to him, “Oldie, why are you spinning round and round? Is your epilepsy acting up?” “You wouldn’t know about this! You wouldn’t know about this!” cried the local spirit. “There’s here a Great Sage, Equal to Heaven. I haven’t gone to meet him, and now he’s summoning me.”

  “Go and see him then,” said his wife. “What are you spinning around here for?” “If I go see him,” replied the local spirit, “I’ll have to see his heavy rod also. Without regard for good or ill, he’ll strike at me.” His wife said, “When he sees how old you are, he won’t strike you.” The local spirit said, “All his life,

  He loves to drink wine free

  And beat old folks specially!”

  The two of them thus chatted for a while, but he could find no other alternative than to walk out of the shrine. Trembling all over, he went to his knees by the road and called out, “Great Sage, the local spirit of this region kowtows to you.”

  “Get up,” said Pilgrim, “and don’t look so harried without a reason. I’m not going to beat you, I’ll just leave it standing on your account. Let me ask you, what is this place?” “Where did the Great Sage come from?” asked the local spirit. “We were going to the West from the Land of the East,” replied Pilgrim.

  The local spirit said, “Did the Great Sage pass through a mountain ridge?” “We are still up there,” said Pilgrim. “Can’t you see our horse and luggage over there?” “That,” said the local spirit, “is the Cobweb Ridge, beneath which is a Cobweb Cave. There are seven monster-spirits inside the cave.” “Are they male or female fiends?” asked Pilgrim, and the local spirit said, “Female.” “What sort of magic powers do they possess?” asked Pilgrim again.

  The local spirit said, “This humble deity has little strength or authority, and he can’t determine what sort of abilities they may have. I only know that three miles due south of here, there’s a Purgation Spring, which is a natural hot spring. Originally, it was the bathing place for the Seven Immortal Dames of the Region Above. Since the monster-spirits arrived, they took over the Purgation Spring, and the Immortal Dames did not even bother to contend with them. They simply let the monster-spirits have the place. If, then, even

  Heaven’s gods did not pick with these fiends a fight,

  Such spirits had to have great magic might.”

  “Why did the monster-spirits want the spring?” asked Pilgrim. The local spirit said, “After these fiends took it over, they bathed in it three times a day. They did once already today during the Hour of the Serpent,8 and they would come back again by noon.” On hearing this, Pilgrim said, “Local spirit, you may go back. Let me catch them by myself.” After kowtowing one more time, the local spirit, still trembling, went back to his own shrine.

  Our Great Sage all alone now exercised his magic power; with a shake of his body he changed into a tiny fly, alighted on a blade of grass by the road, and waited. In a moment, all he heard was loud breathing noises,

  Like silkworms devouring leaves,

  Like tide rising from the sea.

  In approximately the time it took to drink half a glass of tea, all the threads disappeared and the village came into sight once more as before. Then he heard the wooden gates open with a creak, and loud, laughing chatter brought out seven young women. As Pilgrim stared at them secretly, he saw tha
t all of them walked side by side and hand in hand. Laughing and joking, they proceeded to cross the bridge. Some beauties indeed! They appeared to be

  Jadelike but far more fragrant;

  Flowerlike but their words were real.

  Willow brows arched like distant hills;

  Scented mouths framed by cherry lips.

  Kingfisher plumes rose on hair pins;

  Small feet gleamed beneath crimson skirts.

  They seemed like Chang’e coasting to the world below,

  And immortals going down to earth.

  “No wonder my master wanted to beg a meal at this place!” chuckled Pilgrim to himself. “So there are such lovely creatures around here. If my master is kept by these seven beauties, he won’t even make one meal for them, nor will he be able to last for two days if they use him. If they take turns to handle him, he’ll die on the spot. Let me eavesdrop on them and see what they plan to do.”

  Dear Great Sage! With a buzz, he flew off and alighted on one of the hair buns. After they crossed the bridge, one of the girls walking behind called out to those up front, “Elder Sisters, after we take our bath, let’s go back and have that fat monk steamed for food.” “This fiendish creature,” chuckled Pilgrim to himself, “is so headless! Boiling will save them some firewood. Why does she want him steamed?”

  Picking flowers and fencing with blades of grass as they headed south, those girls soon arrived at the bathing pool, which was enclosed by a magnificent wall.

  Wildflowers lushly fragrant covered the ground;

  On all sides were orchids both fresh and dense.

  The girl in the back walked forward and pushed open two doors with a loud crack; inside there was indeed a large pool of hot water.

  At the time of creation,

  The original number of suns was set at ten.9

  Later, Hou Yi, the archer, stretched his bow

  And shot down nine of these suns,

  Leaving only one sun behind,

  The true fire of supreme yang.

  There are nine hot springs in the world,