The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2

by Unknown

  “What do you want to say, my child?” asked the monster-spirit.

  “Let me report this to father king,” said the prince. “Three years ago I heard already that there was a sage monk sent by the Throne of the Tang in the Land of the East to seek scriptures from Buddha in the Western Heaven, but I did not expect that he would arrive this day. The honored nature of father king is powerful and ferocious, I know. But if you seize this monk and have him executed, the great Tang could be greatly angered if ever they should learn of this one day. Remember that Li Shimin4 who, since he established his throne, did succeed in uniting his empire. Still not content, he went on various expeditions of conquest to foreign lands. If he discovers that our king has murdered the sage monk, his bond-brother, he will most certainly call up troops and horses to war with us. When we realize then how small is our army and how weak our generals are, it will be too late for regrets. Let the father king approve the memorial of his son, let him make a thorough investigation of the background of these four monks. We must first establish why they would not pay homage to the Throne before we convict them.”

  This entire speech, you see, was motivated by the prince’s caution, who feared that the Tang Monk might be hurt and that was why he deliberately stopped the demon. The prince, of course, did not know that Pilgrim was about to strike. Consenting indeed to the words of the prince, the demon king stood before the dragon couch and loudly asked, “When did this monk leave the Land of the East? For what reason did the Tang emperor ask you to seek scriptures?”

  Again Pilgrim replied boldly, “My master is the bond-brother of the Tang emperor, and his honorific is Tripitaka. There is a prime minister before the Tang throne whose name is Wei Zheng, and who has by the decree of Heaven beheaded an old dragon of the Jing River. Because of this, the Great Tang emperor also had to tour the Region of Darkness in his dream, and after he was revived, he opened wide the plot of truth by giving a Grand Mass of Land and Water to redeem the wronged souls and damned spirits. As my master recited and performed the sūtras to magnify the power of compassion, the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin of South Sea revealed to him suddenly that he should journey to the West. Making a grand promise, my master accepted the commission freely and gladly to serve his nation, and that was when the emperor bestowed on him the rescript. On the third day before the fifteenth, during the ninth month of the thirteenth year in the Zhenguan period of the Great Tang, he left the Land of the East. When he reached the Mountain of Two Frontiers, he accepted me as his disciple. My surname is Sun, and my name is Wukong Pilgrim. Next, we arrived at the Gao Family Village of the Qoco Kingdom, where my master made his second disciple; his surname is Zhu, and his name is Wuneng Eight Rules. At the Flowing Sand River, the third disciple joined the fold; his surname is Sha, and his name is Wujing Monk. The day before yesterday at the Precious Grove Monastery Built by Imperial Command, we newly acquired a mendicant worker5 who now helps us with poling the luggage.”

  After the demon king heard this speech, he found it difficult to turn up an excuse for examining the Tang Monk further, and it was even more difficult for him to try to overwhelm Pilgrim with deceptive interrogation. Glowering, he said, “You, monk! When you first left the Land of the East, you were all by yourself, but then you accepted all these four persons into your company. Those three monks may be all right, but this worker looks most suspicious. This mendicant must have been kidnapped from somewhere. What is his name? Does he have a certificate of ordination? Bring him up here and let him make a deposition.” Trembling all over, the king said, “O Master! How shall I make this deposition?” Giving him a pinch, Pilgrim said, “Don’t be afraid. Let me do it for you.”

  Dear Great Sage! He strode forward and said to the fiend in a loud voice, “Your Majesty, this old worker is not only dumb, but he is also somewhat deaf. We took him on because he knew the way to the Western Heaven, having gone there himself in his younger days. I know everything about him—his background, his origin, his rise and fall. I beg your Majesty’s pardon, but let me make the deposition for him.” “Do it quickly and truthfully,” said the demon king, “lest he be convicted of a serious offense.” Pilgrim said,

  Of this deposition the mendicant’s quite old;

  Deaf, dumb, and dim-witted, he’s also poor!

  A man whose native home was in this place,

  He met defeat and ruin five years ago.

  With no rain from the sky,

  Folks turned shriveled and dry.

  King and subjects all fasted and abstained;

  They bathed and burned incense to pray to Heav’n,

  But no cloud was seen for ten thousand miles.

  While people starved as though hung upside down,

  There came from Zhongnan a Complete Truth fiend

  Who called up wind and rain to show his power,

  And then took in secret the king’s own life.

  The victim was pushed down a garden well;

  The dragon seat was taken unknown to man.

  Luckily I came.

  My merit was great:

  No snag it was to bring life back from death.

  Willing to submit as a mendicant,

  He would follow the monk to face the West.

  That specious king is a Daoist in fact;

  This worker is in truth the rightful king.

  When that demon king on the Hall of Golden Chimes heard this speech, he became so frightened that his heart pounded like the feet of a young deer and his face was flushed with red clouds. He wanted to run away at once, but he did not even have a weapon in his hands. Turning around, he saw one of the captains of palace guards, who had a scimitar buckled to his waist and who had been rendered a dumb and stupid person standing there by Pilgrim’s magic of immobilization. Dashing up to him, the demon king took this scimitar and then immediately mounted the clouds to escape in the air. Sha Monk and Zhu Eight Rules were so annoyed by this turn of events that they screamed at Pilgrim, “You impatient ape! Why did you have to say all those things at once? You could have tricked him into staying if you had used a slower approach. Now that he has mounted the clouds and escaped, where would you go to search for him?”

  “Don’t scream madly like that, brothers,” said Pilgrim with laughter. “Let me ask the prince to come out and bow to his father and the queen to greet her husband first. Let me then recite another spell to release those ministers from my magic so that they can learn the truth about what has happened and pay homage to the real king. Then I can go look for him.” Dear Great Sage! After he had disposed of everything he said he would do, he told Eight Rules and Sha Monk, “Take care to guard ruler and subjects, father and son, husband and wife, and our master. I’m off!” Hardly had he finished speaking before he was completely out of sight.

  Rising straight up to the clouds of the Ninefold Heaven, Pilgrim opened wide his eyes to stare all around: the demon king, having escaped with his life, was fleeing toward the northeast. Pilgrim caught up with him in no time, shouting, “Fiend, where are you going? Old Monkey’s here.” Swiftly turning around, the demon king brought out his scimitar and said with a loud voice, “Pilgrim Sun, what a rogue you are! I took the throne of another man, but that didn’t concern you. Why did you have to be involved in someone’s affairs and reveal my secret?”

  Roaring with laughter, Pilgrim said, “You audacious, lawless fiend! You think you ought to be permitted to be a king? If you recognized old Monkey, you should have fled at the earliest opportunity to the farthest place. How dare you try to give my master a hard time, asking for that so-called deposition? That deposition I gave you just now, was that accurate or not? Don’t run away now! If you’re a man, have a taste of old Monkey’s rod!” The demon king stepped aside to dodge the blow before he wielded the scimitar to meet his opponent. The moment their weapons joined, it was a marvelous battle. Truly

  The Monkey King is fierce,

  The demon king is strong—

  Rod and scimitar dare each other oppose.


  This day the Three Regions are bedimmed by fog,

  All for a king’s restoration to his court.

  After the two of them fought for a few rounds, the demon king could no longer withstand the Monkey King and fled instead back into the city on the way he came. Hurling himself into the two rows of civil and military officials before the white jade steps, the demon king gave his body a shake and changed into an exact image of Tripitaka Tang, both of them standing hand-in-hand before the steps. The Great Sage arrived and was about to strike with the rod when the fiend said, “Disciple, don’t hit me! It’s I!” Pilgrim turned the rod toward the other Tang Monk who also said, “Disciple, don’t hit me! It’s I!”

  There were two Tang Monks exactly alike and most difficult to distinguish. Thinking to himself, “If I kill the monster spirit with one blow of the rod, it would be my merit, all right; but what would I do if that blow happens to kill my true master?” Pilgrim had to stop and ask Eight Rules and Sha Monk, “Which is the fiend and which is our master? Point him out to me so that I can strike at him.” “You two were yelling and fighting in midair,” said Eight Rules, “and when I blinked my eyes, I saw two masters the next moment. I don’t know who is real and who is false.”

  When Pilgrim heard these words, he made the magic sign with his fingers and recited a spell, which called together the various deva guardians, the Six Gods of Darkness and the Six Gods of Light, the Guardians of Five Quarters, the Four Sentinels, the Eighteen Guardians of the Faith, the local spirit, and the mountain god of that region. He said to them, “Old Monkey is trying to subdue a monster here, who has changed himself into the likeness of my master. Both their form and substance seem exactly the same and it’s difficult to tell them apart. But you may be able to distinguish them in secret; if so, make my master walk up the steps into the main hall so that I can catch this demon.” The fiend, you see, was accomplished in magic; when he heard these words of Pilgrim, he quickly bounded into the Hall of Golden Chimes. Pilgrim raised his rod and brought it down hard on the Tang Monk. Alas! If it had not been for desperate efforts of those several deities summoned to this place, the blow would have reduced even twenty Tang Monks to meat patties! Fortunately the various deities managed to block the blow, saying, “Great Sage, the fiend knows his magic. He has gone up to the hall first.” Pilgrim gave chase at once, and the demon king ran outside the hall to catch hold of the Tang Monk once more in the crowd. After this confusion, they again could not be distinguished.

  Pilgrim was highly displeased, and when he saw, moreover, that Eight Rules was snickering on one side, he became enraged, saying, “What’s the matter with you, stupid coolie? Now you have two masters whose calls you must answer and whom you must serve. Are you overjoyed?” Laughing, Eight Rules said, “Elder Brother, you say I’m dumb; well, you’re even dumber! If you can’t recognize who is the real master, why waste all this energy? You try to endure a little pain on your head for a moment and ask Master to recite that little something of his. Sha Monk and I will each hold on to one of them and listen: that person who does not know how to recite the spell must be the monster. What’s so difficult about that?”

  “Thank you, Brother,” said Pilgrim. “You’ve got it. That little something indeed is known only to three persons: born of the very mind of our Buddha Tathāgata, it was transmitted to the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin, who then imparted it to my master. There is no other person who has knowledge of it. All right, Master, start your recital.” In truth the Tang Monk began to recite, but how could the demon king know what to do? All he could do was mumble something, and Eight Rules said, “This one mumbling is the monster!” He let go and raised his muckrake to strike at the demon king, who leaped up and tried to flee, treading the clouds.

  Dear Eight Rules! With a shout, he mounted the clouds also to give chase. Sha Monk hurriedly abandoned the Tang Monk and brought out his precious staff to do battle. Only then did the Tang Monk stop reciting his spell; the Great Sage Sun, enduring his headache, dragged his iron rod up to midair. Ah, look at this battle! Three fierce monks have surrounded a brazen demon!

  The demon king, you see, was attacked left and right by Eight Rules with his rake and Sha Monk with his staff. Chuckling to himself, Pilgrim said, “If I go attack him face to face, he will try to escape as he is already somewhat afraid of me. Let old Monkey get up higher and give me a garlic-pounding blow from the top down. That’ll finish him off!”

  Mounting the auspicious luminosity, the Great Sage rose to the Ninefold Heaven and was about to show his decisive hand when a loud voice came from a petal of colored cloud in the northeast: “Sun Wukong, don’t do it!” When Pilgrim turned to look, he discovered the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. Quickly putting away his rod, he drew near and bowed, saying, “Bodhisattva, where are you going?” “I came,” said Mañjuśrī, “to put away this fiend for you.” Pilgrim thanked him and said, “I’m greatly obliged.” Taking out an imp-reflecting mirror from his sleeve, the Bodhisattva aimed it at the fiend and the image of its original form became visible at once. Pilgrim called Eight Rules and Sha Monk to come to greet the Bodhisattva and to look into the mirror. Exceedingly ferocious in appearance, that demon king had

  Eyes like large goblets of glass;

  A head like a cooking vat;

  A body of deep summer green;

  And four paws like autumn’s frost;

  Two large ears that flipped downward;

  A tail as long as a broom;

  Green hair full of fighting ardor;

  Red eyes emitting gold beams;

  Rows of flat teeth like jade slabs;

  Round whiskers rearing up like spears.

  The true form seen in the mirror

  Was Mañjuśrī’s lion king.

  “Bodhisattva,” said Pilgrim, “so this is the green-haired lion who serves as your beast of burden. How was it that he had been turned loose so that he could become a spirit here? Aren’t you going to make him submit to you?” “Wukong,” said the Bodhisattva, “he was not turned loose. He had been sent by the decree of Buddha to come here.” Pilgrim said, “You mean that this beast’s becoming a spirit to usurp the throne of a king was a decree of Buddha? If that’s the case, old Monkey, who is accompanying the Tang Monk through all his trials, should have been given several imperial documents!”

  The Bodhisattva said, “You don’t know that this king of the Black Rooster Kingdom was dedicated to virtue and to the feeding of monks at first. The Buddha sent me to lead him to return to the West so that he could attain the golden body of an arhat. I could not, of course, reveal myself to him in my true form, and so I changed myself into an ordinary mortal monk to beg some food from him. During our conversation a few words of mine put him on the spot; not realizing that I was a good man after all, he tied me up with a rope and sent me into the imperial moat. I soaked in there for three days and nights before the Six Gods of Darkness rescued me back to the West. Tathāgata therefore sent this creature here to push him down the well and have him submerged for three years, in order to exact vengeance for my water adversity of three days. Thus ‘not even a sup or a bite is not foreordained,’ and we had to wait for all of you to arrive and achieve this merit.”

  “You might have repaid the private grievance of your so-called one sup or one bite,” said Pilgrim, “but who knows how many human beings that fiendish creature has harmed.” “He has not,” said the Bodhisattva. “In fact, these three years after his arrival have seen nothing but winds and rains in season, prosperity for the kingdom, and peace for the inhabitants. Since when has he harmed anyone?”

  “Even so,” said Pilgrim, “those ladies of the three palaces did sleep with him and rise with him. His body has defiled many and violated the great human relations countless times. And you say that he has not harmed anyone?” The Bodhisattva said, “He has not defiled anyone, for he’s a gelded lion.” When Eight Rules heard this, he walked near and gave the creature a pat, saying with a chuckle, “This monster-spirit is truly a ‘red nose w
ho doesn’t drink’! He bears his name in vain!”

  “All right,” said Pilgrim, “take him away. If the Bodhisattva did not come here himself, I would never have spared his life.” Reciting a spell, the Bodhisattva shouted, “Beast, how long are you going to wait before you submit to the Right?” The demon king at once changed back to his original form, after which the Bodhisattva released the lotus flower seat to be placed on the back of the lion. He then mounted the lion, who trod on the auspicious luminosity and left. Aha!

  He went straight to the Wutai Mountain;6

  To hear sūtras explained before the lotus seat.

  We do not know finally how the Tang Monk and his disciples leave the city; let’s listen to the explanation in the next chapter.

  FORTY

  The child’s playful transformations confuse the Chan Mind;

  Ape, Horse, Spatula gone, Wood Mother, too, is lost.

  We were telling you about the Great Sage Sun and his two brothers, who lowered their clouds and returned to the court. They were met by the king, the queen, and their subjects—all of them lined up in rows to bow and to express their thanks. Pilgrim then gave a complete account of how the Bodhisattva came to subdue the monster, and all the officials in court touched the top of their heads to the ground in adoration. As they were thus rejoicing, the Custodian of the Yellow Gate arrived to announce, “My lord, there are four more monks who have arrived at the gate.” A little apprehensive, Eight Rules said, “Elder Brother, could it be that the monster-spirit, having used magic to disguise himself as the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī to deceive us, has now changed again into some kind of monk to match wits with us?” “How could that be?” said Pilgrim, who then asked that the monks be summoned inside.