by Wu Cheng-En
When he reached the Tushita Palace, Lord Lao Zi had the Great Sage untied, took the hook from his collar-bone, pushed him into the Eight Trigrams Furnace, and ordered the priests in charge of it and the fire-boys to fan the fire up to refine him. Now this furnace was made up of the Eight Trigrams-Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Sun, Li, Kun, and Dui-so he squeezed himself into the “Palace of Sun,” as Sun was the wind, and where there was wind there could be no fire. All that happened was that the wind stirred up the smoke, which made both his eyes red and left him somewhat blind with the illness called “fire eyes with golden pupils.”
Time soon passed, and without him realizing it the seven times seven, or forty-nine, days had passed, and Lord Lao Zi's fire had reached the required temperature and burned for long enough. One day the furnace was opened for the elixir to be taken out. The Great Sage, who was shielding his eyes with both hands and wiping away his tears, heard a noise at the top of the furnace. He looked hard and saw daylight; and, unable to stand being in there a moment longer, leapt out of the furnace, kicked it over with a crash, and was off. In the ensuing chaos the fire-boys, the keepers of the furnace, the Dings and the Jias all tried to grab him, but he knocked them all down. He was like a white-browed tiger gone berserk, a single-horned dragon raving mad. Lord Lao Zi rushed up to seize him, but was thrown head over heels as the Great Sage freed himself. He took the As-You-Will cudgel from his ear, and shook it in the wind till it was thick as a bowl, and once more created total chaos in the Palace of Heaven, not caring in the least what he did. He laid about him to such effect that the Nine Bright Shiners shut their windows and doors, and not a sign was to be seen of the Four Heavenly Kings.
Marvellous monkey spirit! As the poem has it,
His primordial body matches an earlier heaven,
Completely natural throughout ten thousand ages;
Vast and passive, blended with the Great Monad;
Always immobile, known as the Prime Mystery.
After so much refining in the furnace he is not lead or mercury;
Having lived long outside the ordinary he is a natural Immortal.
His changes are inexhaustible, and still he has more,
So say nothing about the Three Refuges or Five Abstentions.
Another poem says:
A single point of magic light can fill the whole of space;
Likewise that staff of his:
Longer or shorter, depending on his needs,
Upright or horizontal, it can shrink or grow.
Yet another poem runs:
To the ape's immortal body is matched a human mind:
That the mind is an ape is deeply meaningful.
It was quite true that the Great Sage equaled Heaven:
The appointment as Protector of the Horse showed no discernment.
Horse and ape together make mind and thought;
Bind them tightly together, and do not seek elsewhere.
When all phenomena are reduced to truth they follow a single pattern;
Like the Tathagatha reaching nirvana under the two trees.
This time the Monkey King made no distinctions between high and humble as he laid about him to East and West with his iron club. Not a single god opposed him. He fought his way into the Hall of Universal Brightness outside the Hall of Miraculous Mist, where the Kingly Spirit Officer, the lieutenant of the Helpful Sage and True Lord, fortunately was on duty. When he saw the Great Sage charging around he took up his golden mace and went forward to resist him.
“Where are you going, damned monkey?” he asked. “If you go wild you'll have me to deal with.” The Great Sage was not in a position to argue with him, so he raised his cudgel to strike him. The Spirit Officer lifted his mace and advanced to meet him. It was a fine fight:
Great was the fame of the brave and loyal officer,
Evil the name of the rebel who bullied Heaven.
The low one and the good one were well matched;
Valiant heroes fighting each other.
Vicious the iron cudgel,
Quick the golden mace.
Both were straight, merciless, and terrible.
One of them is a deity formed from the Great Monad's thunder;
The other is the monkey spirit, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven.
With golden mace or iron cudgel each is a master;
Both are weapons from the palaces of the gods.
Today they show their might in the Hall of Miraculous Mist,
A wonderful display of courage and skill.
One in his folly wanting to capture the Palace of the Dipper and the Bull,
The other exerting all his strength to support the world of the gods.
The fight is too hard to allow the use of magic,
As mace and cudgel struggle without result.
As they fought together without either of them emerging as victor, the True Lord sent an officer with a message to the Thunder Palace ordering the thirty-six thunder generals to surround the Great Sage. Although they all fought with the utmost ferocity, the Great Sage was not in the least frightened, and parried and blocked to left and right with his As-You-Will cudgel, resisting his opponents in front and behind. Before long he found that the pressure was too great from the sabres, spears, swords, halberds, clubs, maces, claws-and-ropes, hammer, pole-axes, battle-axes, grabs, pennoned hooks, and moon-shaped bills of the thunder generals; so he shook himself and grew three heads and six arms. Then he shook his As-You-Will cudgel and changed it into three cudgels, and wielding the three cudgels in his six hands he flew round and round inside the encirclement like a spinning wheel. None of the thunder generals could get anywhere near him. Indeed,
Perfectly round,
Gleaming bright,
How can men learn to live for ever?
He can enter fire without being burned,
And go in the water but not be drowned.
He is as bright as a Mani pearl,
Swords and spears cannot harm him.
He is capable of good,
And capable of evil:
When faced with the choice between good and evil he might do either.
If he is good he becomes a Buddha or an Immortal,
If bad, he grows fur and horns.
With his boundless transformations he wrecked the Heavenly palace,
Nor can thunder generals and divine troops take him.
Although the gods had the Great Sage cornered, they were unable to get near him. The noise of the shouting and the fighting had already alarmed the Jade Emperor, who ordered the Miracle Official Youyi to go to the West with the Helpful Sage and True Lord and ask the Buddha to subdue him.
When these two sages received the order they went to the wonderful land of the Miraculous Mountain, where they offered their greetings to the Four Vajrapanis and Eight Bodhisattvas before the Thunder Monastery and asked them to pass on their massage. The gods went to the foot of the lotus seat to inform the Tathagata, who invited the two sages to his presence. When the sages had performed the threefold obeisance to the Buddha they stood in attendance below the throne.
“Why has the Jade Emperor troubled you two sages to come here?” asked the Buddha.
“A monkey,” they reported, “who was born on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, has used his magic powers to unite all the monkeys and throw the world into confusion. The Jade Emperor sent down an edict of amnesty and appointed him Protector of the Horses, but this was not good enough for him, so he left Heaven again. When heavenly King Li and Prince Nezha were unsuccessful in their attempt to capture him the Jade Emperor sent down another amnesty with his appointment as a 'Great Sage Equaling Heaven'. At first this appointment was purely nominal, but later he was told to look after the Peach Orchard. But he stole the peaches and then went to the Jade Pool where he stole the delicacies and the liquor and wrecked the banquet. In his drunkenness he staggered into the Tushita Palace, stole Lord Lao Zi's pills of immortality, and left Heaven again. The Jade Emperor sent a hundred thous
and heavenly troops, but they were still unable to subdue him. Then Guanyin recommended the True Lord Erlang and his sworn brothers to go after the monkey, and he used many a transformation until he was finally able to capture the monkey after the Lord Lao Zi hit him with his Diamond Jade. The monkey was then taken to the imperial presence, and the order for his execution was given. But although he was hacked at with sabres, chopped at with axes, burned with fire, and struck with thunder, none of this did him any damage; so Lord Lao Zi requested permission to take him away and refine him with fire. But when the cauldron was opened after forty-nine days he jumped out of the Eight Trigrams Furnace, routed the heavenly troops, and went straight to the Hall of Universal Brightness in front of the Hall of Miraculous Mist. Here he has been stopped and engaged in fierce combat by the Kingly Spirit Officer, the lieutenant of the Helpful Sage and True Lord Erlang, thunder generals have been sent there to encircle him; but no one has been able to get close to him. In this crisis the Jade Emperor makes a special appeal to you, the Tathagata, to save his throne.”
On hearing this the Tathagata said to the assembled Bodhisattvas, “You stay here quietly in this dharma hall and behave yourselves in your seats of meditation while I go to deal with the demon and save the throne.”
Telling the Venerable Ananda and the Venerable Kasyapa to accompany him, the Tathagata left the Thunder Monastery and went straight to the gate of the Hall of Miraculous Mist, where his ears were shaken by the sound of shouting as the thirty-six thunder generals surrounded the Great Sage. The Buddha issued a decree that ran: “Tell the thunder generals to stop fighting, open up their camp, and call on that Great Sage to come out, so that I may ask him what divine powers he has.”
The generals then withdrew, whereupon the Great Sage put away his magic appearance and came forward in his own body. He was in a raging temper as he asked, “Where are you from? You are a good man. You've got nerve, stopping the fighting and questioning me!”
“I am the Venerable Sakyamuni from the Western Land of Perfect Bliss,” replied the Buddha with a smile. “I have heard of your wild and boorish behavior, and of your repeated rebellions against Heaven, and I would like to know where you were born, when you found the Way, and why you have been so ferocious.”
“I am,” the Great Sage said,
“A miracle-working Immortal born of Heaven and Earth,
An old ape from the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.
My home is in the Water Curtain Cave,
I sought friends and teachers, and became aware of the Great Mystery.
“I have practiced many a method for obtaining eternal life,
Infinite are the transformations I have learned.
That is why I found the mortal world too cramped,
And decided to live in the Jade Heaven.
“None can reign forever in the Hall of Miraculous Mist;
Kings throughout history have had to pass on their power.
The strong should be honoured-he should give way to me:
This is the only reason I wage my heroic fight.”
The Buddha laughed mockingly.
“You wretch! You are only a monkey spirit and you have the effrontery to want to grab the throne of the Jade Emperor. He has trained himself since childhood, and suffered hardship for one thousand, seven hundred and fifty kalpas. Each kalpa is 129,600 years, so you can work out for yourself how long it has taken him to be able to enjoy this great and infinite Way. But you are a beast who has only just become a man for the first time. How dare you talk so big? You're not human, not even human! I'll shorten your life-span. Accept my teaching at once and stop talking such nonsense! Otherwise you'll be in for trouble and your life will very shortly be over; and that will be so much the worse for your original form too.”
“Although he has trained himself for a long time, ever since he was a child, he still has no right to occupy this place for ever,” the Great Sage said. “As the saying goes, 'Emperors are made by turn; next year it may be me.' If he can be persuaded to move out and make Heaven over to me, that'll be fine. But if he doesn't abdicate in my favour I'll most certainly make things hot for him, and he'll never know peace and quiet again.”
“What have you got, besides immortality and the ability to transform yourself, that gives you the nerve to try to seize the Heavenly Palace?” the Buddha asked.
“I can do many tricks indeed,” the Great Sage replied. “I can perform seventy-two transformations, and I can preserve my youth for ten thousand kalpas. I can ride a somersault cloud that takes me thirty-six thousand miles at a single jump. So why shouldn't I sit on the throne of Heaven?”
“I'll have a wager with you then,” said the Buddha. “If you're clever enough to get out of my right hand with a single somersault, you will be the winner, and there will be no more need for weapons or fighting: I shall invite the Jade Emperor to come and live in the West and abdicate the Heavenly Palace to you. But if you can't get out of the palm of my hand you will have to go down to the world below as a devil and train yourself for several more kalpas before coming to argue about it again.”
When he heard this offer the Great Sage smiled to himself and thought, “This Buddha is a complete idiot. I can cover thirty-six thousand miles with a somersault, so how could I fail to jump out of the palm of his hand, which is less than a foot across?”
With this in his mind he asked eagerly, “Do you guarantee that yourself?”
“Yes, yes,” the Buddha replied, and he stretched out his right hand, which seemed to be about the size of a lotus leaf. Putting away his As-You-Will cudgel, the Great Sage summoned up all his divine powers, jumped into the palm of the Buddha's hand, and said, “I'm off.” Watch him as he goes like a streak of light and disappears completely. The Buddha, who was watching him with his wise eyes, saw the Monkey King whirling forward like a windmill and not stopping until he saw five flesh-pink pillars topped by dark vapours.
“This is the end of the road,” he said, “so now I'll go back. The Buddha will be witness, and the Hall of Miraculous Mist will be mine.” Then he thought again, “Wait a moment. I'll leave my mark here to prove my case when I talk to the Buddha.” He pulled out a hair, breathed on it with his magic breath, and shouted “Change.” It turned into a writing brush dipped in ink, and with it he wrote THE GREAT SAGE EQUALING HEAVEN WAS HERE in big letters on the middle pillar. When that was done he put the hair back on, and, not standing on his dignity, made a pool of monkey piss at the foot of the pillar. Then he turned his somersault round and went back to where he had started from.
“I went, and now I'm back. Tell the Jade Emperor to hand the Heavenly Palace over to me,” he said, standing in the Buddha's palm.
“I've got you, you piss-spirit of a monkey,” roared the Buddha at him. “You never left the palm of my hand.”
“You're wrong there,” the Great Sage replied. “I went to the farthest point of Heaven, where I saw five flesh-pink pillars topped by dark vapours. I left my mark there: do you dare come and see it with me?”
“There's no need to go. Just look down.” The Great Sage looked down with his fire eyes with golden pupils to see the words “The Great Sage Equaling Heaven Was Here” written on the middle finger of the Buddha's right hand. The stink of monkey-piss rose from the fold at the bottom of the finger.
“What a thing to happen,” exclaimed the Great Sage in astonishment. “I wrote this on one of the pillars supporting the sky, so how can it be on his finger now? He must have used divination to know what I was going to do. I don't believe it. I refuse to believe it! I'll go there and come back again.”
The dear Great Sage hurriedly braced himself to jump, but the Buddha turned his hand over and pushed the Monkey King out through the Western Gate of Heaven. He turned his five fingers into a mountain chain belonging to the elements Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth, renamed them the Five Elements Mountain, and gently held him down.
All the thunder gods and the disciples Ananda and Kasyapa put their han
ds together to praise the Buddha: “Wonderful, wonderful,
An egg learned to be a man,
Cultivated his conduct, and achieved the Way.
Heaven had been undisturbed for the thousand kalpas,
Until one day the spirits and gods were scattered.
“The rebel against Heaven, wanting high position,
Insulted Immortals, stole the pills, and destroyed morality.
Today his terrible sins are being punished,
Who knows when he will be able to rise again?”
When he had eliminated the monkey fiend the Buddha told Ananda and Kasyapa to return with him to the Western paradise. At that moment Tian Peng and Tian You hurried out of the Hall of Miraculous Mist to say, “We beg the Tathagata to wait a moment as the Jade Emperor's chariot is coming.”
The Buddha turned round and looked up, and an instant later he saw an eight-splendour imperial chariot and a nine-shining jeweled canopy appear to the sound of strange and exquisite music, and the chanting of countless sacred verses. Precious flowers were scattered and incense was burned.
The Jade Emperor went straight up to the Buddha and said, “We are deeply indebted to the great Buddha's powers for wiping out the demon, and we hope that the Tathagata will spend a day here so that we may invite all the Immortals to a feast of thanksgiving.”