by Wu Cheng-En
“When I was the commander of the Milky Way, the heavenly river, in the old days,” said Pig, “I had a force of eighty thousand sailors, so I know a bit about water. But I'm afraid that he might have generations of clansmen down there, and that would be too much for me. And if they got me, we'd be in a real mess.”
“You go into the water and start a fight with him there,” said Monkey. “Don't fight hard, and don't win. You must lose and lure him out, then I can finish him off for you.”
“Very well then, I'll be off,” said Pig. After stripping off his brocade tunic and removing his shoes he swung his rake in both hands and made his way into the water, where the tricks he had learned years back enabled him to go through the waves to the river-bed, across which he advanced.
The ogre had now recovered his breath after his earlier defeat, and when he heard someone pushing the waters aside he leapt to his feet to look. Seeing that it was Pig brandishing his rake, the monster raised his staff and shouted at him, “Where do you think you're going, monk? Watch out, and take this.”
Pig warded off the blow with his rake and replied. “Who are you, evil spirit, and why are you blocking the way?”
“You may not realize who I am,” the monster replied, “but I'm no fiend, demon, ghost or monster, and I don't lack a name either.”
“If you're not a fiend, a demon, or a monster, then why do you live here taking life? Tell me your name truthfully and I'll spare you life.”
“I,” the monster replied,
“Have had a divine essence since childhood,
And have wandered all over heaven and earth.
I have won glory among the heroes of the world,
And brave knights have taken me as their model.
I traveled at will over countries and continents,
Going where I liked in lakes and seas,
To study the Way I went to the edge of the heavens,
And I roamed the wastes in search of teachers.
In those days I had a cassock and an alms-bowl,
And I kept my mind and spirit well controlled.
I traveled the earth by cloud some dozen times,
Visiting everywhere on a hundred journeys.
The Immortal I finally managed to find
Led me along the great and shining Way.
First I gathered mercury and lead,
Then I let go of the Mother of Wood and Metal's Father.
The kidney-water behind my brow entered my mouth,
And the liver-fire in my windpipes entered my heart.
With three thousand accomplishment won,
I bowed to the heavenly countenance;
Piously I worshipped him in his glory.
The Great Jade Emperor then promoted me
To be the General Who Lifts the Curtain.
I was honoured within the Southern Gate of Heaven,
Supreme before the Hall of Miraculous Mist.
At my waist was hung the tiger tally,
In my hand I held my demon-quelling staff.
My golden helmet shone like sunlight,
On my body gleamed a suit of armour.
I led the escort for the Emperor's carriage,
Always took precedence when he entered or left court.
But then the Queen Mother gathered the peaches
And invited all the generals to feast at the Jade Pool.
I carelessly smashed some jade and crystal,
To the horror of all of the heavenly gods.
The Jade Emperor in his terrible fury
Put his hands together and fumed to the vice-premier.
My hat and armour were removed, and I was stripped of office,
Then marched to the place of execution.
Then, to my good fortune, the great Bare-foot Immortal
Stepped forward to ask for my reprieve.
Death was commuted; I was allowed to live
In exile on the East bank of the Flowing Sands River.
When well-fed I sleep in the river waters;
When hungry I burst through the waves in search of food.
If a woodcutter meets me his life is finished-
No fisherman sees me and survives.
In one way and another I've eaten many a man,
Cloaked as I am in an aura of death.
As you've dared to come to make trouble at my gates
My belly has something to look forward to today.
No matter if you're coarse and don't taste good,
When I've caught you I can cut you up for salted mince.”
Pig was extremely angry to hear this, and he replied, “You're completely blind, wretch. I can catch bubbles in my fingers, so how dare you say that I'm so coarse you'll cut me up for salted mince? So you take me to be a very well-cured side of ham! Don't be impudent-take a dose of this rake.” When the monster saw the rake coming at him he did a “phoenix nod” to avoid it. The two of them fought their way up to the surface of the water, where each of them trod on the waves as they struggled in a combat that was even fiercer than their previous one.
The Curtain-lifting General,
And Marshal Tian Peng;
Each gave a splendid show of magic powers.
The ogre-quelling staff wheels around the head,
The nine-pronged rake is swift in the hand.
As they leap on the waves, they shake hills and rivers,
Darkening the world as they push the waters aside,
As terrible as the Disaster Star striking banners and pendants,
As frightening as lifting the canopy off the Death Star.
One was the loyal defender of the Tang Priest,
The other, a criminal, was an ogre of the waters.
Where the rake struck it left nine scars;
When the staff smote, all the souls were scattered.
Cheerfully fighting for all they were worth,
They put all their hearts into the combat.
Although he is only a pilgrim fetching scriptures
His unrestrained anger bursts against the sky.
Such was the chaos that the fishes lost their scales,
While the soft shells of terrapins were crushed;
Red prawns and purple crabs all lost their lives,
And all the gods of the water palace prayed to heaven.
The only sound was the thunder of crashing waves;
Sun and moon were dark, to the horror of earth and sky.
They battled on for four hours, but the issue was still undecided. It was as if a brass pan was fighting an iron brush, or a jade chime was competing with a golden bell.
The Great Sage, who was standing beside the Tang Priest to guard him, watched the fight on the water with longing, unable to do anything. Then Pig feinted with his rake, pretended to be beaten, and made for the Eastern bank with the ogre rushing after him. When he had almost reached the bank, Monkey could hold himself back no longer. Abandoning his master, he sprang down to the river's edge with his cudgel in his hand and took a swing at the ogre's head. Not daring to face him, the monster went straight back into the river. “Protector of the Horses,” Pig shouted, “you impatient ape. You should have taken it a bit more slowly and waited till I'd drawn him up to high ground, and then cut him off from the river-bank. Then he wouldn't have been able to go back and we'd have caught him. But now he's gone back in, he'll never come out again.”
“Don't shout, idiot,” Monkey said with a smile, “don't shout. Let's go back and see our master.”
When Pig reached the top of the bank with Monkey, Sanzang bowed to him and said, “You've had a tough time, disciple.”
“I wouldn't say that,” Pig replied. “But if we'd captured that evil spirit and made him take you across the river, that would have been the perfect solution.”
“How did your battle with the evil spirit go?” Sanzang asked.
“He's as good as me,” Pig replied. “When I pretended to be beaten in the fight he chased me to the river's edge; but then he
saw elder brother waving his cudgel, so he ran away.”
“So what are we going to do?” Sanzang asked.
“Relax, master,” said Monkey, “there's no need to worry. It's getting late, so you'd better sit on the bank while I go and beg some food. When you've eaten that you can go to sleep, and we can decide what to do tomorrow morning.”
“Good idea,” said Pig. “Be as quick as you can.”
Monkey leapt up on his cloud, went due North to a house where he begged some food, and came back to give it to his master. Seeing him come back so soon, Sanzang said to him, “Monkey, let's go to the house where you begged this food and ask them how to cross this river. That would be better than having to fight this ogre.”
“But that house is a long way away,” laughed Monkey. “It's about two thousand miles from here. What would be the point in asking them about this river? They wouldn't know anything about it.”
“You're telling tall stories again,” Pig said. “If it's two thousand miles away, how did you get there and back so fast?”
“You wouldn't know, of course,” Brother Monkey replied, “that my somersault cloud can cover thirty-six thousand miles with a single bound. To do a mere two-thousand-mile return journey takes only a couple of nods and a bow-there's nothing to it.”
“If it's so easy, brother,” said Pig, “you should carry the master on your back, take him across with just a couple of nods and a bow, and save us all the trouble of fighting the monster.”
“You can ride clouds, can't you?” said Monkey. “Why don't you carry the master across?”
“The master's mortal flesh and bones are heavier than Mount Tai,” said Pig, “So although I can ride clouds I could never lift him. Nothing but your somersault will do the trick.”
“My somersault is the same as cloud-riding.” Monkey said, “except that it takes you further. I'm no more able to carry him than you are. As the old saying goes, 'Mount Tai is as easy to move as a mustard seed, but a mortal cannot be dragged away from the earthly dust.' When that other poisonous monster of a fiend made a magic wind I could only move the master by dragging and tugging him along the ground. Of course. I can do tricks like that, and all those other ones like making myself invisible or shrinking land. But although our master cannot escape from the sea of suffering he wants to go to a foreign land, so he finds every inch of the way heavy going. All we can do is escort him and see that he comes to no harm. We can't undergo all that suffering on his behalf, nor can we fetch the scriptures for him. Even if we went ahead to see the Buddha, he wouldn't give the scriptures to you or me. After all, if we could get them that easily, we'd have nothing to do.” The idiot accepted everything Monkey said, then they ate some plain rice without any vegetables, after which the three of them went to sleep on the Eastern bank of the Flowing Sands River.
“Monkey,” said Sanzang the next morning, “what are we going to do about it today?”
“There's nothing for it but to send Pig back under the water,” Monkey replied. “You're making me go underwater because you want to stay dry, brother,” Pig protested. “I won't be impatient this time,” Monkey said. “I'll let you lure him out onto the bank and then I'll cut him off from the river. That way we'll be bound to catch him.”
Dear Pig rubbed his face, summoned up his energy, took his rake in both hands, went down to the river, and parted the waters as he went back to the monster's lair once more. The ogre, who had only just woken up, turned to see what was happening the moment he heard the waters being pushed apart. Observing that a rake-wielding Pig was upon him, he sprang to his feet to stop him, shouting, “Not so fast, not so fast. Take this.” Pig blocked the blow from the staff with his rake and said, “What do you mean by telling your ancestor to 'take this' from that mourner's staff of yours?”
“You know nothing, you wretch,” the monster replied, continuing:
“Great is the fame of this staff of mine,
Made from a Sala tree on the moon.
Wu Gang cut down a branch of it,
For Lu Ban to work with his unrivalled skill.
A strip of gold goes right through its heart,
And it is set with countless pearls.
It is a precious staff, fine for subduing fiends;
It could quell all demons when it guarded the Heavenly Palace.
When I was commissioned as High General
The Jade Emperor gave it me to use.
It can be any length I wish,
Thick or thin, responding to my will.
It protected the Emperor at Peach Banquets,
Attended at court in the upper world.
When I was at the palace, it met all the sages,
When I lifted the curtain, it greeted the Immortals.
I nurtured it and made it a divine weapon-
This is no ordinary earthly arm.
When I was sent down from Heaven in exile
I roamed at will throughout the world.
I do not need to boast about this staff,
Unmatched by any spear or saber in the world.
Look at that rusty rake of yours,
Only good for farming or growing vegetables.”
“I'll give you the beating you deserve, damn you,” said Pig. “Never mind about vegetable-growing-one swipe from it and you'll have nowhere left to put ointment, because your blood will be pouring out from nine holes. Even if it doesn't kill you, you'll have tetanus for the rest of your days.” The ogre dropped his defensive posture and fought with Pig from the river-bed to the surface of the water. This battle was fiercer than the earlier ones:
The precious staff whirled,
The deadly rake struck,
And no word passed between the two foes.
Because the Mother of Wood conquered the Medicine Measure
The pair of them had to fight each other twice.
With no victory,
And no defeat,
The waves were overturned and knew no peace.
How could the one hold back his anger?
How could the other bear his humiliation?
As the staff parried the rake's blows, they showed their prowess;
Each was most vicious as the Flowing Sands River rolled.
Towering rage,
Strenuous efforts,
All because Sanzang wanted to go West.
The rake was thoroughly murderous,
The staff was wielded with experience.
Pig grabbed his enemy, trying to drag him ashore,
While the other in torn tried to pull Pig under water.
The thunderous noise disturbed fish and dragons;
Gods and ghosts lay low as the sky was darkened.
The battle went on for thirty rounds, but neither emerged victorious. Pig feigned defeat once again, and fled trailing his rake behind him. The ogre charged through the waves after him as far as the bank, when Pig shouted at him, “I'll get you, you damned ogre. Come up on this higher ground where we can fight with dry land under our feet.”
“You're trying to lure me up there, damn you,” the monster replied, “for your mate to come and get me. Come back and fight in the water.” The fiend, who had more sense than to go up the bank again, stood at the river's edge, shouting it out with Pig.
When Monkey saw that the monster was not coming up on the bank he seethed with frustration at not being able to catch him. “Master,” he said, “you sit here while I do a 'Hungry Eagle Falling on Its Prey' on him.” He somersaulted into mid-air, then plummeted down to catch the ogre, who heard the noise of a wind as he was yelling at Pig, turned immediately, and saw Monkey descending from the clouds. He put his staff away, plunged into the water with a splash, and was seen no more. “Brother,” said Monkey to Pig as he landed on the bank, “the monster's made a smooth getaway. Whatever are we to do if he won't come on to the bank again?”
“It's impossible,” said Pig, “We'll never be able to beat him. Even if I put everything I've got into it, I can only hold my own against h
im.”
“Let's go and see the master,” Monkey said.
The two of them climbed the bank and told the Tang Priest about the difficulty of capturing the ogre. “It's so hard,” said Sanzang, tears streaming down his cheeks. “However are we going to cross?”
“No need to worry, master,” said Monkey. “The monster is lurking deep down on the river-bed, where it's very hard to move around. You stay here and look after the master, Pig, and don't fight with the ogre again. I'm going to the Southern Sea.”
“What for?” Pig asked. “This whole business of fetching the scriptures was started by the Bodhisattva Guanyin, and it was she who converted us. Now we are stuck here at the Flowing Sands River nobody but she can sort this one out. With her help we'll be in a stronger position to fight that monster.”
“Yes, yes,” said Pig, “and when you're there, please thank her for converting me.”
“If you're going to ask the Bodhisattva to come,” Sanzang said, “don't waste a moment, and be back as quickly as possible.”
Monkey then somersaulted off on his cloud towards the Southern Sea, and before an hour was up he saw Potaraka Island. An instant later he landed outside the Purple Bamboo Grove, where the twenty-four devas came forward to greet him with the words, “Why have you come, Great Sage?”
“Because my master is in trouble,” Monkey replied, “I have come for an audience with the Bodhisattva.” The deva on duty that day asked Monkey to sit down while he went in to report, whereupon he went into the Tide Cave to announce that Sun Wukong was seeking an audience on business. The Bodhisattva was leaning on a balcony looking at the blossoms in the Precious Lotus Pool with the Dragon Princess Peng Zhu when she heard the news. She went back in her cloudy majesty, opening the door and summoning Monkey to her presence. The Great Sage greeted her with grave reverence.