by Wu Cheng-En
In the room glittering with silver candles the blockhead bowed to her, then asked which of the girls would be married to him. “That's the problem,” his mother-in-law said. “If I give you the eldest, the second one will be upset; and if I give you the second one, I'm afraid the third one will be; and if I give you the third, the eldest will be-so I haven't decided yet.”
“If there's any danger of them quarrelling,” said Pig, “then give me all of them, to save the family from being troubled with arguments and squabbles.”
“What a suggestion,” his mother-in-law exclaimed. “You're certainly not having all my daughters to yourself.”
“Don't be silly, mother. What's unusual about three or four wives? Even if there were several more of them, I'd take them on with a smile. When I was young I learned the art of 'protracted warfare,' and I can guarantee to keep every one of them happy.”
“No, no,” the woman said. “I have a handkerchief here. Tie it round your head to cover your face, and we can let Heaven decide which one you'll marry. I'll tell the girls to walk in front of you while you stretch your arms out. The one you catch, will be yours.” The blockhead obediently tied the handkerchief round his head, and there is a verse to prove it:
The fool, not knowing his own fate,
Was wounded by the sword of sex as he harmed himself in secret
There have always been proper wedding rites,
But today the groom blindfolded himself.
When he had tied the handkerchief on firmly, the idiot said, “Mother, please ask the girls to come out.”
“Zhenzhen, Aiai, Lianlian,” she called, “come out to see which of you Heaven will marry to my new son-in-law.” He heard the tinkling of jade ornaments and smelt rare perfumes as if fairies were there, so he reached out to grab one. He groped about to his left and his right, but without success. There were so many girls running about, and he had no chance of catching one. When he stretched East he only put his arms round a pillar, and when he stretched West he felt only the wall. As he rushed from one end of the room to the other he felt so dizzy that he lost his balance and kept tripping over. He stumbled into the door when he went forward, and collided with the brick wall when he went back, bumping, crashing and falling over till his snout was swollen and his head blue with bruises. Finally he sat on the floor and said as he gasped for breath, “Mother, your daughters are so slippery I can't catch a single one of them. Whatever shall I do?”
“They're not slippery,” she said, taking off the handkerchief, “they're all too shy to marry you.”
“If they won't marry me,” Pig said, “then you marry me.”
“What a son-in-law!” she said. “He doesn't care whether they're young or old-he even wants his own mother-in-law. Now each of these clever girls of mine has made a brocade shirt sewn with pearls. I'll tell whichever girl it is whose shirt you put on to marry you.”
“Great, great, great,” said Pig. “Bring out all three shirts for me to try on, and if I can get them all on, I'll marry them all.” The woman went back inside, and brought out only one shirt, which she handed to Pig. The idiot took off his own black cloth tunic and pulled on the shirt, but before he could tie the belt at the waist he fell to the ground with a thump and found himself tightly bound with many ropes. He was in great pain, and the women had all disappeared.
When Sanzang, Monkey, and Friar Sand woke up, the East was already lightening, and as they opened their eyes and looked around them they saw none of the lofty buildings that had been there. There were no carved and painted beams or rafters either: they had all been sleeping in a grove of pine and cypress. Sanzang called for Monkey in terror, and Friar Sand said, “Elder brother, we're done for, done for-they were demons.”
“What do you mean?” asked Monkey, who understood what had happened, with a trace of a smile. “Look where we've been sleeping,” said Sanzang. “We're very comfortable here under the pine trees,” said Monkey, “but I wonder where that idiot is being punished.”
“Who's being punished?” asked Sanzang.
“The woman and the girls last night were some Bodhisattvas or other appearing to us in disguise,” replied Monkey with a grin, “and I suppose they went away in the middle of the night. I'm afraid Pig is being punished.” On hearing this, Sanzang put his hands together and worshipped, and then they saw a piece of paper hanging from a cypress tree and fluttering in the breeze. Friar Sand hurried over to fetch it and show it to their master, who saw that there were eight lines of verse on it:
“The Old Woman of Mount Li had no yearning for the world,
But the Bodhisattva Guanyin persuaded her to come.
Samantabhadra and Manjusri were both present
Disguised as pretty girls among the trees.
The holy monk were too virtuous to return to lay life,
But the unreligious Pig was worse than worldly.
From now on he must calm his mind and reform-
If he misbehaves again, the journey will be hard.”
As Sanzang, Monkey, and Friar Sand read out these lines they heard loud shouts from the depths of the wood: “Master, they're tied me up and left me to die. I'll never do it again if you save me.”
“Is that Pig shouting, Friar Sand?” asked Sanzang, and Friar Sand said, “Yes.”
“Although that blockhead is obstinately stupid in mind and nature,” said Sanzang, “he is an honest fellow. Besides, he is very strong and can carry the luggage-and we should also remember that the Bodhisattva saved him and told him to come with us. I don't think he'll have the nerve to do it again.” Friar Sand then rolled up the bedding and arranged the luggage, while Monkey untied the horse and led it along as he guided the Tang Priest into the wood to investigate. Indeed:
In the pursuit of righteousness you must be careful,
And sweep away desires in your return to the truth.
If you don't know whether the blockhead survived or not, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 24
On the Mountain of Infinite Longevity a Great Immortal Entertains an Old Friend
In the Wuzhuang Temple Monkey Steals Manfruit
The three of them went into the wood and saw the idiot tied up under a tree, yelling and howling in unbearable pain. Monkey went over to him and said with a laugh, “What a son-in-law! So late, and you still haven't got up to thank your mother-in-law or come to tell the good news to the master. Why are you still playing around here? Where's your mother-in-law? Where's your wife? You make a fine, strapped-up, well-beaten son-in-law!”
The blockhead, burning with humiliation at being thus mocked, gritted his teeth to stop himself howling in his agony. Friar Sand was overcome with pity when he saw him, and putting down the luggage he went over and untied him. The idiot kowtowed to him in gratitude. He was suffering terrible remorse. There is a poem to the tune The Moon in the West River to prove it:
Sex is a sword that wounds the body;
Whoever lusts for it will suffer.
A pretty girl of sixteen
Is far more dangerous than a yaksha demon.
There is only one Origin,
And there are no extra profits to staff in the sack.
Better store all your capital away,
Guard it well, and don't squander it.
Pig used a pinch of earth to represent burning incense and bowed in worship to Heaven.
“Did you recognize the Bodhisattva?” Monkey asked.
“I was lying here in a faint and my eyes were seeing stars, so I couldn't tell who it was.” Monkey handed him the piece of paper, and when he saw the divine message, Pig was more ashamed than ever.
“You're very lucky,” said Friar Sand with a laugh, “you've got four Bodhisattvas as your relations now.”
“Please don't talk about it,” said Pig. “I really don't deserve to be human. I'll never misbehave again in future, and I even if the effort breaks my bones, I'll rub my shoulder and carry our master's luggage to the West.”
“That's more like it,” said Sanzang.
Monkey then led his master along the main road. After they had been going for a long time, walking and resting, they saw a high mountain blocking their way. “Disciples,” said Sanzang as he reined in the horse and stopped giving it the whip, “we must be very careful on that mountain. I'm afraid there may be fiends and demons on it who will attack us.”
“With us three followers,” said Monkey, “you needn't fear demons.” Sanzang, his worries ended, pressed forward. The mountain was certainly a fine one:
The mountain was very high
And craggy was its majesty.
Its roots joined the Kunlun range,
Its summit touched the Milky Way.
White crane came to perch in its locust and cypress trees,
Dark apes hung upside-down from its creepers.
When the sun shone bright on its forests,
It was enveloped in red haze;
When winds sprang from dark valleys,
Coloured clouds scudded across the sky.
Hidden birds called in the green bamboo,
Pheasants fought among the wild flowers.
Thousand-year peaks,
Five-blessing peaks,
Lotus peaks,
Majestically reflecting a delicate light;
Ten thousand year rocks,
Tiger-tooth rocks,
Three Heavens rocks,
Wreathed in subtle and auspicious vapours.
Luxuriant grass in front of the cliff,
The scent of plum blossom on the ridge.
Dense grew the jungle of thorns,
Pure and pale were the orchids.
Deep in the woods the birds gathered round the phoenix;
In an ancient cave a unicorn was chief of the animals.
A delightful stream in a gully
Twisted and turned as it wandered around;
Endless peaks
Coiled about in layer upon layer.
Then there were the green locust trees,
Mottled bamboo,
And bluish pines,
That had been competing in splendour for a thousand years.
White plum blossom,
Red peach,
And emerald willows
Were brilliant as they vied in beauty during spring.
Dragons called and tigers roared,
Cranes danced and apes howled.
Deer emerged from the flowers,
Pheasants sang to the sun.
This was a land of blessing, an Immortals' mountain,
Just like Penglai or Langyuan.
Flowers opened and withered on the mountain top,
Clouds came and went above the peaks along the ridge.
“Disciples,” said Sanzang with delight as he sat on his horse, “I've crossed many mountains on my journey West, and they were all steep and rocky, but none of them could be compared to the extraordinarily beautiful scenery here. If this isn't far from the Thunder Monastery, we had better put ourselves in a solemn and reverent mood to meet the Buddha.”
“It's early days yet,” said Monkey with a laugh. “That's not an easy place to get to.”
“How far are we from Thunder Monastery, elder brother?” asked Friar Sand.
“Thirty-six thousand miles,” Monkey replied, “and we haven't covered a tenth of it.”
“How many years will it take us to get there?” Pig asked.
“You two younger brothers of mine could manage it in ten days or so, and I could go there fifty times over in a single day and still be back before sunset. But for our master it doesn't bear thinking about.”
“Tell me, Monkey! how long will it take?” asked Sanzang.
“If you went from childhood to old age,” said Monkey, “and from old age back to childhood again, and you did it a thousand times over, you'd still find it hard to get there. But if you see your true nature, are determined to be sincere, and always remember to turn your head back to enlightenment, then you will have reached Vulture Peak.”
“Even if this isn't the Thunder Monastery,” said Friar Sand, “good people must live amid such fine scenery as this.”
“Quite right,” said Monkey, “there couldn't be any evil creatures here. This must be the home of holy monks or Immortals. Let's look around here and take our time over it.”
This mountain was called the Mountain of Infinite Longevity, and there was a Taoist temple on it called the Wuzhuang Temple. In this temple lived an Immortal whose Taoist name was Zhen Yuan Zi. He was also known as Conjoint Lord of the Age. The temple had a rare treasure, a miraculous tree that had been formed when primeval chaos was first being divided, before the separation of Heaven and Earth. In the four great continents of the world, only the Western Continent of Cattle-gift's Wuzhuang Temple had this treasure that was known as “Grass-returning Cinnabar” or “manfruit.” It took three thousand years to blossom, three thousand years to form the fruit, and another three thousand years for the fruit to ripen, so that very nearly ten thousand years had to pass before the fruit could be eaten. Only thirty fruit were formed each ten thousand years, and they were shaped just like a newborn baby, complete with limbs and sense organs. Anyone whose destiny permitted him to smell one would live for three hundred and sixty years, and if you ate one you would live for forty-seven thousand years.
That day the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan had received an invitation from the Original Celestial Jade Pure One inviting him to the Miluo Palace in the Heaven of Supreme Purity to hear a lecture on the Product of Undifferentiated Unity. The Immortals who had studied under this great Immortal were too numerous to count, and he now had forty-eight disciples who had all attained to the full truth of the Way. That day, the Great Immortal took forty-six of them with him to hear the lecture in the upper world, leaving the two youngest, Pure Wind and Bright Moon, to look after the temple. Pure Wind was 1,320 years old, and Bright Moon had just turned 1,200.
The Great Immortal gave his instructions to the two boys: “As I must obey the summons of the Original Celestial Jade Pure One and go to the Miluo Palace to hear a lecture, you two will have to look after the temple carefully. An old friend of mine will be coming this way before long, and you must entertain him very well indeed. You can pick two manfruits for him as a token of our old friendship.”
“Who is this old friend of yours, master?” the boys asked. “Please tell us who he is so that we can entertain him properly.”
“He is a priest sent by the Tang Emperor in the East,” the Great Immortal replied, “and he is known as Sanzang. He is the monk going to worship the Buddha and ask for the scriptures in the Western Heaven.”
“Confucius said, 'Don't have anything to do with people of a different way,'“ replied the boys with smiles. “Ours is the esoteric sect of the Great Monad, so why ever are you friends with that Buddhist monk?”
“You are not aware,” the Great Immortal replied, “that he is a reincarnation of the Golden Cicada, the second disciple of the Tathagata Buddha, that ancient sage of the West. I made his acquaintance at an Ullambana assembly where he gave me tea with his own hands. As this disciple of the Buddha paid me such an honour, I regard him as an old friend.”
When the two Immortal boys heard this, they accepted their master's orders. Just as he was on the point of setting out, the Great Immortal gave them some more instructions: “There are a limited number of those manfruits. You must only give two, and not one more.”
“When the garden was opened we all shared two,” said the boys, “and there are twenty-eight now left on the tree. We won't use more than two.”
“Although the Tang Priest is an old friend of mine,” said the Great Immortal, “you must be on your guard against his ruffian followers, and you mustn't let them know about the manfruit.” The Great Immortal then flew up to Heaven with the rest of his disciples.
The Tang Priest and his three followers, meanwhile, were enjoying themselves strolling on the mountain when they noticed so
me tall buildings rising above a bamboo grove. “What do you think that is?” Sanzang asked Monkey, who replied, “It's either a Taoist temple or a Buddhist one. Let's go over and find out.” It did not take them long to reach the gate, and they saw
A cool pine-covered slope,
A tranquil path through the bamboo.
White cranes brought floating clouds,
Monkeys and apes offered fruit.
Before the gate was a wide pool, and the shadows of the trees were long;
In the cracks of the rocks grew moss.
Many a purple hall was massed together;
A red aura enveloped the lofty towers.
It certainly was a blessed place,
A cloud cave on Penglai.
In its pure emptiness little happened;
Its stillness gave birth to thoughts of the Way.
Green birds often brought letters from the Queen Mother;
Purple pheasants carried the classics of Lord Lao Zi.
There was a majestic air of the Way and its Power-
It was indeed a divine Immortal's home.
Sanzang dismounted and saw that there was a stone tablet outside the gate on which was inscribed in large letters:
BLESSED LAND OF THE MOUNTAIN OF INFINITE LONGEVITY
CAVE HEAVEN OF THE WUZHUANG TEMPLE
“You were right,” said Sanzang, “it is a Taoist temple.”
“Good people must live in this temple,” said Friar Sand, “set as it is in such fresh, light scenery. Let's go in and have a look round. When we go back to the East at the end of our journey, this will be one of the finest sights we'll have seen.”
“Well spoken,” said Monkey, and they all went in. On the next gate was pasted the couplet:
“Residence of Divine Immortals Who Never Grow Old;
Home of Taoists as Ancient as Heaven.”
“This Taoist tries to intimidate people by talking big,” said Monkey with a laugh. “When I wrecked the Heavenly Palace five hundred years ago I never saw anything like that over the gate of the Supreme Lord Lao Zi.”