by Wu Cheng-En
“What does it taste like?” Pig asked.
“Ignore him, Friar Sand,” said Monkey. “He's already eaten his, and he's no business to ask you.”
“Brother,” said Pig, “I ate mine too fast. I didn't nibble it delicately and taste the flavour like you two. I don't even know if it had a stone or not as I gulped it straight down. You should finish what you've started: you've whetted my appetite, so you ought to get me another to eat slowly.”
“You're never satisfied,” Monkey replied. “These things aren't like rice or flour-you can't go stuffing yourself full of them. Only thirty grow in every ten thousand years, so we can think ourselves very lucky indeed to have a whole one each. Come off it, Pig, you've had enough.” He got up, slipped into the Taoist boys' room with the golden rod, and put it back without letting himself be seen through the window. He paid no more attention to Pig, who went on grumbling.
Before long the Taoist boys were back in their room, and they heard Pig moaning, “I didn't enjoy my manfruit; I wish I could have another.” Pure Wind's suspicion were aroused, and he said to Bright Moon, “Did you hear that long-snouted monk saying he wished he could have another manfruit? Our master told us when he went that we were to be careful of those gangsters and not let them steal our treasures.”
“This is terrible, terrible,” said Bright Moon. “What's the golden rod doing on the floor? We'd better go into the garden and take a look around.” The two of them hurried out and found the garden gates open.
“We shut this gate,” said Pure Wind, “so why is it open?” They rushed round the flower garden, found the vegetable garden gate open too, and tore into the manfruit garden. They leant on the tree and looked up into it to count the fruit, but however often they added the number up, it always came to twenty-two.
“Can you do arithmetic?” Bright Moon asked, and Pure Wind replied, “Yes. Tell me the figures.”
“There were originally thirty manfruits,” said Bright Moon. “When our master opened the garden two were divided up and eaten, which left twenty-eight. Just now we knocked two down to give the Tang Priest, which left twenty-six. But there are only twenty-two now, which means that we're four short. It goes without saying that those bad men must have stolen them. Let's go and tell that Tang Priest what we think of him.”
The two of them went from the garden to the front hall, where they pointed at Sanzang and poured the most filthy and stinking abuse on him, calling him “baldy” this and “baldy” that. It was more than Sanzang could stand, so he said, “What are you making all this fuss about, Immortal boys? Please stop. I wouldn't mind you being a bit offhand with me, but you can't talk in this outrageous way.”
“Are you deaf?” Pure Wind asked. “We're not talking a foreign language, and you can understand us perfectly well. You've stolen our manfruit, and you've no right to forbid us to mention it.”
“What does manfruit look like?” Sanzang asked.
“It's what we offered you just now and you said looked like babies.”
“Amitabha Buddha!” Sanzang exclaimed. “I shook with terror at the very sight of them-I couldn't possibly steal one. Even if I were being racked by the most terrible greed, I could never commit the crime of eating one of those. What do you mean by making so unjust an accusation?”
“Although you didn't eat any,” said Pure Wind, “those underlings of yours stole and ate some.”
“Even if they did, you shouldn't shout like that. Wait till I've questioned them. If they stole some, I'll see that they make it up to you.”
“Make it up?” said Bright Moon. “They are things that money can't buy.”
“Well then,” said Sanzang, “if money won't buy them, 'decent behavior is worth a thousand pieces of gold,' as the saying goes. I'll make them apologize to you, and that will be that. Besides, we still don't know whether they did it.”
“Of course they did,” retorted Bright Moon. “They're still quarrelling in there because they were divided unfairly.”
“Come here, disciples,” called Sanzang.
“We've had it,” said Friar Sand when he heard Sanzang calling. “The game's up. Our master is calling us and the young Taoists are swearing and cursing. The cat must be out of the bag.”
“How disgraceful,” said Monkey, “all that fuss about some food. But if we confess it, they'll say it was stealing food; the best thing is not to admit it at all.”
“Quite right, quite right, we'll cover it up,” said Pig, and three of them went from the kitchen to the hall.
If you don't know how they denied it, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 25
The Immortal Zhen Yuan Captures the Pilgrim Priest
Monkey Makes Havoc in the Wuzhuang Temple
“The meal is cooked,” the three disciples said as they entered the hall, “what did you call us for?”
“I'm not asking about the meal, disciples,” said Sanzang. “This temple has things called manfruit or something that look like babies. Which of you stole and ate some?”
“I don't know anything about it, honest I don't-I never saw any,” said Pig.
“That grinning one did it,” said Pure Wind, “that grinning one.”
“I've had a smile on my face all my life,” shouted Monkey. “Are you going to stop me smiling just because you can't find some fruit or other?”
“Don't lose your temper, disciple,” said Sanzang. “As men of religion we should control our tongues and not eat food that befuddles our minds. If you ate their fruit you should apologize to them, instead of trying to brazen it out like this.”
Seeing that his master was talking sense, Brother Monkey began to tell the truth. “I didn't start it, master,” he said. “Pig heard the Taoist boys eating something called manfruit next door to him and wanted to try one himself. He made me go and get three so that we three disciples could have one each. But now they've been eaten, there's no point in waiting around here.”
“How can these priests deny that they are criminals when they've stolen four of our manfruits?” said Bright Moon.
“Amitabha Buddha,” exclaimed Pig, “if he pinched four of them why did he only share out three? He must have done the dirty on us.” He continued to shout wildly in this vein.
Now that they knew that the fruit really had been stolen, the two boys started to abuse them even more foully. The Great Sage ground his teeth of steel in his fury, glaring with his fiery eyes and tightening his grip on his iron cudgel. “Damn those Taoist boys,” he thought when he could restrain himself no longer. “If they'd hit us we could have taken it, but now they're insulting us to our faces like this, I'll finish their tree off, then none of them can have any more fruit.”
Splendid Monkey. He pulled a hair out from the back of his head, breathed a magic breath on it, said “Change,” and turned it into an imitation Monkey who stayed with the Tang Priest, Pig and Friar Sand to endure the cursing and swearing of the Taoist boys, while the real Monkey used his divine powers to leap out of the hall by cloud. He went straight to the garden and struck the manfruit tree with his gold-banded cudgel. Then he used his supernatural strength that could move mountains to push the tree over with a single shove. The leaves fell, the branches splayed out, and the roots came out of the ground. The Taoists would have no more of their “Grass-returning Cinnabar.” After pushing the tree over Monkey searched through the branches for manfruit, but he could not find a single one. These treasures dropped at the touch of metal, and as Monkey's cudgel was ringed with gold, while being made of iron, another of the five metals, one tap from it brought them all tumbling down, and when they hit the ground they went straight in, leaving none on the tree. “Great, great, great,” he said, “that'll make them all cool down.” He put the iron cudgel away, went back to the front of the temple, shook the magic hair, and put it back on his head. The others did not see what was happening as they had eyes of mortal flesh.
A long time later, when the two Taoist boys felt that t
hey had railed at them for long enough, Pure Wind said to Bright Moon, “These monks will take anything we say. We've sworn at them as if we were swearing at chickens, but they haven't admitted anything. I don't think they can have stolen any, after all. The tree is so tall and the foliage is so dense that we may well have miscounted, and if we have, we shouldn't be cursing them so wildly. Let's go and check the number again.” Bright Moon agreed, and the pair of them went back to the garden. When they saw that the tree was down with its branches bent out, the leaves fallen, and the fruit gone, they were horror-struck. Pure Wind's knees turned soft and he collapsed, while Bright Moon trembled and shook. Both of them passed out, and there is a verse to describe them:
When Sanzang came to the Mountain of Infinite Longevity,
Monkey finished the Grass-returning Cinnabar.
The branches were splayed out, the leaves fallen, and the tree down.
Bright Moon and Pure Wind's hearts both turned to ice.
The two of them lay in the dirt mumbling deliriously and saying, “What are we to do, what are we to do? The elixir of our Wuzhuang Temple has been destroyed and our community of Immortals is finished. Whatever are we going to say to the master when he comes back?”
“Stop moaning, brother,” said Bright Moon. “We must tidy ourselves up and not let those monks know anything's wrong. That hairy-faced sod who looks like a thunder god must have done it. He must have used magic to destroy our treasure. But it's useless to argue with him as he'll deny everything, and if we start a quarrel with him and fighting breaks out, we two haven't a chance against the four of them. We'll have to fool them and say that no fruit is missing. We'll pretend we counted wrong before, and apologize to them. Their rice is cooked, and we can give them a few side dishes to eat with it. The moment they've each got a bowl of food you and I will stand on either side of the door, slam it shut, and lock it. After that we can lock all the gates, then they won't be able to get away. When our master comes back he can decide what to do with them. That old monk is a friend of his, so our master may want to forgive him as a favour. And if he doesn't feel forgiving, we've got the criminals under arrest and may possibly not get into trouble ourselves.”
“Absolutely right,” said Pure Wind.
The two of them pulled themselves together, forced themselves to look happy, and went back to the front hall. “Master,” they said, bowing low to Sanzang, “we were extremely rude to you just now. Please forgive us.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sanzang.
“The fruit is all there,” they replied. “We couldn't see it all before as the tree is so tall and the foliage so thick but when we checked just now the number was right.”
“You're too young to know what you're doing,” said Pig, taking the chance to put the boot in. “Why did you swear and curse at us, and try to frame us up? You bastards.”
Monkey, who understood what the boys were up to, said nothing and thought, “Lies, lies. The fruit is all finished. Why ever are they saying this? Can it be that they know how to bring the tree back to life?”
“Very well then,” Sanzang was saying meanwhile, “bring our rice in and we'll be off after eating it.”
Pig went off to fill their bowls and Friar Sand arranged a table and chairs. The two boys hurried out and fetched some side dishes-salted squash, salted eggplant, turnips in wine-lees, pickle bean, salted lettuce, and mustard plant, some seven or eight plates in all. These they gave to the pilgrims to eat with their rice, and then they waited on them with a pot of good tea and two cups. As soon as the four pilgrims had their ricebowls in their hands, the boys, who were on either side of the doorway, slammed the doors to and locked them with a double-sprung bronze lock.
“You shouldn't do that, boys,” said Pig with a smile. “Even if the people round here are a bit rough there's no need to shut the doors while we eat.”
“Yes, yes,” said Bright Moon, “we'll open them after lunch.” Pure Wind, however, was abusive.
“I'll get you, you greedy, bald-headed food-thief,” he said. “You ate our immortal fruit and deserve to be punished for the crime of stealing food from fields and gardens. On top of that you've pushed our tree over and ruined our temple's source of immortality. How dare you argue with us? Your only chance of reaching the Western Heaven and seeing the Buddha is to be reborn and be rocked in the cradle again.” When Sanzang heard this he dropped his ricebowl, feeling as if a boulder was weighing down his heart. The two boys went and locked the main and the inner gates of the temple, then came back to the main hall to abuse them with filthy language and call them criminals and bandits till evening, when they went off to eat. The two of them returned to their rooms after supper.
“You're always causing trouble, you ape,” grumbled Sanzang at Monkey. “You stole their fruit, so you should have let them lose their temper and swear at you, then that would have been the end of it. Why on earth did you push their tree over? If they took this to court you wouldn't be able to get off even if your own father were on the bench.”
“Don't make such a row, master,” said Monkey. “Those boys have gone to bed, and when they're asleep we can do a midnight flit.”
“But all the gates have been locked,” said Friar Sand, “and they've been shut very firmly, so how can we possibly get away?”
“Don't let it bother you,” said Monkey, “I have a way.”
“We weren't worried that you wouldn't have a way,” said Pig. “You can turn yourself into an insect and fly out through the holes in the window lattice. But you'll be leaving poor old us, who can't turn ourselves into something else, to stay here and carry the can for you.”
“If he does a trick like that and doesn't take us with him I'll recite that old sutra-he won't get away scot-free then.”
Pig was both pleased and worried to hear this. “What do you mean, master?” he said. “I know that the Buddha's teachings include a Lankavatara Sutra, a lotus Sutra, a Peacock Sutra, an Avalokit esvara Sutra, and a Diamond Sutra, but I never heard of any Old Sutra.”
“What you don't know, brother,” said Monkey, “is that the Bodhisattva Guanyin gave this band I have round my head to our master. He tricked me into wearing it, and now it's virtually rooted there and I can't take it off. The spell or sutra for tightening this band is what he meant by the 'old surra'. If he says it, my head aches. It's a way he has of making me suffer. Please don't recite it, master. I won't abandon you. I guarantee that we'll all get out.
It was now dark, and the moon had risen in the East. “It's quiet now,” said Monkey, “and the moon is bright. This is the time to go.”
“Stop fooling about, brother,” said Pig. “The gates are all locked, so where can we possibly go?”
“Watch this trick,” said Monkey, and gripping his cudgel in his hand he pointed at the doors and applied unlocking magic to them. There was a clanking sound, and the locks fell from all the doors and gates, which he pushed them open.
“Not half clever,” said Pig. “A locksmith with his skeleton keys couldn't have done it anything like as fast.”
“Nothing difficult about opening these doors,” said Monkey. “I can open the Southern Gates of Heaven just by pointing at them.” Then he asked his master to go out and mount the horse. Pig shouldered the luggage, Friar Sand led the horse, and they headed West. “You carry on,” Monkey said, “while I go back to make sure that those two boys will stay asleep for a month.”
“Mind you don't kill them, disciple,” said Sanzang, “or you'll be on a charge of murder in the pursuit of theft as well.”
“I'm aware of that,” replied Monkey and went back into the temple. Standing outside the door of the room where the boys were sleeping, he took a couple of sleep insects from his belt. These were what he had used when he fooled the Heavenly King Virudhaka at the Eastern Gate of Heaven, and now he threw them in through a gap in the window lattice. They landed straight on the boys' faces, and made them fall into a deeper sleep from which they would not wake up for a long time
. Then he streaked back by cloud and caught up with Sanzang. They headed West along the main road.
That night the horse never stopped, and they kept on till dawn. “You'll be the death of me, you ape,” said Sanzang. “Because of your greed I've had to stay awake all night.”
“Stop grumbling,” said Monkey. “Now that it's light you can rest in the forest beside the road and build your strength up before we move on.” Sanzang obediently dismounted and sat down on the roots of a pine tree, using it as a makeshift meditation platform. Friar Sand put down the luggage and took a nap, while Pig pillowed his head on a rock and went to sleep. Monkey, the Great Sage, had his own ideas and amused himself leaping from tree to tree.
After the lecture in the palace of the Original Celestial Jade Pure One the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan led his junior Immortals down from the Tushita Heaven through the jade sky on auspicious clouds, and in a moment they were back at the gates of the Wuzhuang Temple. The gates, he saw, were wide open, and the ground was clean.
“So Pure Wind and Bright Moon aren't so useless after all,” he said. “Usually they're still in bed when the sun is high in the sky. But now, with us away, they got up early, opened the gates, and swept the grounds.” All the junior Immortals were delighted. Yet when they went into the hall of worship there was no incense burning and nobody to be seen.
Where were Bright Moon and Pure Wind, they wondered. “They probably thought that with us not here they could steal some stuff and clear out.”
“What an outrageous idea,” said the Great Immortal. “As if men cultivating immortality could do anything so evil! I think they must have forgotten to shut the gates before they went to sleep last night and not have woken up yet.” When the Immortals went to look in their room they found the doors closed and heard the boys snoring. They hammered on the doors and shouted for all they were worth, but the boys did not wake up. They forced the doors open and pulled the boys from their beds: the boys still did not wake up. “Fine Immortal boys you are,” said the Great Immortal with a smile. “When you become an Immortal your divine spirit should be so full that you do not want to sleep. Why are they so tired? They must have been bewitched. Fetch some water at once.” A boy hastily handed him half a bowl of water. He intoned a spell, took a mouthful of the water, and spurted it on their faces. This broke the enchantment. The two of them woke up, opened their eyes, rubbed their faces, looked around them, and saw the Great Immortal as well as all their Immortal brothers. Pure Wind bowed and Bright Moon kowtowed in their confusion, saying, “Master, that old friend of yours, the priest from the East…a gang of bandits… murderous, murderous…”