by Wu Cheng-En
“Carry Monkey down to it,” the Great Immortal ordered, but when four of them tried to pick him up they could not. Eight then tried and failed, and four more made no difference. “This earth-infatuated ape is immovable,” they said. “He may be small, but he's very solid.” Twelve junior Immortals were then told to pick him up with the aid of carrying-poles, and when they threw him in there was a loud crash as drops of oil splashed about, raising blisters all over the junior Immortals' faces. “There's a hole in the cauldron-it's started leaking,” the scalded Immortals cried, but before the words were out of their mouths the oil had all run out through the broken bottom of the cauldron. They realized that they had thrown a stone lion into it.
“Damn that ape for his insolence,” said the Great Immortal in a terrible rage. “How dare he play his tricks in my presence! I don't mind so much about your getting away, but how dare you wreck my cauldron? It's useless trying to catch him, and even if you could it would be like grinding mercury out of sand, or trying to hold a shadow or the wind. Forget about him, let him go. Untie Tang Sanzang instead and fetch another pot. We can fry him to avenge the destruction of the tree.” The junior Immortals set to and began to tear off Sanzang's lacquered bandages.
Monkey could hear all this clearly from mid-air. “The master will be done for,” he thought. “If he goes into that cauldron it'll kill him. Then he'll be cooked, and after four or five fryings he'll be eaten as a really tender piece of monk. I must go back down and save him.” The splendid Great Sage brought his cloud down to land, clasped his hands in front of him, and said, “Don't spoil the lacquered bands, and don't fry my master. Put me in the cauldron of oil instead.”
“I'll get you, you baboon,” raged the Great Immortal in astonishment. “Why did you use one of your tricks to smash my cooking pot?”
“You must expect to be smashed up if you meet me-and what business is it of mine anyhow? I was going to accept your kind offer of some hot oil, but I was desperate for a shit and a piss, and if I'd done them in your cauldron, I'd have spoilt your oil and your food wouldn't have tasted right. Now I've done my stuff I'm ready for the cauldron. Please fry me instead of my master.” The Great Immortal laughed coldly, came out of the hall, and seized him.
If you don't know how the story goes or how he escaped, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 26
Sun Wukong Looks for the Formula in the Three Islands
Guanyin Revives the Tree with a Spring of Sweet Water
As the poem goes,
When living in the world you must be forbearing;
Patience is essential when training oneself.
Although it's often said that violence is good business,
Think before you act, and never bully or be angry.
True gentlemen who never strive are famed for ever;
The virtue-loving sages are renowned to this day.
Strong men always meet stronger than themselves,
And end up as failures who are in the wrong.
The Great Immortal Zhen Yuan held Monkey in his hand and said, “I've heard about your powers and your fame, but this time you have gone too far. Even if you manage to remove yourself, you won't escape my clutches. You and I shall argue it out as far as the Western Heaven, and even if you see that Buddha of yours, you'll still have to give me back my manfruit tree first. Don't try any of your magic now.”
“What a small-minded bloke you are, sir,” Monkey replied with a laugh. “If you want your tree brought back to life, there's no problem. If you'd told me earlier we could have been spared all this quarrelling.”
“If you hadn't made trouble I'd have forgiven you,” said the Great Immortal.
“Would you agree to release my master if I gave you back the tree alive?” Monkey asked.
“If your magic is strong enough to revive the tree,” the Great Immortal replied, “I shall bow to you eight times and take you as my brother.”
“That's easy then,” said Monkey. “Release them and I guarantee to give you back your tree alive.”
Trusting him not to escape, the Great Immortal ordered that Sanzang, Pig and Friar Sand be set free. “Master,” said Friar Sand, “I wonder what sort of trick Monkey is up to.”
“I'll tell you what sort of trick,” retorted Pig. “A pleading for favour trick. The tree's dead and can't possibly be revived. Finding a cure for the tree is an excuse for going off by himself without giving a damn for you or me.”
“He wouldn't dare abandon us,” said Sanzang. “Let's ask him where he's going to find a doctor for it. Monkey,” he continued, “why did you fool the Immortal elder into untying us?”
“Every word I said was true,” Monkey replied. “I wasn't leading him on.”
“Where will you go to find a cure?”
“There's an old saying that 'cures come from over the sea'. I'll go to the Eastern Sea and travel round the Three Islands and Ten Continents visiting the venerable Immortals and sages to find a formula for bringing the dead back to life. I promise that I'll cure that tree.”
“When will you come back?”
“I'll only need three days.”
“In that case I'll give you three days. If you are back within that time, that will be all right, but if you are late I shall recite that spell.”
“I'll do as you say,” said Monkey.
He immediately straightened up his tiger-skin kilt, went out through the door, and said to the Great Immortal, “Don't worry, sir, I'll soon be back. Mind you look after my master well. Give him tea three times a day and six meals, and don't leave any out. If you do, I'll settle that score when I come back, and I'll start by holing the bottoms of all your pans. If his clothes get dirty, wash them for him. I won't stand for it if he looks sallow, and if he loses weight you'll never see the back of me.”
“Go away, go away,” the Great Immortal replied. “I certainly won't let him go hungry.”
The splendid Monkey King left the Wuzhuang Temple with a bound of his somersault cloud and headed for the Eastern Sea. He went through the air as fast as a flash of lightning or a shooting star, and he was soon in the blessed land of Penglai. As he landed his cloud he looked around him and saw that it was indeed a wonderful place. A poem about it goes:
A great and sacred land where the Immortal sages
Still the waves as they come and go.
The shade of the jasper throne cools the heart of the sky;
The radiance of the great gate-pillars shimmers high above the sea.
Hidden in the coloured mists are flutes of jade;
The moon and the stars shine on the golden leviathan.
The Queen Mother of the Western Pool often comes here
To give her peaches to the Three Immortals.
Gazing at the enchanted land that spread out before him, Brother Monkey entered Penglai. As he was walking along, he noticed three old men sitting round a chess table under the shade of a pine tree outside a cloud-wreathed cave. The one watching the game was the Star of Longevity, and the players were the Star of Blessings and the Star of Office.
“Greetings, respected younger brothers,” Monkey called to them, and when they saw him they swept the pieces away, returned his salutation, and said, “Why have you come here, Great Sage?”
“To see you,” he replied.
“I've heard,” said the Star of Longevity, “that you have given up the Way for the sake of the Buddha, and have thrown aside your life to protect the Tang Priest on his journey to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven. How can you spare the time from your endless crossings of waters and mountains just to see us?”
“To tell you the truth,” said Monkey, “I was on my way to the West until a spot of bother held us up. I wonder if you could do me a small favour.”
“Where did this happen?” asked the Star of Blessings, “what has been holding you up? Please tell us and we'll deal with it.”
“We've been held up because we went via the Wuzhuang Tem
ple on the Mountain of Infinite Longevity,” said Monkey.
“But the Wuzhuang Temple is the palace of the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan,” exclaimed the three Immortals with alarm, “don't say that you've stolen some of his manfruit!”
“What if I had stolen and eaten some?” asked Monkey with a grin.
“You ignorant ape,” the three Immortals replied. “A mere whiff of that fruit makes a man live to be three hundred and sixty, and anyone who eats one will live forty-seven thousand years. They are called 'Grass-returning Cinnabar of Ten Thousand Longevities,' and our Way hasn't a patch on them. Manfruit makes you as immortal as Heaven with the greatest of ease, while it takes us goodness knows how long to nourish our essence, refine the spirit, preserve our soul, harmonize water and fire, capture the kan to fill out the li. How can you possibly ask whether it would matter? There is no other miraculous tree like it on earth.”
“Miraculous tree,” scoffed Monkey, “miraculous tree! I've put an end to that miraculous tree.”
“What? Put an end to it?” the three Immortals asked, struck with horror.
“When I was in his temple the other day,” Monkey said, “the Great Immortal wasn't at home. There were only a couple of boys who received my master and gave him two manfruits. My master didn't know what they were and said that they were newborn babies; he refused to eat them. The boys took them away and ate them themselves instead of offering them to the rest of us, so I went and pinched three, one for each of us disciples. Those disrespectful boys swore and cursed at us no end, which made me so angry that I knocked their tree over with a single blow. All the fruit disappeared, the leaves fell, the roots came out, and the branches were smashed up. The tree was dead. To our surprise the two boys locked us in, but I opened the lock and we escaped. When the Great Immortal came home the next day, he came after us and found us. Our conversation didn't go too smoothly and we started to fight him, but he dodged us, spread his sleeve out, and caught us all up in it. After being tied up then flogged and interrogated for a day, we escaped again, but he caught up with us and captured us again. Although he had not an inch of steel on him, he fought us off with his whisk, and even with our three weapons we couldn't touch him. He caught us the same way as before. He had my master and two brothers wrapped up in bandages and lacquered, and was going to throw me into a cauldron of oil, but I used a trick to take my body away and escape, smashing that pan of his. Now that he has realized he can't catch me and keep me he's getting a bit scared of me, and I had a good talk with him. I told him that if he released my master and my brothers I'd guarantee to cure the tree and bring it back to life, which would satisfy both parties. As it occurred to me that 'cures come from over the sea,' I came here specially to visit you three brothers of mine. If you have any cures that will bring a tree back to life, please tell me one so that I can get the Tang Priest out of trouble as quickly as possible.”
“You ape,” the Three Stars said gloomily when they heard this. “You don't know who you're up against. That Master Zhen Yuan is the Patriarch of the Immortals of the earth, and we are the chiefs of the divine Immortals. Although you have become a heavenly Immortal, you are still only one of the irregulars of the Great Monad, not one of the elite. You'll never be able to escape his clutches. If you'd killed some animal, bird, insect or reptile, Great Sage, we could have given you some pills made from sticky millet to bring it back to life, but that manfruit tree is a magic one and can't possibly be revived. There's no cure, none at all.” When he heard that there was no cure, Monkey's brows locked in a frown, and his forehead was creased in a thousand wrinkles.
“Great Sage,” said the Star of Blessing, “even though we have no cure here, there may be one somewhere else. Why be so worried?”
“If there were anywhere else for me to go,” Monkey replied, “it would be easy. It wouldn't even matter if I had to go to the furthest corner of the ocean, or to the cliff at the end of the sky, or if I had to penetrate the Thirty-sixth Heaven. But the trouble is that the Tang Patriarch is very strict and has given me a time-limit of three days. If I'm not back in three days he'll recite the Band-tightening Spell.”
“Splendid, splendid,” laughed the three stars. “If you weren't restricted by that spell you'd go up to Heaven again.”
“Calm down, Great Sage,” said the Star of Longevity, “there's no need to worry. Although that Great Immortal is senior to us he is a friend of ours, and as we haven't visited him for a long time and would like to do you a favour we'll go and see him. We'll explain things for you and tell that Tang monk not to recite the Band-tightening Spell. We won't go away until you come back, however long you take, even if it's a lot longer that three to five days.”
“Thank you very much,” said Monkey. “May I ask you to set out now as I'm off?” With that he took his leave.
The Three Stars went off on beams of auspicious light to the Wuzhuang Temple, where all present heard cranes calling in the sky as the three of them arrived.
The void was bathed in blessed glow,
The Milky Way heavy with fragrance.
A thousand wisps of coloured mist enveloped the feather-clad ones;
A single cloud supported the immortal feet.
Green and red phoenixes circled and soared,
As the aroma in their sleeves wafted over the earth.
These dragons leant on their staffs and smiled,
And jade-white beards waved before their chests.
Their youthful faces were untroubled by sorrow,
Their majestic bodies were rich with blessing.
They carried star-chips to count their age,
And at their waists hung gourds and talismans.
Their life is infinitely long,
And they live on the Ten Continents and Three Islands.
They often come to bring blessings to mortals,
Spreading good things a hundred-fold among humans.
The glory and blessings of the universe
Come now as happiness unlimited.
As these three elders visit the Great Immortal on auspicious light,
There is no end to good fortune and peace.
“Master,” the immortal youths rushed to report when they saw them, “the Three Stars from the sea are here.” The Great Immortal Zhen Yuan, who was talking with the Tang Priest, came down the steps to welcome them when he heard this.
When Pig saw the Star of Longevity he went up and tugged at his clothes. “I haven't seen you for ages, you meat-headed old fellow,” he said with a grin. “You're getting very free and easy, turning up without a hat.” With these words he thrust his own clerical hat on the star's head, clapped his hands, and roared with laughter. “Great, great. You've been 'capped and promoted' all right.” Flinging the hat down, the Star of Longevity cursed him for a disrespectful moron.
“I'm no moron,” said Pig, but you're all slaves.”
“You're most certainly a moron,” the Star of Blessing replied, “so how dare you call us slaves?”
“If you aren't slaves then,” Pig retorted, “why do people always ask you to 'bring us long life,' 'bring us blessings,' and 'bring us a good job?'”
Sanzang shouted at Pig to go away, then quickly tidied himself up and bowed to the Three Stars. The Three Stars greeted the Great Immortal as befitted members of a younger generation, after which they all sat down. “We have not seen your illustrious countenance for a long time,” the Star of Office said, “which shows our great lack of respect. The reason we come to see you now is because the Great Sage Monkey has made trouble in your immortal temple.”
“Has Monkey been to Penglai?” the Great Immortal asked.
“Yes,” replied the Star of Longevity. “He came to our place to ask for a formula to restore the elixir tree that he killed. As we have no cure for it, he has had to go elsewhere in search of it. We are afraid that if he exceeds the three-day time-limit the holy priest has imposed, the Band-tightening Spell may be said. We have come in the first place to pay our respects
and in the second to ask for an extension of the limit.”
“I won't recite it, I promise,” answered Sanzang as soon as he heard this.
As they were talking Pig came rushing in again to grab hold of the Star of Blessing and demand some fruit from him. He started to feel in the star's sleeves and rummage round his waist, pulling his clothes apart as he searched everywhere.
“What sort of behavior is that?” asked Sanzang with a smile.
“I'm not misbehaving,” said Pig. “This is what's meant by the saying, 'blessings wherever you look.'“ Sanzang shouted at him to go away again. The idiot withdrew slowly, glaring at the Star of Blessing with unwavering hatred in his eyes.
“I wasn't angry with you, you moron,” said the star, “so why do you hate me so?”
“I don't hate you,” said Pig. “This is what they call 'turning the head and seeing blessing.'“ As the idiot was going out he saw a young boy came in with four tea ladles, looking for bowls in the abbot's cell in which to put fruit and serve tea. Pig seized one of the ladles, ran to the main hall of the temple, snatched up a hand-bell, and started striking it wildly. He was enjoying himself enormously when the Great Immortal said, “This monk gets more and more disrespectful.”
“I'm not being disrespectful,” Pig replied. “I'm 'ringing in happiness for the four seasons.'”
While Pig was having his jokes and making trouble, Monkey had bounded away from Penglai by auspicious cloud and come to the magic mountain Fangzhang. This was a really wonderful place. As the poem goes,
The towering Fangzhang is another heaven,
Where gods and Immortals meet in the Palace of the Great Unity.
The purple throne illuminates the road to the Three Pure Ones,
The scent of flowers and trees drifts among the clouds.
Many a golden phoenix comes to rejoice around its flowery portals;