Journey to the West (vol. 1)

by Wu Cheng-En

  The splendid evil spirit landed its negative cloud, shook itself, and changed into an old woman in her eighties who was weeping as she hobbled along leaning on a bamboo stick with a crooked handle.

  “This is terrible, master,” exclaimed Pig with horror at the sight of her. “Her mother's come to look for her.”

  “For whom?” asked the Tang Priest.

  “It must be her daughter that my elder brother killed,” said Pig. “This must be the girl's mother looking for her.”

  “Don't talk nonsense,” said Monkey. “That girl was eighteen and this old woman is eighty. How could she possibly have had a child when she was over sixty? She must be a fake. Let me go and take a look.” The splendid Monkey hurried over to examine her and saw that the monster had

  Turned into an old woman

  With temples as white as frozen snow.

  Slowly she stumbled along the road,

  Making her way in fear and trembling.

  Her body was weak and emaciated,

  Her face like a withered leaf of cabbage.

  Her cheekbone was twisted upwards,

  While the ends of her lips went down.

  How can old age compare with youth?

  Her face was as creased as a pleated bag.

  Realizing that she was an evil spirit, Monkey did not wait to argue about it, but raised his cudgel and struck at her head. Seeing the blow coining, the spirit braced itself again and extracted its true essence once more. The false corpse sprawled dead beside the path. Sanzang was so horrified that he fell off the horse and lay beside the path, reciting the Band-tightening Spell twenty times over. Poor Monkey's head was squeezed so hard that it looked like a narrow-waisted gourd. The pain was unbearable, and he rolled over towards his master to plead, “Stop, master. Say whatever you like.”

  “I have nothing to say,” Sanzang replied. “If a monk does good he will not fall into hell. Despite all my preaching you still commit murder. How can you? No sooner have you killed one person than you kill another. It's an outrage.”

  “She was an evil spirit,” Monkey replied.

  “Nonsense, you ape,” said the Tang Priest, “as if there could be so many monsters! You haven't the least intention of reforming, and you are a deliberate murderer. Be off with you.”

  “Are you sending me away again, master?” Monkey asked. “I'll go if I must, but there's one thing I won't agree to.”

  “What,” Sanzang asked, “would that be?”

  “Master,” Pig put in, “he wants the baggage divided between you and him. He's been a monk with you for several years, and hasn't succeeded in winning a good reward. You can't let him go away empty-handed. Better give him a worn-out tunic and a tattered hat from the bundle.”

  This made Monkey jump with fury. “I'll get you, you long-snouted moron,” he said. “I've been a true Buddhist with no trace of covetousness or greed. I certainly don't want a share of the baggage.”

  “If you're neither covetous nor greedy,” said Sanzang, “why won't you go away?”

  “To be quite honest with you, master,” he replied, “when I lived in the Water Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit and knew all the great heroes, I won the submission of seventy-two other demon kings and had forty-seven thousand minor demons under me. I used to wear a crown of purple gold and a yellow robe with a belt of the finest jade. I had cloud-treading shoes on my feet and held an As-You-Will gold-banded cudgel in my hands. I really was somebody then. But when I attained enlightenment and repented, I shaved my head and took to the Buddhist faith as your disciple. I couldn't face my old friends if I went back with this golden band round my head. So if you don't want me any longer, master, please say the Band-loosening Spell and I'll take it off and give it back to you. I'll gladly agree to you putting it round someone else's head. As I've been your disciple for so long, surely you can show me this kindness.” Sanzang was deeply shocked.

  “Monkey,” he said, “the Bodhisattva secretly taught me the Band-tightening Spell, but not a band-loosening one.”

  “In that case you'll have to let me come with you,” Monkey replied.

  “Get up then,” said Sanzang, feeling that he had no option, “I'll let you off again just this once. But you must never commit another murder.”

  “I never will,” said Monkey, “never again.” He helped his master mount the horse and led the way forward.

  The evil spirit, who had not been killed the second time Monkey hit it either, was full of admiration as it floated in mid-air. “What a splendid Monkey King,” it thought, “and what sharp eyes. He saw who I was through both my transformations. Those monks are travelling fast, and once they're over the mountain and fifteen miles to the West they'll be out of my territory. And other fiends and monsters who catch them will be laughing till their mouths split, and I'll be heartbroken with sorrow. I'll have to have another go at tricking them.” The excellent evil spirit brought its negative wind down to the mountainside and with one shake turned itself into an old man.

  His hair was as white as Ancient Peng's,

  His temples as hoary as the Star of Longevity.

  Jade rang in his ears,

  And his eyes swam with golden stars.

  He leant on a dragon-headed stick,

  And wore a cloak of crane feathers.

  In his hands he fingered prayer-beads

  While reciting Buddhist sutras.

  When Sanzang saw him from the back of his horse he said with great delight, “Amitabha Buddha! The West is indeed a blessed land. That old man is forcing himself to recite scriptures although he can hardly walk.”

  “Master,” said Pig, “don't be so nice about him. He's going to give us trouble.”

  “What do you mean?” Sanzang asked.

  “My elder brother has killed the daughter and the old woman, and this is the old man coming to look for them. If we fall into his hands you'll have to pay with your life. It'll be the death penalty for you, and I'll get a long sentence for being your accomplice. Friar Sand will be exiled for giving the orders. That elder brother will disappear by magic, and we three will have to carry the can.”

  “Don't talk such nonsense, you moron,” said Monkey. “You're terrifying the master. Wait while I go and have another look.” Hiding the cudgel about his person he went up to the monster and said, “Where are you going, venerable sir? And why are you reciting scriptures as you walk along?”

  The monster, failing to recognize his opponent, thought that the Great Sage Monkey was merely a passer-by and said, “Holy sir, my family has lived here for generations, and all my life I have done good deeds, fed monks, read the scriptures, and repeated the Buddha's name. As fate has it I have no son, only a daughter, and she lives at home with her husband. She went off to the fields with food early this morning, and I'm afraid she may have been eaten by a tiger. My wife went out to look for her, and she hasn't come back either. I've no idea what's happened to them, so I've come to search for them. If they have died, I shall just have to gather their bones and take them back for a decent burial.”

  “I'm a master of disguise,” replied Monkey with a grin, “so don't try to pull the wool over my eyes. You can't fool me. I know that you're an evil spirit.” The monster was speechless with fright. Monkey brandished his cudgel and thought, “If I don't kill him he'll make a getaway; but if I do, my master will say that spell.”

  “Yet if I don't kill him,” he went on to reflect, “I'll take a lot of thought and effort to rescue the master when this monster seizes some other chance to carry him off. The best thing is to kill him. If I kill him with the cudgel the master will say the spell, but then 'even a vicious tiger doesn't eat her own cubs'. I'll be able to get round my master with my smooth tongue and some well chosen words.” The splendid Great Sage uttered a spell and called out to the local deities and the gods of the mountains, “This evil spirit has tried to trick my master three times, and I'm now going to kill it. I want you to be witnesses in the air around me. Don't le
ave!” Hearing this command, the gods all had to obey and watch from the clouds. The Great Sage raised his cudgel and struck down the monster. Now, at last, it was dead.

  The Tang Priest was shaking with terror on the back of his horse, unable to speak.

  Pig stood beside him and said with a laugh, “That Monkey's marvellous, isn't he! He's gone mad. He's killed three people in a few hours' journey.”

  The Tang Priest was just going to say the spell when Monkey threw himself in front of his horse and called out, “Don't say it, master, don't say it. Come and have a look at it.” It was now just a pile of dusty bones.

  “He's only just been killed, Wukong,” Sanzang said in astonishment, “so why has he turned into a skeleton?”

  “It was a demon corpse with magic powers that used to deceive people and destroy them. Now that I've killed it, it's reverted to its original form. The writing on her backbone says that she's called 'Lady White Bone.'“ Sanzang was convinced, but Pig had to make trouble again.

  “Master,” he said, “he's afraid that you'll say those words because he killed him with a vicious blow from his cudgel, and so he's made him look like this to fool you.” The Tang Priest, who really was gullible, now believed Pig, and he started to recite the spell.

  Monkey, unable to stop the pain, knelt beside the path and cried, “Stop, stop. Say whatever it is you have to say,”

  “Baboon,” said Sanzang, “I have nothing more to say to you. If a monk acts rightly he will grow daily but invisibly, like grass in a garden during the spring, whereas an evildoer will be imperceptibly worn away day by day like a stone. You have killed three people, one after the other, in this wild and desolate place, and there is nobody here to find you out or bring a case against you. But if you go to a city or some other crowded place and start laying about you with that murderous cudgel, we'll be in big trouble and there will be no escape for us. Go back!”

  “You're wrong to hold it against me, master,” Monkey replied, “as that wretch was obviously an evil monster set on murdering you. But so far from being grateful that I've saved you by killing it, you would have to believe that idiot's tittle-tattle and keep sending me away. As the saying goes, you should never have to do anything more that three times. I'd be a low and shameless creature if I didn't go now. I'll go, I'll go all right, but who will you have left to look after you?”

  “Damned ape,” Sanzang replied, “you get ruder and ruder. You seem to think that you're the only one. What about Pig and Friar Sand? Aren't they people?”

  On hearing him say that Pig and Friar Sand were suitable people too, Monkey was very hurt. “That's a terrible thing to hear, master,” he said. “When you left Chang'an, Liu Boqin helped you on your way, and when you reached the Double Boundary Mountain you saved me and I took you as my master. I've gone into ancient caves and deep forests capturing monsters and demons. I won Pig and Friar Sand over, and I've had a very hard time of it. But today you've turned stupid and you're sending me back. 'When the birds have all been shot the bow is put away, and when the rabbits are all killed the hounds are stewed.' Oh well! If only you hadn't got that Band-tightening Spell.”

  “I won't recite it again,” said Sanzang.

  “You shouldn't say that,” replied Monkey. “If you're ever beset by evil monsters from whom you can't escape, and if Pig and Friar Sand can't save you, then think of me. If it's unbearable, say the spell. My head will ache even if I'm many tens of thousands of miles away. But if I do come back to you, never say it again.”

  The Tang Priest grew angrier and angrier as Monkey talked on, and tumbling off his horse he told Friar Sand to take paper and brush from the pack. Then he fetched some water from a stream, rubbed the inkstick on a stone, wrote out a letter of dismissal, and handed it to Monkey.

  “Here it is in writing,” he said. “I don't want you as my disciple a moment longer. If I ever see you again may I fall into the Avichi Hell.”

  Monkey quickly took the document and said, “There's no need to swear an oath, master. I'm off.” He folded the paper up and put it in his sleeve, then tried once more to mollify Sanzang. “Master,” he said, “I've spent some time with you, and I've also been taught by the Bodhisattva. Now I'm being fired in the middle of the journey, when I've achieved nothing. Please sit down and accept my homage, then I won't feel so bad about going.”

  The Tang Priest turned away and would not look at him, muttering, “I am a good monk, and I won't accept the respects of bad people like you.” Seeing that Sanzang was refusing to face him, the Great Sage used magic to give himself extra bodies. He blew a magic breath on three hairs plucked from the back of his head and shouted, “Change!” They turned into three more Monkeys, making a total of four with the real one, and surrounding the master on all four sides they kowtowed to him. Unable to avoid them by dodging to left or right, Sanzang had to accept their respects.

  The Great Sage jumped up, shook himself, put the hairs back, and gave Friar Sand these instructions: “You are a good man, my brother, so mind you stop Pig from talking nonsense and be very careful on the journey. If at any time evil spirits capture our master, you tell them that I'm his senior disciple. The hairy devils of the West have heard of my powers and won't dare to harm him.”

  “I am a good monk,” said the Tang Priest, “and I'd never mention the name of a person as bad as you. Go back.” As his master refused over and over again to change his mind Monkey had nothing for it but to go. Look at him:

  Holding back his tears he bowed good-bye to his master,

  Then sadly but with care he gave instructions to Friar Sand.

  His head pushed the hillside grass apart,

  His feet kicked the creepers up in the air.

  Heaven and earth spun round like a wheel;

  At flying over mountains and seas none could beat him.

  Within an instant no sign of him could be seen;

  He retraced his whole journey in a flash.

  Holding back his anger, Monkey left his master and went straight back to the Water Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit on his somersault cloud. He was feeling lonely and miserable when he heard the sound of water. When he looked around from where he was in midair, he realized that it was the waves of the Eastern Sea. The sight of it reminded him of the Tang Priest, and he could not stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks. He stopped his cloud and stayed there a long time before going. If you don't know what happened when he went, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

  Chapter 28

  On the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit the Devils Rise

  Sanzang Meets a Monster in the Black Pine Forest

  The Great Sage was gazing at the Eastern Ocean, sighing sadly at being driven away by the Tang Priest. “I haven't been this way for five hundred years,” he said. As he looked at the sea,

  Vast were the misty waters,

  Boundless the mighty waves.

  The vast and misty waters stretched to the Milky Way;

  The boundless and mighty waves were linked to the earth's arteries.

  The tides came surging,

  The waters swirled around.

  The surging tides

  Roared like the thunder in spring;

  The swirling waters

  Howled like a summer hurricane.

  The blessed ancients riding on dragons

  Surely must have frowned as they came and went;

  Immortal youths flying on cranes

  Certainly felt anxious as they passed above.

  There were no villages near the coast,

  And scarcely a fishing boat beside the sea.

  The waves' crests were like immemorial snows;

  The wind made autumn in July.

  Wild beasts roamed at will,

  Shore birds bobbed in the waves.

  There was no fisherman in sight,

  And the only sound was the screaming of the gulls.

  Though the fish were happy at the bottom of the sea,

&n
bsp; Anxiety gripped the wild geese overhead.

  With a spring Monkey leapt over the Eastern Ocean and was soon back at the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. As he brought his cloud down and gazed around him, he saw that all the vegetation on the mountain had gone and the mists had disappeared completely. The peaks had collapsed and the woods were shriveled and dead. Do you know why? It was because when Monkey was taken to the upper world after wrecking the Heavenly Palace, the god Erlang and the Seven Brothers of Meishan had burnt it all down. This made the Great Sage even more miserable than ever. There is a poem in the ancient style about the ruined landscape of the mountain:

  I came back to the immortal mountain in tears;

  On seeing it, my sorrow is doubled.

  I used to think that it was safe from harm,

  But now I know that it has been destroyed.

  If only Erlang had not defeated me;

  Curse you for bullying me like that.

  I shall dig up the graves of your ancestors,

  And not stop at destroying their tombs.

  Gone, gone, the mists that filled the sky;

  Scattered the winds and clouds that covered the earth.

  On the Eastern ridge the tiger's roar is silent.

  The ape's howl no more on the Western mountain.

  No sign of hare or fox in the Northern valley;

  No shadow of a deer in the Southern ravine.

  The blue rock was burnt to a thousand cinders,

  The jade-green sands are now just mud.

  The lofty pines outside the cave all lean askew;

  Few are the cypresses before the cliff.

  Cedar, fir, locust, chestnut, juniper, and sandalwood-all are burnt.

  Peach, apricot, plum, pear, and jujube-gone every one.