by Wu Cheng-En
The Senior Demon King took the gourd, filled a cup to the brim with liquor, and offered it with both hands to the Junior King, saying, “Please accept this drink from me.”
“Elder brother,” replied the Junior King, “I've drunk a great deal. I can't accept another.”
To this the Senior King said, “Your capture of the Tang Priest, Pig and Friar Sand was nothing special; but I insist on offering you some drinks to congratulate you on your achievement in tying up Sun the Novice and putting the Novice Sun into your gourd.” As his elder brother was showing him so much honour and respect the Junior King would have to accept the cup. But he was still holding the magic gourd, and it would have been rude to accept the cup in one hand. So he passed the gourd to Ocean Dragon to allow himself to receive the cup with both hands, unaware that Ocean Dragon was Monkey in disguise. Just watch Monkey respectfully holding the gourd as he stands in attendance. When the Junior King had drunk the liquor he wanted to return the courtesy.
“No need,” said the Senior King, “I'll drink one with you.” They were both being very modest. Monkey held the gourd and fixed his gaze on the two of them as they lost count of how many drinks they were giving each other. He slipped the gourd up his sleeve, pulled out a hair, and turned it into an exact facsimile of the gourd that he offered to the kings. After giving each other so many drinks the two kings did not check its authenticity but simply took their treasure, went to their places, sat down, and carried on drinking. The Great Sage got away. He was very pleased at having captured the treasures.
“In spite of these demon kings' magic powers, the gourd is now mine,” he thought.
If you don't know what he had to do to save his master and destroy the demons, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 35
The Power of Heterodoxy Oppresses the True Nature
The Mind-Ape Wins the Treasures and Beats the Demons
Lucid the true nature; the Way explains itself;
With one turn one jumps out of the net.
To learn transformations is very hard indeed;
To become immortal is no common deed.
Pure yields to foul and foul to pure as fate's wheel turns:
Break through the kalpas and travel freely.
Wander at will through countless billion years,
A spot of sacred light ever shining in the void.
This poem is an apt but indirect description of how wonderful the Great Sage's powers were. Now that he had won the demons' treasure and had it tucked into his sleeve he thought with delight, “The damned demon went to such a lot of trouble to capture me, but it was, as they say, like trying to fish the moon out of water. But for me to try to capture you would be like melting ice on a fire.”
Concealing the gourd about him he slipped outside, reverted to his own form, and shouted at the top of his voice, “Open up, you devils.”
“Who do you think you are, shouting like that?” asked the devils who were there.
“Tell your damned demon kings at once that Novice the Sun is here,” he replied.
The demons rushed in to report, “Your Majesties, there's a Novice the Sun or something at the doors.” The Senior King was shocked.
“This is terrible, brother,” he said. “We've stirred up a whole nest of them. Sun the Novice is tied up with the Dazzling Golden Cord, and the Novice Sun is inside the gourd, so how can there be a Novice the Sun as well? They must all be brothers and all have come.”
“Don't worry, brother,” the Junior King replied. “I can put a thousand people into my gourd, and at present I've only got the Novice Sun inside. No need to be afraid of Novice the Sun or whoever. I'm going out to take a look and put him inside too.”
“Do be careful,” said the Senior Demon King.
Watch as the Junior King goes out through the doors with his gourd, as heroic and impressive as the previous time.
“Where are you from?” he shouted at the top of his voice, “and how dare you rant and roar here?”
“Don't you know who I am?” Monkey said.
“My home is on the Mount of Flowers and Fruit;
Long have we lived in Water Curtain Cave.
For making havoc in the Heavenly Palace
For ages did I rest from war and strife.
Since my delivery from woe,
I've left the Way and now I serve a monk.
As a believer I go to Thunder Shrine
To seek the Scriptures and come back to Truth.
Now that I've met with you damned fiends,
All of my magic powers I've had to use.
Give back to us the priest who's come from Tang,
To travel West and visit the Lord Buddha.
The rival sides have fought for long enough:
Let all of us now live in peace together.
Don't make old Monkey lose his fiery temper,
For if he does he'll surely wipe you out”
“Come here,” said the demon. “I won't hit you. I'll just call your name. Will you answer?”
“If you call my name,” said Monkey, “I'll reply. But will you answer if I call your name?”
“If I call you,” said the demon, “I have a miraculous gourd that people can be packed into. But if you call me, what have you got?”
“I've got a gourd too,” Monkey replied.
“If you have, then show me,” said the demon.
Monkey then produced the gourd from his sleeve and said, “Look, damned demon.” He flourished it then put it back in his sleeve in case the demon tried to snatch it.
The sight was a great shock to the demon. “Where did he get his gourd?” he wondered. “Why is it just like mine? Even gourds from the same vine are different sizes and shapes. But that one is identical.” He then shouted angrily at Monkey, “Novice the Sun, where did you get your gourd?”
As Monkey really did not know where it was from he answered with another question: “Where did you get yours?”
Not realizing that this was a trick Monkey had learned from experience, the demon told the true story from the beginning: “When Chaos was first divided and heaven separated from earth there was this Lord Lao Zi who took the name of the Goddess Nuwa to smelt a stone to mend the heavens and save the Continent of Jambu. When he put in the missing part of the Heavenly Palace he noticed a magic vine at the foot of Mount Kunlun on which this gold and red gourd was growing. It has been handed down from Lord Lao Zi to the present day.”
Hearing this, Monkey carried on in the same vein: “That's where my gourd came from too.”
“How can you tell?” the demon king asked.
“When the pure and the coarse were first divided,” the Great Sage replied, “heaven was incomplete in the Northwest corner, and part of the earth was missing to the Southeast. So the Great Taoist Patriarch turned himself into Nuwa to mend the sky. As he passed Mount Kunlun there was a magic vine with two gourds growing on it. The one I've got is the male one, and yours is the female one.”
“Never mind about the sex,” said the demon. “It's only a real treasure if it can hold people inside.”
“Quite right,” said Monkey. “You try to put me inside first.”
The overjoyed demon sprang into mid-air with a bound, held out his gourd, and called, “Novice the Sun.” Without hesitation the Great Sage replied eight or nine times, but he was not sucked inside. The monster came down, stamping his feet, pounding his chest, and exclaiming, “Heavens! Who said that the world never changes? This treasure's scared of its old man! The female one hasn't the nerve to pack the male inside.”
“Put your gourd away now,” said Monkey. “It's my turn to call your name.” With a fast somersault he leapt up, turned his gourd upside-down with its mouth facing the demon, and called, “Great King Silver Horn.” The demon could not keep quiet; he had to answer, and he went whistling into the gourd. Monkey then attached a label reading:
To the Great Lord Lao: to be dealt with urgently in accordance with
the Statutes and Ordinances.
“Well, my boy,” he thought with pleasure, “today you've tried something new.”
He landed his cloud, still carrying the gourd. His only thought was to rescue his master as he headed for the Lotus Flower Cave. The mountain path was most uneven, and he was besides bow-legged, so as he lurched along the gourd was shaken, making a continuous sloshing sound. Do you know why this was? The Great Sage's body had been so thoroughly tempered that he could not be putrefied in a hurry. The monster, on the other hand, though able to ride the clouds only had certain magical powers. His body was still essentially that of an ordinary mortal, which putrefied as soon as it went into the gourd.
Not believing that the demon had already turned to pus, Monkey joked, “I don't know whether that's piss or saliva, my lord, but I've played that game too. I won't take the cover off for another seven or eight days, by when you'll have turned to liquid. What's the hurry? What's so urgent? When I think how easily I escaped you deserve to be out of sight for a thousand years.” As he was carrying the gourd and talking like this he was back at the doors of the cave before he realized it. He shook the gourd, and it kept making that noise.
“It's like a fortune-telling tube that you shake a stick out of,” he thought. “I'll do one and see when the Master will be coming out.” Watch him as he shakes and shakes it, repeating over and over again the spell, “King Wen's Book of Changes, Confucius the Sage, Lady of the Peach Blossom, Master Ghostvalley.”
When they saw him the little devils in the cave said, “Disaster, Your Majesty. Novice the Sun has put his Junior Majesty in the gourd and is shaking it.” The news sent all the Senior King's souls flying and turned his bones and sinews soft.
He collapsed, howling aloud, “You and I sneaked out of the world above to be reborn among mortals, brother. Our hope was to share glory for ever as rulers of this cave. We never dreamt that this monk would kill you and part us.” All the devils in the cave wept and wailed.
The sound of all this howling was too much for Pig hanging from his beam. “Stop howling, demon,” he could not help himself shouting, “and listen to me. Sun the Novice who came first, the Novice Sun who came next, and Novice the Sun who came last all have the same name shuffled around, and they are all my fellow disciple. He can do seventy-two transformations. He got in here by changing, stole your treasure and put your brother inside it. Now that he's dead there's no need for all this misery. Have your cooking pots scrubbed clean and cook some gill mushrooms and button mushrooms, tea shoots, bamboo shoots, beancurd, gluten, tree-fungus, and vegetables. Then you can invite my master, my fellow-disciple and me down to say a Life Sutra for your brother.”
“I thought Pig was well-behaved,” roared the demon king in fury, “but he most certainly is not, mocking me like that.” He then called on the little devils, “Stop wailing, and let Pig down. Cook him till he's nice and tender, and when I've had made a good meal of him I'll go out and take my revenge on Sun the Novice.”
“Wonderful,” grumbled Friar Sand at Pig. “I told you to keep your mouth shut. Your reward for blabbing will be to be cooked first.”
The idiot was quite frightened by now. A little devil standing beside him said, “Your Majesty, Pig will be hard to cook.”
“Thank heavens,” said Pig. “Is this brother winning himself some merit? It's true I wouldn't cook well.”
Then another little devil said, “He'll cook if he's skinned first.”
“Yes,” said Pig in desperation, “I'll cook. My skin and bones may be coarse, but they'll boil tender. I'm done for! I'm done for.”
Before Pig had finished shouting a little devil came in from outside to report that Novice the Sun was there again and being very abusive.
“Damn him. He thinks we're completely useless,” exclaimed the Senior Demon King with horror. “Hang Pig up again,” he told the little demons, “and check what treasures we have left.”
“We still have three in the cave,” reported the steward devil.
“Which three?” the demon king asked. “The Seven-star Sword, the Plantain Fan, and the Pure Vase,” replied the steward.
“The vase is useless,” said the demon king. “All you used to need to do was to call someone's name and get a reply for them to be put inside. But now Sun the Novice has learned the words of the spell and put my brother in it. We won't need that-leave it here. Fetch me the sword and the fan at once.”
The steward immediately fetched them for the old demon, who tucked the fan inside the back of his collar and took the sword in his hand. Then he mustered all three hundred or more of his devils and drilled them in the use of spear, staff, rope and sword. The Senior Demon King then put on his helmet and breast plate, over which he threw a cloak of fiery red silk. The demons fell into battle formation, ready to capture the Great Sage Sun. The Great Sage meanwhile, now aware that the Junior Demon King had rotted down inside the gourd, tied it up very tight and fastened it to his belt, then prepared to fight, his gold-banded cudgel in his hand. The old demon, his red battle-flag unfurled behind him, leapt out through the doors of the cave. This was how he was dressed:
Dazzling bright the tassels on his helmet,
Brilliantly coloured the belt at his waist.
The armor he wore was made of dragon scales,
Covered with a cloak of burning fire.
Lightning flashed from his glaring eyes,
Smoke curled up from his bristles of steel.
Lightly he lifted the Seven-star Sword,
His shoulders covered by the Plantain Fan.
He moved like clouds drifting from an island,
Sounded like thunderbolts shaking the mountains.
His mighty prowess would oppress Heaven's warriors
As he wrathfully led his devils from the cave.
He ordered the little devils into battle positions at once, then started hurling abuse: “Thoroughly ill-mannered ape. You've murdered my brother and ruined our fraternal love. You're utterly loathsome.”
“Detestable monster,” replied Monkey in kind. “You hang on to your devilish life for all you're worth, but how do you expect me to stand for my master, my fellow-disciples and horse all being hung up in your cave for no good reason at all? It's intolerable. Hand them over to me this moment and throw in some generous travelling expenses. Then I'll cheerfully be on my way and spare your rotten life.” With no more ado the demon lifted his sword and struck at Monkey's head, while Monkey raised his iron cudgel to meet him. It was a fine battle they fought outside the gates. Indeed!
The Gold-Banded Cudgel and the Seven-star Sword,
Flashing like lightning as they meet.
The chill wind from them makes one cold,
While mighty banks of cloud blot out the ridges.
One, moved by brotherly love,
Would do no act of kindness;
The other, out to save the pilgrim,
Showed no touch of mercy.
The two sides seethed with equal hatred,
Each of them sharing the same loathing.
They fought so hard that
Heaven and earth were thrown into darkness,
Gods and demons were terrified,
The sun went pale in the dense smoke,
Dragons and tigers trembled.
One gnashed his teeth, as if filing nails of jade;
The other's glaring eyes burned with golden fire.
Moving to and fro they showed off their valour,
In an endless play of sword and cudgel.
When the old demon had fought twenty rounds with Monkey and neither had emerged the victor he waved the scabbard of his sword and called all his little devils forward. Over three hundred of them all rushed up and surrounded Monkey. The splendid Great Sage, quite unperturbed, used his cudgel to strike and parry to either side, before and behind. The little devils all had great skill, and they fought their way ever closer to him, tying him up as if in a tangle of silk floss as they tugged at his waist and legs. T
hey would not retreat. The Great Sage was so alarmed by this that he used extra-corporeal magic. Plucking a bunch of hairs from under his left ribs he chewed thew to pieces that he blew out with the shout, “Change!” Every piece turned into another Monkey. Just watch as the biggest ones wield cudgels, the short ones use their fists, and the tiniest ones, with no other way of attacking grabbed knuckles and sank their teeth into muscles.
The little devils were put to rout. “Your Majesty,” they yelled, “it's going all wrong. We're in terrible trouble. The whole mountain and everywhere else is swarming with Sun the Novices.” Now that his little devils had been thrown back by the extra-corporeal magic the demon king was hard-pressed; rush around as he might, there was to escape for him.
In his alarm the demon took his precious sword in his left hand and reached behind his neck with right hand to bring out the Plantain Fan. Then he turned towards the fire-gods of the Southeast and the Constellation Ligong he waved the fan. At once flames shot out of the ground, for such was the power of that treasure. The monster was truly ruthless. He waved the fan seven or eight times, setting great fires burning heaven and earth. It was a fine blaze:
Not a heavenly fire,
Nor a fire in a furnace,
Nor a fire on the mountain,
Nor a fire under the pot.
But the miraculous fire that comes from the Five Elements.
The fan is no ordinary object,
Nor was it fashioned by human skill: