by Wu Cheng-En
If you don't know how the king was revived, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 39
A Pill of Red Cinnabar Is Brought from Heaven
After Three Years the Monarch Is Revived
The story tells how the Great Sage Sun, his head aching unbearably, pleaded with his master: “Stop, stop, I'll bring him back to life.” When Sanzang asked how, Monkey replied, “The only way is to go to the Underworld, find out which of the kings down there has his soul, and ask for it back to revive him with.”
“Don't trust Monkey, Master,” said Pig. “He told me earlier there'd be no need to go to the Underworld because he could get him brought back to life in the world of the living. He thought that would be a good way of showing off his powers.”
The venerable elder, taken in once again by this breath of evil, started reciting the Band-tightening Spell, which threw Monkey into such a desperate state that he accepted the condition gladly: “I'll cure him within the world of the living, I really will.”
“Don't stop,” said Pig, “carry on saying the spell.”
“You stupid, evil beast,” railed Monkey, “inciting the master to say that spell.” Pig was falling about with laughter.
“Brother, brother, you thought you could put one over on me, but you never imagined I'd put one over on you.”
“Stop, Master, stop,” pleaded Monkey. “I'll bring him back to life without leaving the world of the living.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Sanzang asked.
“With a single somersault of my cloud I can rush in through the Southern Gate of Heaven,” said Monkey. “I won't go to the Palace of the Dipper and the Bull or to the Hall of Miraculous Mist, but straight up to the Tushita Palace in the Lihen Heaven above the Thirty-third Heaven to see the Supreme Lord Lao Zi. I'll ask him for one of his Nine-cycle Soul-returning Pills and that, I guarantee, will bring him back to life.”
“Off you go then,” said Sanzang, delighted to hear this, “and be as quick as you can.”
“It's the third watch now; it'll be after dawn by the time I get back,” said Brother Monkey. “But it's an awful shame to see that king lying there dead and cold. There ought to be a mourner watching over him and weeping.”
“Don't tell me,” said Pig, “that ape wants me to be the mourner.”
“You most certainly will be,” said Monkey. “If you don't weep for him I won't be able to bring him back to life.”
“You go, brother,” said Pig, “and leave the crying to me.”
“There's more than one way of crying,” said Monkey. “Just yelling with your mouth is what they call wailing. Squeezing some tears out is weeping. What we need is sobbing and tears together, and sobbing as though your heart is broken, for really proper weeping and wailing.”
“Shall I give you a demonstration?” asked Pig. He tore a strip of paper from somewhere, twisted it into a spill, and pushed it up his nose twice, which made him sneeze several times. Just watch as the tears come streaming down and his nose runs as he starts to wail. He sobbed and sobbed uncontrollably, talking all sorts of nonsense as if someone really had just died.
It was so distressing a performance that the Tang Priest started to cry, so upset was he. “That's just the sort of grief I want,” laughed Monkey, “and you're not to stop crying. It was you who tricked the master into sending me off, you idiot, and I'll hear if you stop wailing. Carry on like this and you'll be fine; but if you stop for even a few moments I'll give you twenty blows of my cudgel on your ankles.”
“Off you go,” laughed Pig. “Once I get crying like this I can keep it up for a couple of days.” Hearing all this fuss and bother, Friar Sand fetched some incense sticks and lit them as an offering.
“Very good,” said Monkey. “As you are all being so respectful I'll be able to do my best.”
Thus the Great Sage left his master and two fellow-disciples in the middle of the night and shot up on a somersault cloud. He went in through the Southern Gate of Heaven, and was as good as his word: he did not go to the Hall of Miraculous Mist or the Palace of the Dipper and the Bull, but took his shining cloud straight up to the Tushita Palace in the Lihen Heaven. No sooner was he inside than he saw the Supreme Lord Lao Zi sitting in his elixir laboratory where immortal boys were using a plantain-leaf fan to fan the furnace where elixir was refined.
When the Supreme Lord saw that Monkey was there he told the boys who were looking after the elixir, “Be very careful: the elixir thief is back.”
Monkey paid his respects with a smile: “How dreary of you, old man. No need to be on your guard against me. I don't do things like that any more.”
“Ape,” said Lord Lao Zi, “you stole a lot of my magic pills five hundred years ago when you made havoc in Heaven. The Little Sage Erlang captured you and brought you up here to be refined for forty-nine days in my elixir furnace. Goodness only knows how much charcoal we used up. Since you've been lucky enough to escape and be converted to Buddhism, you've been escorting the Tang Priest on his journey to the Western Heaven to fetch the scriptures. When you subdued those monsters on Flat-top Mountain the other day you were very wicked; you refused to give me back my treasures. What are you here for now?”
“I really wasn't being late with them,” protested Monkey. “When the time came I gave you back your five treasures. What are you being so suspicious of me for?”
“Why have you come sneaking into my palace when you ought to be on your journey?” Lord Lao Zi asked.
“Since last I saw you,” said Monkey, “we've come to a country further West called Wuji, where an evil spirit disguised as a Taoist called up wind and rain, murdered the king, and turned himself into the king's double. Now he's sitting in the palace. Last night my master was reading sutras in the Precious Wood Monastery when he was visited by the king's ghost, who begged me to subdue the fiend for him and sort right from wrong. I didn't know whether to believe this, so I went with my fellow-disciple Pig into the palace gardens that night. We smashed our way in and found where he was buried in an eight-sided well with glazed-tile walls. We fished up his body, and it was in perfect condition. When we went back to the monastery to see my master he ordered me in his compassion to bring the king back to life. He won't let me go to the Underworld to ask for his soul back: I've got to find a way of saving him in the world of the living. The reason I've come to pay my respects to you is because there's no other place I can get him revived. I beg you, great Patriarch, in your mercy to lend me a thousand of your Nine-cycle Soul-returning Pills to save him with.”
“What outrageous nonsense, you ape,” said Lord Lao Zi. “A thousand? Two thousand? Do you want to make a meal of them? They're not just pellets of dirt. Clear off! I've none left.”
“What about a hundred or thereabouts?” asked Monkey.
“Not even that,” said Lord Lao Zi. “Ten or so?” asked Monkey. “Stop pestering me, you wretched ape,” said Lord Lao Zi. “None at all. Clear off!”
“If you really haven't got any,” said Monkey with a laugh, “I'll have to ask for help elsewhere.”
“Get out! Get out! Get out!” roared Lord Lao Zi, at which Monkey turned away and went.
It then suddenly occurred to Lord Lao Zi that Monkey was so wicked that even after he had announced his departure and gone, he might slip back and steal some. So he sent some immortal boys to call Monkey back. “You're so light-fingered, you monkey,” he said, “that I'd better give you a Soul-returning Pill.”
“Since you know my powers, old man,” said Brother Monkey, “bring out all your golden elixir and split it forty-sixty with me. You can consider yourself lucky. I might have taken the lot of them, like scooping up water in a leather sieve.” The patriarch produced the gourd and turned it upside-down. A solitary golden pill fell out. “It's the only one I have,” said Lord Lao Zi, handing it to Monkey. “Take it. I'm giving it to you to revive the king with and you can take the credit for it.”
“Just a moment,”
thought Monkey as he accepted it. “Let me taste it. He might be trying to fool me with a fake.” He popped it into his mouth, to the consternation of the patriarch, who grabbed him by the skullcap with one hand and seized his fist with the other. “Damned ape,” roared Lord Lao Zi, “if you've swallowed that I'll have had you killed.”
“What a face,” laughed Monkey. “How petty you look. I wouldn't want to eat your pill. It's not worth tuppence, and it's nothing like it's cracked up to be. Here it is.” Monkey had a pouch under his chin in which he had been keeping the pill.
Lord Lao Zi felt it, then said, “Clear off, and never come back here to pester me again.” The Great Sage then thanked the patriarch and left the Tushita Palace.
Watch him as he leaves the jade gates in a thousand beams of light and comes down to earth amid ten thousand auspicious clouds. In an instant he was out through the Southern Gate of Heaven and back to the land in the East, where the sun was now rising. He brought his cloud straight down to land outside the gate of the Precious Wood Monastery, where Pig could still be heard wailing. He approached and called, “Master.”
“You're back, Wukong,” said Sanzang with delight. “Have you got the pill?”
“Yes,” said Monkey.
“Of course he would,” said Pig, “even if he had to steal it.”
“Brother,” said Monkey, “you can go away now. We don't need you to do that any more. Dry your tears or go and weep somewhere else.” Monkey then asked Friar Sand to fetch him some water. Friar Sand hurried to the well at the back where there was a convenient bucket and fetched Monkey half a bowlful of water. Monkey took the water, spat the pill out, and placed it between the king's lips. Then he prized the body's teeth apart with both hands and spurted the pill with a mouthful of clean water down into the king's stomach. For the next hour wild noises could be heard from the stomach, but still the body could not move. “Master,” said Monkey, “not even fetching my golden elixir is going to save him. Are you really going to torture me to death?”
“Of course he will come back to life,” said Sanzang. “How else could a body so long dead swallow the water? This shows the miraculous power of the golden elixir. Once the golden elixir is in the stomach, the stomach starts singing; and when the stomach sings the blood-pulses move in harmony with it. The only thing is that the vital breath has been cut off and cannot extend itself. Iron would rust if it had been in a well for three years-how do you expect a human body to react? Now that his own vital breath has gone someone has to give him a mouthful of air.” Pig stepped forward to do this, only to be grabbed by Sanzang, who said, “You won't do. Get Wukong to come.”
Why did the master insist on this? It was because Pig had been a vicious man-eater since childhood, which meant that his breath was impure; whereas Monkey had cultivated his conduct since he was young and lived off the fruits of pine, cypress and peach trees, which gave him pure breath. So the Great Sage stepped forward, made a terrible thunder-god face, put his mouth to the king's lips, and blew in. The breath went down the kings mouth, through the High Tower, round the Bright Hall and straight to the Cinnabar Field, then flowed back from the Bubbling Springs to the Mud-pill Palace. With a noisy rush of air the king's vital breath came together and his spirit refunded.
He sat up flexed his hands and feet, and called out, “Master.” Then he knelt in the dust and said, “I remember visiting you last night as a ghost, but I never expected to return to the world of the living today.”
Sanzang hastened to raise him to his feet and said, “Your Majesty, it was none of my doing. You should thank my disciple.”
“What a thing to say, Master,” laughed Monkey. “As the saying goes, 'A house can't have two masters.' It's quite right that you should accept his thanks.”
Sanzang, still uncomfortable about accepting this courtesy, helped the king to his feet and took him into the meditation hall. Here the king bowed in greeting to Pig, Monkey and Friar Sand before taking his seat. By now the monks of the monastery had prepared breakfast, and they were going to bring it in when they saw the dripping wet king to their general alarm and suspicion.
Monkey leap out to say, “Don't worry, monks. This is the king of Wuji, your true sovereign. Three years ago he was murdered by a demon, and I brought him back to life last night. Today we'll be going to the capital to sort right from wrong. If you have any food, bring it in. We'll eat and then we'll be on our way.” The monks then brought in hot water for the king to wash with and a change of clothes. They took off the king's yellow ochre robe and gave him two of the abbot's cloth habits, with a yellow silk cord to tie around the waist instead of the belt of Lantian jade. They slipped off his no-worry shoes and put a pair of old monastic sandals on his feet instead. Then they all ate breakfast and the horse was saddled up.
“How heavy's the luggage, Pig?” Monkey asked.
“I've been carrying it for so long that I don't know any more,” Pig replied.
“Divide the stuff into two loads,” said Monkey, “and give one to the king to carry. We must be in town early to get on with the job.”
“I'm in luck,” said Pig. “It took me one heck of an effort to carry him here, but now that he's alive again he's doing my work for me.”
The idiot asked the monastery for a carrying-pole and divided the luggage unfairly. He put all the light things into his load and the heavier ones into the king's. “Your Majesty,” laughed Monkey, “don't you feel hard done by, dressed like that and having to walk with us carrying a load?” The monarch fell straight to his knees and replied, “Master, you're the father and mother who have given me a second life. Never mind carrying the baggage-I'd be your groom to serve you on your journey to the Western Heaven.”
“No need for you to go there,” said Sanzang. “We are bound to by fate. You'll just have to carry the stuff the fifteen miles into town. Once we've captured the fiend you must go back to ruling again and we'll go on to fetch our scriptures.”
Pig's comment on this was, “That means he'll only carry it for those fifteen miles, and I'll have to continue as the permanent porter.”
“That's enough of that nonsense, brother,” said Monkey. “Hurry out and lead the way.” Pig then led the way forward with the king while Friar Sand helped the master mount and Monkey brought up the rear. The five hundred monks of the monastery drew themselves up in an orderly procession to see them off to the accompaniment of music. “There's no need for you to come any further to see us on our way,” said Monkey with a smile. “It would be disastrous if any official heard about it and news of what we are going to do leaked out. Please please go straight back. I'd just like you to get His Majesty's clothes clean and tidy then send them into the capital this evening or tomorrow morning. I'll see to it that you're properly rewarded.” The monks obediently returned, and Monkey hastened his pace to catch up with his master as they pressed ahead. Indeed:
In the West there was a magic spell to yield the truth;
Metal and Wood together refined the spirit.
The Mother of Cinnabar had a mysterious dream,
The boy grieved over the useless body.
The true ruler had to be found at the bottom of a well,
And a visit to Lord Lao Zi in Heaven was required.
Realizing that matter is void, he regained his nature;
The Buddha indeed saves those who are so predestined.
It took master and disciples less than a morning to make their journey, and they were soon near the city. “Wukong,” said Sanzang, “I think that must be the capital of Wuji ahead of us.”
“You're right,” said Monkey. “Let's get there soon and do our job.” As they entered the city they saw that the people in the streets were well dressed and that there was an air of busy prosperity. The phoenix pavilions and dragon towers of the palace looked most magnificent, and there is a poem to prove it:
These palaces resemble those of a great state;
The singing and dancing here are like in Tang.
Fl
owers face precious fans, and red clouds sail above;
Robes shine emerald in the sun.
The peacock gates open on clouds of incense,
Coloured flags fly over the curtains of pearl.
Truly an admirable picture of prosperity:
The officials stand silent with nothing to report.
Sanzang dismounted and said, “Disciple, I think we should go to the palace and submit our travel document so as to avoid trouble from petty officials.”
“You're right,” said Monkey. “My brothers and I will all go in together. It'll be much easier to manage if there are several of us.”
“If you all go in,” said Sanzang, “don't talk rough. Pay your respects to him as a subject would to his sovereign before you say anything.”
“Does that mean kowtowing?” Monkey asked.
“Yes,” said Sanzang, “the full obeisance with five bows and three kowtows.”
“You're useless, Master,” laughed Brother Monkey. “It would be really stupid to do obeisance to him. You'd better let me go in first and sort things out. I'll see what he has to say before deciding how to reply. If I bow, you all bow; and if I squat, you all squat.”
Watch as the trouble-making Monkey King leads them to the palace gates and says to the official on duty there, “We are pilgrims sent by the Great Tang Emperor in the East to worship the Buddha and fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven. Today we have come to present our credentials and I would trouble you, distinguished sir, to pass them on for us. In this way you will not hinder our excellent achievement.”
The gate officer then went in through the Southern gates of the palace, knelt on the steps, and reported, “There are five monks outside the gates who say that they are pilgrims sent by the Great Tang to worship the Buddha and fetch scriptures from the Western Heaven. They are now here to present their credentials, and rather than intrude uninvited they are awaiting they royal summons outside the gates.”