by Wu Cheng-En
“Please don't be afraid, benefactor,” said Sanzang. “They're not demons, they are my disciples.”
“But how could so handsome a master have such hideous disciples?” asked the old man, still shivering and shaking.
“They may not be much to look at,” said Sanzang, “but they certainly know how to subdue dragons and tigers and capture monsters and demons.” The old man was not entirely convinced as he helped the Tang Priest inside.
The three ferocious disciples rushed to the main hall, tied the horse up outside and put the baggage down. Several monks were reciting sutras inside. Covering his long snout with his hands, Pig shouted, “What's that sutra you're reciting, monks?” The monks looked up when they heard his question.
They looked at the stranger and saw a long snout,
As well as a pair of big ears that stuck out.
His body was rough and his shoulders were broad;
When he opened his muzzle, like thunder he roared.
But as for our Monkey and good Friar Sand,
Their faces were more than a person could stand.
The monks saying their sutras within the main hall
Were terribly frightened and scared one and all.
The teacher continued the text to recite,
Until the head monk said they should stop for the night.
They paid no more heed to the chimes and the bell,
And the Buddha's own images from their hands fell.
They all blew at once to put out every light,
And tried in their terror to scatter in flight.
They crawl on the ground as they stumble and fall,
And all of them trip getting out of that hall.
One old monk's head with another one clashes
Just like the collapse of piled-up calabashes.
What once was a pure and a most holy rite
Was all now reduced to a comical sight.
The sight of the monks stumbling and crawling about made the three disciples clap their hands and laugh aloud, at which the monks were more terrified than ever. Colliding with each other's heads they all fled for their lives and disappeared. By the time Sanzang helped the old man into the hall the lights had all been put out and the three of them were still chuckling away.
“Damned creatures,” said Sanzang, “you are all thoroughly evil, despite my daily teaching and advice. As the ancients said,
Only the saintly can become good without instruction;
Only the worthy can become good after instruction;
Only idiots will not become good even with instruction.
The disgraceful scene you've just made is one of the lowest and most stupid things I could possibly imagine. You charge in through the gates without any respect, make our elderly benefactor collapse in fright, send all the monks fleeing for their lives, and completely ruin their service. I shall have to take the blame for all of this.” None of them could find a word to say in their defense.
Only then did the old man believe that they really were Sanzang's disciples, turn back, and say, “It's nothing, sir, nothing. The lamps have just been put out and the flowers scattered as the service is ending anyhow.”
“If it's over,” said Pig, “bring out the food and wine for the completion feast. We need a meal before we go to bed.” The old man called for oil lamps to be lit. The servants could not understand why.
“There are lots of incense sticks and candles where they're saying surras in the main hall, so why does he want oil lamps lit?”
When some servants came out to look they found everything in darkness, so they lit torches and lanterns and rushed in together. When they looked inside and suddenly saw Pig and Friar Sand they dropped their torches in terror and fled, shutting the doors behind them, and fleeing to the inner part of the house with shout of “Demons, demons!”
Monkey picked up a torch, lit some lamps and candles, and pulled up an armchair for the Tang Priest to sit in while the disciples sat on either side of him. As they were sitting there talking they heard a door leading from the inner part of the house being opened. Another old man came in leaning on a stick and asking, “What evil spirits are you, coming to this pious household in the middle of the night?”
The first old man, who was sitting in front of them, rose and went to meet him behind the screen saying, “Stop shouting, elder brother. These aren't demons. This is an arhat sent from Great Tang in the East to fetch the scriptures. His disciples may look evil but really they are very good.” Only then did the old man put his stick down and bow in greeting to the four of them, after which he too sat down in front of them and called for tea and vegetarian food. He shouted several times, but the servants were still quaking with terror and too frightened to come in.
This was more than Pig could put up with. “Old man,” he said, “you have an awful lot of servants. What have they all gone off to do?”
“I have sent them to fetch food to offer to you gentlemen,” the old man replied.
“How many of them will be serving the food?” asked Pig.
“Eight,” said the old man.
“Who will they be waiting on?” asked Pig.
“You four gentlemen,” the old man replied.
“Our master, the one with the white face, only needs one person to wait on him,” said Pig. “The one with hair cheeks whose mouth looks like a thunder god only needs two. That vicious-looking creature needs eight, and I must have twenty.”
“From what you say must be rather a big eater,” the old man remarked.
“You're about right,” said Pig.
“We have enough servants,” the old man said, and by bringing together servants of all ages he produced thirty or forty of them.
As the monks talked to the old man the servants lost their fear and set a table in front of the Tang Priest, inviting him to take the place of honour. They then put three more tables on both sides of him, at which they asked the three disciples to sit, and another in front of these for the two old men. On the tables were neatly arranged some fruit, vegetables, pasta, rice, refreshments and pea-noodle soup. Sanzang raised his chopsticks and started to say a grace over the food, but the idiot, who was impatient and hungry to boot, did not wait for him to finish before grabbing a red lacquered wooden bowl of white rice that he scooped up and gulped down in a single mouthful.
“Sir,” said the servant standing beside him, “you didn't think very carefully. If you are going to keep food in your sleeves shouldn't you take steamed bread instead of rice that will get your clothes duty?”
“I didn't put it in my sleeve,” chuckled Pig, “I ate it.”
“But you didn't even open your mouth,” they said, “so how could you have eaten it?”
“Who is lying then?” said Pig. “I definitely ate it. If you don't believe me I'll eat another to show you.” The servants carried the rice over, filled a bowlful, and passed it to Pig, who had it down his throat in a flash.
“Sir,” said the astonished servants, “you must have a throat built of whetstones, it's so smooth and slippery.” Pig had downed five or six bowls before the master could finish the short grace; only then did he pick up his chopsticks and start eating with them. The idiot grabbed whatever he could and bolted it, not caring whether it was rice or pasta, fruit or refreshments.
“More food, more food,” he shouted, until it gradually began to run out, “Brother,” said Monkey, “don't eat so much. Make do with being half full. Anyhow, it's better than starving in a mountain hollow.”
“What a horrible face you're making,” said Pig. “As the saying goes,
The monk at a banquet who can't eat his fill
Would rather be buried alive on the hill.”
“Clear the things away and pay no more attention to him,” said Monkey.
“We will be frank with you, reverend sirs,” said the two old men with bows. “We would have no problem in feeding a hundred or more reverend gentlemen with big bellies like him in the daytime, but it is lat
e now and the remains of the maigre-feast have been put away. We only cooked a bushel of noodles, five bushels of rice and a few tables of vegetarian food to feed our neighbors and the clergy at the end of the service. We never imagined that you reverend gentlemen would turn up and put the monks to flight. We have not even been able to offer any food to our relations and neighbors as we have given it all to you. If you are still hungry we can have some more cooked.”
“Yes,” said Pig, “cook some more.”
After this exchange the tables and other things used for the banquet were tidied away. Sanzang bowed to his hosts to thank them for the meal, then asked them their surname. “We are called Chen,” they replied.
“Then you are kinsmen of mine,” said Sanzang, putting his hands together in front of his chest.
“Is your surname Chen as Well?” the old men asked.
“Yes,” Sanzang replied, “Chen was my surname before I became a monk. May I ask why you were holding that religious feast just now?”
“Why brother to ask, Master?” said Pig with a laugh. “Anyone could tell you that it's bound to have been a feast for the new crops, or for safety, or for the end of funeral ceremonies.”
“No, it was not,” the old men said.
“Then what was it for?” Sanzang asked.
“It was a feast to prepare for death,” the old men replied.
“You don't know who you're talking to,” said Pig, falling about with laughter. “We could build a bridge out of lies. We're kings of deception. Don't try to fool us. As monks we know all about maigre-feasts. There are only preparatory maigre-feasts for transferring money to the underworld and for fulfilling vows. Nobody's died here, so why have a funeral feast?”
“This idiot's learning a bit of sense,” chuckled Monkey to himself.
“Old man,” he said aloud, “what you said must be wrong. How can you have a feast to prepare for death?”
At this the two old men bowed and replied, “And if you were going to fetch the scriptures why did you come here instead of taking the main route?”
“We were on the main route,” replied Monkey, “but a river was in our way and we weren't able to cross it. We came to your distinguished residence to ask for a night's shelter because we heard the drums and cymbals.”
“What did you see by the side of the river?” one of the old men asked.
“Nothing but a stone tablet on which was written 'River of Heaven' above and ' 250 miles across; few travelers have ever been here' underneath,” Monkey replied.
“Less than half a mile along the bank from the stone tablet is the Temple of the Great King of Miraculous Response,” the old man said. “Did you not see it?”
“No,” Monkey replied. “Would you old gentlemen tell me why he's called 'Miraculous Response?'”
The two old men burst into tears as they replied, “My lord, as for the Great King,
Because he responded a temple we built;
His miracles greatly the common folk helped.
He sends timely rain to the farms all about;
His clouds give their moisture to keep us from drought.”
“But if he sends timely rain and clouds he's being kind to you,” said Brother Monkey, “so why are you so upset and miserable?” At this the old man stamped on the ground, beat his chest and wailed, “Master,
Great is our gratitude, greater our anger:
Although he is kind he is also a danger.
He is not one of the gods true and right-
To eat boys and girls is his evil delight.”
“He likes eating boys and girls?” Brother Monkey exclaimed.
“Yes,” replied the old man.
“I suppose it's your family's turn now,” said Monkey.
“Yes, this year it is our turn,” the old man said. “There are a hundred households living here. This place is called Chen Village, and it is in Yuanhui County of the Kingdom of Tarrycart. There is a sacrifice to the Great King every year at which a boy, a girl, pigs, sheep, oxen and wine have to be offered. If he gets his meal he gives us wind and rain at the right time; but if there is no sacrifice he sends disaster.”
“How many sons are there in your household?” Monkey asked.
The old man beat his breast and said, “Alas, alas, we die of shame when you speak of sons. This is my brother, Chen Qing, who is fifty-seven. I am Chen Cheng and am sixty-two. We have both found great difficulty in having children. As I had no son my friends and relations persuaded me to take a concubine when I was nearly fifty. I had no option but to find one and we had a daughter. She is just seven this year, and we call her Pan of Gold.”
“That's a very grand name,” said Pig. “But why Pan of Gold?”
“Because we were childless we built bridges, repaired roads, contributed to putting up monasteries and pagodas, gave donations and fed monks. We kept an account of all this, and what with three ounces spent here and five spent there it added up to thirty pounds of gold by the time the girl was born. Thirty pounds is a pan of gold, and hence the name.”
“What about sons?” Monkey asked.
“My brother has a son who was also by a concubine. He is six this year, and we call him Chen Guan-given.”
“Why did you call him that?” Monkey asked. “In our family we worship Lord Guan Yu, and we called him Guan-given as it was from the statue of Lord Guan that we begged and obtained this son. My brother and I are 120 between us if you add our ages together, and these are our only two offspring. We never imagined that it would fall to us to provide the sacrificial offerings this year, and this is a duty we cannot escape. It is because as fathers we cannot bear to part from our children that we held this service to bring about rebirth, this maigre-feast to prepare for death.”
This brought the tears pouring down Sanzang's cheeks as he replied, “This is what the ancients mean when they said,
Long before the ripe ones the green plums always fall;
The harshness of heaven hits the childless worst of all.”
Monkey smiled at this and said, “Let me ask some more questions. Tell me, sir, how much property does your family have?”
“Quite a lot,” the younger old man replied. “About seven hundred acres of paddy fields, a thousand acres of dry fields, eighty or ninety fields of hay, two or three hundred water-buffalo and oxen, twenty or thirty donkeys and horses, and goodness only knows how many pigs, sheep, chickens and geese. We have more old grain piled up at home than we can eat, and more clothes than we can wear. That is the extent of our family's property.”
“It's a pity you're so stingy with all your wealth,” said Monkey.
“How can you accuse us of being stingy?” the old man asked.
“If you're so rich,” said Monkey, “why give your own children to be sacrificed? You could buy a boy for fifty ounces and a girl for a hundred. With all the other expenses together it shouldn't cost you more than two hundred ounces of silver to keep your own children. Wouldn't that be better?”
To this the younger old man replied through his tears, “My lord, you don't realize that the Great King is miraculously responsive, and that he often calls on this household.”
“If he comes here have you seen what he looks like and how tall he is?” asked Brother Monkey.
“We don't see him,” the younger old man replied, “we just know that the Great King is coming when we smell a fragrant wind. Then we burn huge amounts of incense and all of us, young and old alike, prostrate ourselves in the direction of the wind. He knows every trifling detail about our household-even about our spoons and the bowls we use-and remembers all our dates of birth. He will only accept our own son and daughter. Never mind two or three hundred ounces of silver: we could not buy identical-looking children of exactly the same age for tens of thousands of ounces.”
“So it's like that,” said Monkey. “Very well then, bring your son out for me to take a look at him.” Chen Qing hurried to the inner part of the house, brought Guan-given back with him into the hall,
and set the boy down in front of the lamp. Not realizing the mortal danger he was in the little boy leapt about, filled his sleeves with fruit, ate and played around. Monkey looked at him, said a spell silently, shook himself, and made himself look just like Guan-given. Then the two boys started to jump and dance in front of the lamp, giving the two old men such a shock that they fell to their knees.
“That was a terrible thing for him to do, venerable sirs,” said Sanzang.
“But the gentleman was talking to us a moment ago,” said the old man. “How can he have turned into the exact likeness of my son? When you call them they respond and move together. This shock has shortened our lives. Please return to your normal appearance!” Monkey rubbed his face and was himself once more. “What powers you have, my lord,” said the old man, still on his knees.
“Was I like your son?” Monkey asked.
“Yes, just like him,” the old man replied. “Same face, same voice, same clothes, same height.”
“You didn't look carefully enough,” said Monkey. “Get some scales and weigh me to see if I'm the same weight as him.”
“Yes, yes, the same weight,” the old man said.
“Would I do for the sacrifice like that?” asked Monkey.
“Perfect,” said the old man, “just perfect. You would be accepted.”
“I shall take the child's place and keep him alive for your family to have descendants to burn incense to you,” said Monkey. “I shall be offered to the Great King instead.” At this Chen Qing kowtowed as he knelt there, saying, “My lord, if in your mercy you were to take his place I will give His Reverence the Tang Priest a thousand ounces of silver towards the cost of his journey to the Western Heaven.”
“Aren't you going to reward me?” asked Monkey.
“But if you are sacrificed in the boy's place it will be the end of you,” said the old man.
“What do you mean?” Monkey asked.
“The Great King will eat you,” the old man replied.
“He'd dare to eat me?” said Monkey.