by Wu Cheng-En
My green skin is naturally marked by the tears of the Xiang Goddess;
My scaly shoots pass on the scent of history.
My leaves will never change their color in frost;
The beauty of my misty twigs can never be concealed.
Few have understood me since the death of Wang Huizhi;
Since ancient times I have been known through brush and ink.
“You venerable immortals have all composed poems like phoenixes breathing out pearls,” Sanzang said. “There is nothing I can add. I am deeply moved by the great favour you have shown me. But it is late now and I do not know where my three disciples are waiting for me. I cannot stay any longer, and I must start finding my way back. I am profoundly grateful for your boundless love. Could you show me my way back?”
“Don't be so worried, holy monk,” replied the four ancients, laughing. “An encounter like this is rare in a thousand years. The sky is fresh and clear, and the moon makes the night as bright as day. Relax and sit here for a little longer. At dawn we shall see you across the ridge. You will certainly meet your distinguished disciples.”
As they were talking in came two serving maids in blue, each carrying a lantern of crimson silk. Behind them followed a fairy who was holding a sprig of apricot blossom as she greeted them with a smile. What did the fairy look like?
Her hair had the green of jade,
Her face was pinker than rouge.
Her starry eyes were full of light and color;
Her elegant eyebrows were like moth antennae.
She wore a red skirt with plum-blossom designs;
And a light jacket of gray shot with red.
Her curved shoes were shaped like phoenix beaks,
And her silk stockings were marked with mud.
This witch was as lovely as the woman on Tiantai,
No less a beauty than the Zhou king's concubine.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Apricot Fairy?” the old man asked as they bowed to her.
Returning their bows she replied, “I hear that you have a distinguished guest here and are exchanging poems with him. May I meet him?”
“Here he is,” said the Eighteenth Lord, pointing him out. “You don't need to ask.” Sanzang bowed to her but dared say nothing.
“Bring in the tea at once,” she said. Two more serving girls in yellow, carried in a red lacquer tray on which were six fine porcelain tea-bowls with rare fruits in them and spoons lying across the top, as well as a copper-inlaid iron teapot in which was hot and fragrant tea. When the tea had been poured the woman showed glimpses of finger as delicate as spring onion shoots as she presented the porcelain bowls of it first to Sanzang and then to the four ancients. The last cup she kept for herself.
Only when Master Emptiness invited the Apricot Fairy to sit down did she do so. After they had drunk the tea she leant forward and said, “As you ancient immortals have been having so delightful an evening could you tell me some of the choicest lines you've composed?”
“Our stuff was just vulgar rubbish,” Cloud-toucher replied. “But this holy monk's verses were truly superb examples of high Tang poetry.”
“Please let me hear them if you will,” the fairy said, whereupon the four ancients recited Sanzang's two poems and his exposition of the Dhyana dharma. The woman, whose face was all smiles, then said, “I'm completely untalented and shouldn't really be making a fool of myself like this, but hearing this wonderful lines is an opportunity too good to waste. Could I cobble together a verse in the second rhyme pattern?” She then recited these lines:
The Han Emperor Wu first made my name;
In Zhou times Confucius taught under my shade.
Dong Feng loved me so much he planted a wood of me;
Sun Chu once offered my jelly in sacrifice.
Soft is my pink and rain-fed beauty;
The misty green is shown and yet concealed.
When over-ripe I have a touch of sourness;
Each year I fall beside the fields of wheat.”
When the four ancients heard the poem they were all full of admiration for it. “How elegant it is,” they said, “and how free of worldly dust. At the same time the lines have something of the awakening of spring in them. 'Soft is my pink and rain-fed beauty.' That's good. 'Soft is my pink and rain-fed beauty.'”
“You're too kind-it quite alarms me,” she replied. “The holy monk's lines that I heard just now were like brocade from the heart or embroidery in words. Could you be generous with your pearls and teach me one of those verses?” The Tang Priest dared not reply.
The woman was evidently falling for him and moving closer and closer, pressing herself against him and whispering to him, “Noble guest, let's make the most of this wonderful night for love. What are we waiting for? Life is short.”
“The Apricot Fairy admires you completely, holy monk,” said the Eighteenth Lord. “You must feel something for her. If you don't find her adorable you have very poor taste.”
“The holy monk is a famous gentleman who has found the Way,” said the Lone Upright Lord, “and he wouldn't possibly act in a way that was at all improper. It would be quite wrong of us to do things like that. To ruin his reputation and honour would be a very mean thing to do. If the Apricot Fairy is willing Cloud-toucher and the Eighteenth Lord can act as matchmakers while Master Emptiness and I act as the guarantors of the wedding. It would be excellent if they married.”
Hearing this Sanzang turned pale with horror, jumped to his feet and shouted at the top of his voice, “You're all monsters, trying to lead me astray like that. There was nothing wrong with talking about the mysteries of the Way with well-honed arguments, but it's disgraceful of you to try to ruin a monk like me by using a woman as a bait.” Seeing how angry Sanzang was they all bit their fingers in fear and said nothing more.
But the red devil servant exploded with thunderous fury, “You don't know how honoured you're being, monk. What's wrong with my sister? She's beautiful and charming. Her needlework aside, her gift for poetry alone would make her more than a match for you. What do you mean, trying to turn her down? You're making a terrible mistake. The Lone Upright Lord's idea was quite right. If you're not prepared to sleep with her on the quiet I'll marry the two of you properly.”
Sanzang went paler still with shock. None of their arguments, however outrageous, had the slightest impact on him. “We've been talking to you very nicely, monk,” the devil servant said, “but you don't pay the slightest attention. If we lose our tempers and start our rough, country way of doing things we'll drag you off and see to it that you can never be a monk any longer or ever marry a wife. After that your life will be pointless.”
The venerable elder's heart remained as hard as metal or stone and he obdurately refused to do as they asked, wondering all the time where his disciples were looking for him. At the thought his tears flowed unquenchably. Smiling and sitting down next to him the woman produced a silk handkerchief from her emerald sleeve with which she wiped away his tears.
“Don't be so upset, noble guest,” She said. “You and I are going to taste the pleasures of love.” Sanzang jumped up and shouted at her to go away and would have left at once if they had not held him there by force. The row went on till daybreak.
Suddenly Sanzang heard a call of, “Master! Master! We can hear you. Where are you?” Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand had been searching everywhere all night, leading the white horse and carrying the baggage. They had gone through all the thorns and brambles without a moment's rest and by now had reached the Western side of the 250-mile-wide cloud-capped Thorn Ridge, This was the shout they gave when they heard Sanzang's angry yells. Sanzang broke free, rushed outside, and called, “Wukong, I'm here. Help! Help!” The four ancients, the devil servant, the woman and her maids all disappeared in a flash.
A moment later Pig and Friar Sand were there too. “How ever did you get here, Master?” they asked.
“Disciples,” said Sanzang, clinging to Monkey, “I have put you to
a lot of trouble. I was carried here by the old man who appeared last night and said he was a local deity bringing us vegetarian food-the one you shouted at and were going to hit. He held my hand and helped me inside that door there, where I saw three old men who had come to meet me. They kept calling me 'holy monk' and talked in a very pure and elegant way. They were marvellous poets, and I matched some verses with them. Then at about midnight a beautiful woman came with lanterns to see me and made up a poem herself. She kept calling me 'noble guest'. She liked the look of me so much she wanted to sleep with me. That brought me to my senses. When I refused they offered to be matchmakers and guarantors, and to marry us. I swore not to agree and was just shouting at them and trying to get away when to my surprise you turned up. Although they were still dragging at my clothes they suddenly disappeared. It must have been because it was dawn and because they were frightened of you too.”
“Did you ask them their names when you were talking about poetry?”
Monkey asked. “Yes,” Sanzang replied, “I asked them their titles. The oldest was Energy, the Eighteenth Lord; the next oldest was the Lone Upright Lord; the third was Master Emptiness; and the fourth the Ancient Cloud-toucher. They called the woman Apricot Fairy.”
“Where are they?” Pig asked, “where've they gone?”
“Where they have gone I don't know,” Sanzang replied, “but where we talked about poetry was near here.”
When the three disciples searched with their master they found a rock-face on which were carved the words “Tree Immortals' Hermitage.”
“This is it,” said Sanzang, and on looking carefully Brother Monkey saw a big juniper, an old cypress, an old pine and an old bamboo. Behind the bamboo was a red maple. When he took another look by the rock-face he saw an old apricot tree, two winter-flowering plums, and two osman-thuses.
“Did you see the evil spirits?” Monkey asked.
“No,” said Pig.
“It's just because you don't realize that those trees have become spirits,” said Monkey.
“How can you tell that the spirits were trees?” Pig asked.
“The Eighteenth lord is the pine,” Monkey replied, “the Lone Upright Lord the cypress, Master Emptiness the juniper and the Ancient Cloud-toucher the bamboo. The maple there was the red devil and the Apricot Fairy that apricot tree.”
When Pig heard this he ruthlessly hit with his rake and rooted with his snout to knock the plum, osmanthus, apricot and maple trees over, and as he did blood flowed from their roots. “Wuneng,” said Sanzang, going up to him to check him, “don't harm any more of them. Although they have become spirits they did me no harm. Let's be on our way again.”
“Don't be sorry for them, Master,” said Monkey. “They'll do people a great deal of harm if we let them develop into big monsters.” With that the idiot let fly with his rake and knocked pine, cypress, juniper ad bamboo all to the ground. Only then did he invite his master to remount and carry along the main route to the West.
If you don't know what happened as they pressed ahead, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 65
A Demon Creates a False Thunder Peak
All Four Pilgrims Meet with Disaster
The cause and effect this time revealed
Should make one do what's good and shun the evil.
Once a thought is born
The Intelligence is aware of it.
And lets it become action.
Why strive to learn stupidity or skill?
Both are medicines for heartlessness.
Do what is right while you are still alive;
Do not just drift.
Recognize the root and the source,
Escape from the trunk and the husk.
If seeking long life you must grasp this.
Watch clearly at every moment,
Refine your thoughts.
Go through the three passes, fill up the black sea;
The good will surely ride on the phoenix and crane.
Then your gloom will change to compassion
As you ascend to absolute bliss.
Tang Sanzang's thoughts were so pure that not only did the heavenly gods protect him: even the vegetable spirits had taken him along a part of his journey for a night of elegant conversation, thereby saving him from having to go through the thorns and brambles. Nor were there any more creepers to entangle them. As the four of them carried on West for another long period winter ended and spring returned.
All things begin to flower,
The handle of the Dipper returns to the East.
Everywhere the grass is green,
As are the leaves of willows on the bank.
The ridge covered in peach blossom is red brocade;
The mist over the stream is a translucent gauze.
Frequent wind and rain,
Unbounded feeling.
Flowers open their hearts to the sun,
Swallows carry off the delicate moss.
Wang Wei should have painted the beauty of the mountains;
The birdsong is as persuasive as Su Qin's golden tongue.
Though no one sees these fragrant cushions of flowers
The butterflies and singing bees adore them.
Master and disciples made their way across the flowers and the grass ambling along with the horse until they made out in the distance a mountain so high that it touched the sky. Pointing at it with his riding crop Sanzang said, “I wonder how high that mountain is, Wukong. It touches the heavens and pierces the firmament.”
“Isn't there some ancient poem that says, 'Heaven alone is supreme: no mountain can equal its height?'“ Monkey replied. “However high a mountain is it can't possibly join up with the sky.”
“Then why's Mount Kunlun called the pillar of heaven?” Pig asked.
“Evidently you don't know that part of the sky has always been missing in the Northwest,” Brother Monkey replied. “As Kunlun's in the Northwest corner it plugs that hole in the sky. That's why it's called the pillar of heaven.”
“Brother,” said Friar Sand with a smile, “stop telling him all that. He'll brag about it to make himself superior. We'll know how high the mountain is when we've climbed it.”
The idiot started chasing Friar Sand and brawling with him in a playful way, and the master's horse galloped as if on wings. They were soon at the foot of a precipice up which they made their way painfully slowly. This is what the mountain was like:
The wind rustling in the woods,
Water gushing along the beds of ravines.
Crows and sparrows cannot fly across it;
Even gods and immortals find it hard.
Scars and gullies endlessly twisting;
Clouds of dust blowing where no one can go;
Rocks in strange and fascinating shapes.
Clouds like vast expanses of water,
While elsewhere birds sing in the trees.
Deer carry magic fungus in their mouths.
Apes pick peaches.
Foxes and raccoon dogs spring around on the cliffs,
Large and small deer play on the ridge.
Then comes the spine-chilling roar of a tiger,
And the way is blocked by leopards and wolves.
Sanzang was terrified by what he saw, but Monkey's powers were enormous. With his gold-banded cudgel and a mighty roar he sent the wolves, tigers, leopards and other wild beasts running then cleared the way for the master to reach the top of the mountain. Once they were over the summit ridge and had started going down the gentle Western slope they saw divine light and coloured clouds over some imposing buildings from which came the muffled sounds of bells and stone chimes.
“Look and see what that place is, disciples,” said Sanzang. Monkey raised his head, shaded his eyes with his hands, and on careful examination saw that it was a fine place:
Magnificent architecture,
A famous monastery.
The valley of emptiness is full of the earth's
vibrations;
Heavenly fragrance pervades the stillness.
Rain in the bluish pines obscures the buildings;
Mist around the green bamboo protects the preaching hall.
Through coloured clouds one can make out the dragon palace;
The infinite worlds are seen in shimmering light.
Red balustrades and doors of marble,
Painted and carved beams.
Incense fills the hall in which the scriptures are taught;
The moon hangs over the window where the mysteries are passed on.
Birds sing in red trees,
Cranes drink from a spring in the rocks.
The flowers as fine as those of the Jetavana;
All the doors open on the brilliance of Sravasti.
Beside the towering buildings the gates face crags;
Slow is the rhythm of the bell and chime.
A light breeze blows into open windows,
And under the rolled-up curtains is a smoky haze.
Among the monks emotions are all calm;
Peace reigns in the absence of worldliness.
A land of immortals unsullied by earth's dust,
This splendid monastery of the pure land.
When he had taken a good look at it Monkey went back to report, “It's a monastery, Master, but for some reason there's something evil about the auspicious dhyana atmosphere. The place looks like the Thunder Monastery but the distance to here is wrong. Whatever we do we mustn't go rushing inside. If we do we may run into something nasty.”
“But if it looks like the Thunder Monastery this must surely be the Vulture Peak,” said the Tang Priest. “Don't try to frustrate my sincerest wish and put off what I've come for.”
“But it isn't vulture peak,” said Monkey. “I've been there several times and this isn't the way.”
“Even if it isn't there must be good people living here,” said Pig.
“Don't be so suspicious,” said Friar Sand. “The road goes straight past the gate, so we can find out at a glance,”