The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2 (105 page)

7
. Celestial Worthies: the title Tianzun
is reserved for the trio of the highest deities in the Daoist pantheon. Literally, the title may be translated as the Heavenly Honored Ones. I follow here the translation standardized in the entry on “
sanqing
” or
(variously rendered as Three Clarities, Three Purities, or Three Pure Ones) in ET 2: 840–44.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

1
. Lüliang Cascade:
, a famous double waterfall located in Jiangsu province, southeast of the county Tongshan
.

2
. Magic of Five Thunder:
. This is a reference to one of the Daoist rituals developed in the Song. See Edward L. Davis,
Society and the Supernatural in Song China
(Honolulu, 2001), pp. 24–44.

3
. The last four lines of the poem allude to the phenomenon of spring storm; hence the thunder is associated with “arousing the torpid (
jingche
),” the third of the twenty-four solar terms (approx. March 5–20) when insects come out of their dormancy or winter quarters as the spring equinox approaches.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

1
. Little Mao Mountain:
, one of three mountains, also bearing the name Gouqu
, in Jiangsu province. Legend has it that one Mao Ying
, also known as Lord Mao
, of the Han period came to the mountain and became an immortal. He was followed by two brothers who also practiced austerities in the region. The mountain is thus named the Three Mao Mountain: Big, Middle, and Small. See entry on “Maojun” in ET 2: 733–35.

2
. This poem uttered by the king is actually a lyric written to the tune of “The Partridge Sky.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

1
. Nodal fate:
qishu
, literally, the fate or destiny of an individual or group based on its correlation with the pneumatic significance (presumably measurable in some manner to the discerning eye or mind) of the year’s calendrical nodal periods (
jie
, a term deriving directly from the successive knots on a bamboo stalk), each with its distinctive character. It is hence common practice, in both historiography and fiction, to decipher or interpret the fate to rise or decline of a person, a household (e.g., the Ximen or Jia clans), or a dynastic state with the concept.

2
. The names of the two brothers are made up of the common Chinese phrase,
chengqing
, meaning to clean out or clarify completely, to scour clean.