The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2 (42 page)

    
By nodding their heads call forth the eastern sun,

    
And with one breath disperse all Heaven’s stars.

In a little while, the eastern sky paled with light. Pilgrim thereupon gave the following instruction to Eight Rules and Sha Monk, “Don’t disturb the monks, so that they won’t be milling about in the monastery. When I have accomplished what I must do, then we’ll journey again.” He took leave of them and somersaulted at once into the air. Opening wide his fiery eyes to look toward the West, he discovered that there was indeed a city. “How could he see it so readily?” you ask. The fact of the matter was that the city, as we told you before, was only forty miles away. So, the moment Pilgrim rose into the air, he saw it immediately.

As Pilgrim drew near the city and stared at it carefully, he saw that it was shrouded by unending layers of eerie mists and battered by constant gusts of demonic wind. Sighing to himself in the air, Pilgrim said,

    
If a true king ascends his precious throne,

    
Auspicious light and clouds will this place enfold.

    
Since
a fiend has usurped the dragon seat,

    
Rising black mist seals up the doors of gold.

He was thus speaking to himself when he heard the loud booms of cannons. As the eastern gate swung open, a troop of men and horses appeared, indeed a hunting corps most fearsome in appearance. You see them:

    
Leaving the capital at dawn,

    
They go to hunt on the meadow.

    
Bright banners unfurl in the sun;

    
White stallions race against the wind.

    
The lizard-skin drums roll and roll

    
As tasseled lances strike in pairs.

    
The falconers are ferocious,

    
And whippers-in both mean and strong.

    
Fire cannons rattle the heavens

    
And birdlime poles glow in the sun.

    
Each one props up his arrows;

    
Every man wears his carved bows.

    
Spreading their nets beneath the slope,

    
They pull taut the ropes in the paths.

    
At one crack like a thunderclap,

    
A thousand steeds charge leopards and bears.

    
Tricky hares cannot save their lives;

    
Wily deer are at their wits’ end;

    
Foxes are fated to expire;

    
Antelopes perish in the midst.

    
If pheasants can’t fly to escape,

    
Could wild fowls find refuge from harm?

    
All of them ransack the mountain range to capture wild beasts,

    
And cut down the forest to shoot at flying things!

After those people had come out of the city, they spread out in the countryside toward the east, and in a little while they reached the rice fields on the highland some twenty miles away. In the midst of the troops there was a young warrior, who

    
Wore a helmet

    
And a cuirass;

    
A cummerbund, too,

    
Of eighteen layers.

His hands held a treasure sword of blue steel and he rode a brown warhorse. A fully strung bow also hung from his waist. Truly

    
He
seemed faintly like a king,

    
A ruler with noble looks.

    
His features were not uncouth:

    
Like a true dragon he moved.

Secretly pleased in the air, Pilgrim said to himself, “That one has to be the crown prince. Let me tease him a little.” Dear Great Sage! He lowered his cloud and darted straight into the army of the prince. Shaking his body once, he changed instantly into a little white rabbit, scampering about before the prince’s horse. When the prince saw it, he could not have been more delighted. Pulling out an arrow, he stretched his bow to the fullest and shot the rabbit squarely with it.

The Great Sage, of course, had made it possible for the prince to hit him; being quick of hand and eye, he actually had caught the arrow. After dropping some of the arrow’s feathers on the ground, he turned and sped away. When the prince saw the arrow had found its mark on the rabbit, he urged his horse on to give chase all by himself. He did not realize that he was being led away deliberately: when the horse galloped, Pilgrim ran like the wind, but when the horse slowed down, Pilgrim also took up a more leisurely pace just to stay slightly ahead of him. Mile after mile it went on like this, until the prince was lured right up to the gate of the Precious Grove Monastery. Changing back into his true form (the rabbit thus disappeared and only the hawk-feathered arrow was stuck on the doorpost), Pilgrim raced inside yelling to the Tang Monk, “Master, he’s here, he’s here!” He changed again, this time into a tiny monk about two inches tall, and crawled at once into the red box.

We now tell you about the prince, who chased his prey right up to the monastery gate; he could not find the white rabbit, but he saw an eagle-plumed arrow stuck on the doorpost. Greatly startled and turning pale, the prince said, “Strange! Strange! I clearly shot the white rabbit with my arrow. How could the rabbit disappear, and only the arrow be seen here? It must be that after years and months, the rabbit has turned into a spirit.” He pulled out the arrow and raised his head to look: there on top of the gate of the monastery were written seven words in large characters, “Precious Grove Monastery Built by Imperial Command.” “Now I know,” said the prince. “Years ago my father king, I recall, did send some officials from the Hall of Golden Chimes to take some gold here so that the monks could redecorate the images and the halls. I didn’t expect that I would be here today. Truly,

    
There, in a bamboo-shaded walk,

    
With a good monk I fell to talk.

    
So
in this tedious mortal round

    
One afternoon of peace I found.
¹¹

Let me go inside for a walk.”

Leaping down from the horse, the prince was about to enter the monastery, when those three thousand men and horses who were accompanying him also arrived. As they crowded into the monastery, the resident monks hurriedly came kowtowing to receive them into the main hall so that they could pay homage to the images of Buddha. Afterwards, they raised their eyes to look about, intending to tour the corridors and enjoy the scenery, when they suddenly discovered that there was a monk sitting right in the middle of the hall. Becoming enraged at once, the prince said, “This monk is terribly rude! Half a throne of this dynasty has entered this monastery. Though I have issued no decree for this visit so that he has been spared from meeting us at a great distance, he should now at least get up when soldiers and horses are at the door. How dare he sit there unmoved? Seize him!”

He said “Seize,” and the guards on both sides immediately attempted to catch hold of the Tang Monk so that they could bind him with ropes. Sitting in the box, Pilgrim recited in silence a spell, saying, “You various Guardians of the Faith, the Six Gods of Darkness and the Six Gods of Light, I am drawing up a plan to subdue a fiend. This prince, ignorant of the matter, is about to have my master bound with ropes. All of you must protect him. If he’s really bound, you all will be found guilty.” When the Great Sage gave such an order in secret, who would dare disobey him! The deities indeed gave protection to Tripitaka in such a way that those people could not even touch his bald head. It was as if a brick wall had come between them, so that they could not approach him at all.

“Where did you come from, monk,” said the prince, “that you dare use this magic of body concealment to mock me?” Tripitaka walked up to him instead and saluted him, saying, “This poor monk does not know any magic of body concealment. I am the Tang Monk from the Land of the East, a priest going to present treasures to Buddha and to acquire scriptures from him in the Western Heaven.” The prince said, “Though your Land of the East is actually the central plains, it is incomparably poor. What kind of treasures do you have? You tell me!” “The cassock I have on my body,” said Tripitaka, “is a treasure of the third class. But I have in addition those of the first and second classes as well, and they are even better things.” “That garment of yours,” said the prince, “covers only one side of your body, while your arm sticks out on the other side. How much could it be worth that you dare call it a treasure?” Tripitaka said, “Though this cassock does not completely
cover the body, I have several lines of a poem which will reveal its excellence. The poem says:

    
The Buddha’s gown’s a half robe, there’s no need to say.

    
It hides within the Real, free of worldly dust.

    
Countless threads and stitches perfect this right fruit;

    
Eight treasures and nine pearls fuse with the primal soul.

    
Maidens divine did make it reverently

    
To give to a monk to cleanse his sullied frame.

    
It’s all right to see but not to greet the Throne.

    
But you, your father’s wrong unrequited, have lived in vain!”

When the prince heard these words, he grew very angry, saying, “This brazen Chan monk is talking rubbish! Your clever mouth and slippery tongue may boast all you will of that half a piece of garment. But since when have I not requited my father’s wrong? You tell me.”

Taking a step forward, Tripitaka folded his hands and said, “Your Highness, how many favors does a man receive as he lives in this world?” “Four favors,” said the prince. “Which four?” asked Tripitaka. “The favor of shelter and support provided by Heaven and Earth,” said the prince, “the favor of the luminous presence of the sun and the moon, the favor of provisions from the ruler and his land, and the favor of his parents’ breeding and nurture.” With a smile, Tripitaka said, “The words of Your Highness are not quite right. A man has only the shelter and support of Heaven and Earth, the luminous presence of the sun and the moon, and the provisions from the land of his king. Where does he get his parent’s breeding and nurture?”

“This monk,” said the prince angrily, “is an idle and ungrateful man, who shaves his hair only to commit treason! If a man has no parental breeding and nurture, where does his body come from?”

“Your Highness,” said Tripitaka, “this humble monk does not know the answer, but inside this red box is a treasure called the King-Making Thing. He has knowledge of events of the past five hundred years, the present five hundred years, and the future five hundred years. All in all, he knows completely the events of past and future for a period of one thousand five hundred years, and he knows that there is no such favor of parental breeding and nurture. It is he who has ordered your poor monk to wait here for you for a long time.”

Hearing this, the prince gave the order, “Bring him here for me to see.” Tripitaka pulled open the box’s cover; Pilgrim leaped out and began to hobble all over the place. The prince said, “This little midget! What can he know?” When Pilgrim heard this remark about his size, he at once resorted to magic. Straightening up his torso, he grew about three and a half feet instantly. “If he can grow that rapidly,” said the soldiers, highly startled, “it
will
only be a few days before he pierces the sky.” When Pilgrim reached his normal height, however, he stopped growing. Then the prince asked him, “King-Making Thing, this old monk claims that you have the knowledge of past and future, of good and evil. Do you divine by the tortoise shell, by the stalks of plants, or do you use books to determine human fortunes?” “None of these,” said Pilgrim, “for

    
I need my three-inch tongue solely,

    
When I know all things completely.”

“This fellow, too, is babbling!” said the prince. “Since the time of antiquity, the book,
Classic of Change
of the Zhou dynasty, has proved to be supremely marvelous in determining throughout the world good and evil for man to seek or avoid. Therefore tortoise shells or plant stalks are used for divination. But if one relies solely on your words, what evidence is there? Your empty words on luck or misfortune can only vex the minds of people.”

Pilgrim said, “Please do not be hasty, Your Highness. You are actually a prince begotten of the King of the Black Rooster Kingdom. Five years ago, you had a severe drought here and all the people were in such great suffering that your king and his subjects had to offer fervent prayers. Though not a drop of rain came, a Daoist arrived from the Zhongnan Mountain, who was an expert in summoning wind and rain and in transforming stone into gold. The king was so fond of him that he became his sworn brother. Is all this true?”