The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2 (84 page)

9
. Pearl tree: a mythical tree found in the land of immortals, with the wood of the trunk like that of cedar but with leaves of pearl.

10
. Red steel:
gunwu
, a kind of red steel the name of which is derived from
kunwu
. A sword made of this steel can “slice through jade as if it were mud,” according to the
Liezi
, 5.

11
. Gourd-held scene: literally, the scene within the gourd,
huzhong jing
. The gourd, or
hulu
, is often used for a bottle, flask, vase, or container of drugs and liquids for medicinal and alchemical purposes. Fortune-tellers also use the gourd to store their divinitory sticks or dices. Metaphorically, the gourd also refers to the cave or grotto-heaven,
dongtian
, where adepts and recluses reside and practice their art. “The scene within the gourd” thus serves further as a metaphor for another realm, a transcendent world accessible only through esoteric action.

12
. A book’s one . . . leaf: literally,
yipin
, a highest class or a single grade. But the word
pin
can also refer to
varga
, a division of a sūtra or of the Buddhist canon. This latter meaning seems more appropriate in the present context.

13
. Four Noble Truths: literally, in Chinese,
sisheng
would likely refer to the four sages or four kinds of holy men—śravakas, pratyeka-buddhas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas. If this is the reference here, the poetic line would read something like: “When the four sages are taught [
shou
], they will hear right fruit.” But
sisheng
can also refer to
sishengdi
or
catvāri ārya-satyāni
, the four cardinal doctrines of Buddhism on suffering, its causes, its end, and its deliverance. I have chosen the second meaning for the translation here.

14
. Six stages: the different options of rebirth for ordinary mortals.

15
. Young grove: in Chinese,
shaolin
, a term naming a famous Buddhist monastery on Mount Song (
) in the Dengfeng County (
) of modern Henan (
) province, established during the end of the fifth century. Buddhist lore recounts how Bodhidharma, the legendary founder of Chan Buddhism, accomplished his incomparable feat of meditation facing a wall on site for nine years. Bodhidharma in popular legends was also honored as the patriarch of a particular form of martial arts, pitting bare fists or bamboo rods and wooden staffs against metal weapons. In later centuries, three other monasteries with the same name were allegedly founded in the southeastern coastal regions. Although popular fiction celebrates all four temples as centers of the Shaolin tradition of martial arts, the Henan location was indisputably the official one, being so designated and honored in contemporary China. A legend told through the centuries relates how “monk soldiers (
)” were led to victory by one Vajrapā
ṇ
i (wielder of the thunderbolt), and this may indicate progressive association with Avalokiteśvara, the Indian and Tibetan Guanyin. For discussion of Guanyin’s relations to Chan, see Yü, passim., but esp. pp. 360–64 on the cult of Guanyin in the coastal region of Hangzhou. For an authoritative study of the monastery, see Meir Shahar,
The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion and the Chinese Martial Arts
(Honolulu, 2008).