The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 3

by Unknown

  4. Tiantai: a famous mountain of southeastern China, in the modern province of Zhejiang, it is associated with many stories of immortals.

  5. Peng-Ying: that is, the two of the three legendary islands in the East Chian Sea inhabited by immortals and deities. For the narrative’s description of these islands, see JW 2, chapter 26.

  6. Lion king belt: see JW 1, chapter 13, note 7.

  7. Three Lights: that is, the sun, the moon, and the stars.

  8. Eight instruments: literally, bayin , eight kinds of sound produced by silk, bamboo, metal, stone, wood, earth, leather, and the gourd or calabash.

  9. Young boys: malang , generally understood as the unmarried young men of the Miao () tribe. According to their customs, they would serenade young girls in the time of spring by playing reed pipes and singing erotic songs. It is apparent that the previous line of the poem (luji , perch-courtesan or perch-cocotte) and this line exploit sexual imageries, since playing the flute (pinxiao ) is the classic Chinese term for fellatio. As this section of the poem deals with aquatic creatures, the term also alludes to one famous miracle tale of the Bodhisattva Guanyin appearing as the Wife of Mr. Ma (Malang fu ). See Yü, pp. 185–89.

  10. Eight treasure dainties: see JW 1, chapter 5, note 13.

  11. Purple mansion: short for Zixiao fu (Hall of Purple Tenuity), the official residence of the celestial imperium.

  12. “Hook . . . broom”: an allusion to a poem by Song poet Su Shi or Su Dongbo , (1037–1101), who calls wine “the hook for fishing poems and the broom that sweeps away sorrow (, ).”

  13. These characters may have no apparent significance other than sound. However, all of the characters, with the exception of the fourth graph (xi , to breathe in), concern the action of expelling breath from one’s body, such as blowing or snorting. As such, these six words are all associated with the respiratory exercises of the alchemist. See “Oral Formulas of Secret Essentials for Miscellaneous Methods of Ingesting Breath [Fuqi zafa miyao koujue ]” in Yunji qiqian , j 61 in DZ 1032, 22: 433 b–c. According to the Celestial Master’s words here, expelling breaths involve six forms with six effects. Only those with the “Way perfected are able to enact this ().”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  1. Determination’s staff: see chapter 51, note 1.

  2. About 3:00–5:00 p.m.

  3. A bean-curd boat: bean-curds or tofu (doufu ), then and now, are usually kept in containers filled with water so that they may remain fresh and soft.

  4. Boar: hai , one of the Twelve Branches, to which there are corresponding hours of the day, symbolic animals, points of the compass, and the Phases. The symoblical animal of hai is board or hog or pig, and the corresponding phase is wood, just as the symbolical animal of the Branch shen is monkey or ape and the corresponding phase is metal.

  5. Completion’s attained: jiji , after or upon completion. This is the famous sixty-third hexagram (gua ) in the Classic of Change, with the symbol kan (water) above and li (water) below: that is, . According to The I Ching, or Book of Changes, the Richard Wilhelm Translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, Bollingen Series XIX, 3rd ed. (Princeton, 1967), p. 244: “this hexagram is the evolution of T’ai, Peace [hexagram 11]. The transition from confusion to order is completed. And everything is in its proper place even in particulars. The strong lines are in the strong places, the weak lines in the weak places.” Thus the phrase, shuihuo jiji (water and fire upon completion), usually means the state of perfect equilibrium in alchemical lore, another metaphor for the realized elixir.

  6. Three Passes: “The three stages of neidan [internal alchemy] practice are often represented as an initiatory path symbolized by the crossing over [or going through] three Passes” representing “barriers along the Control Channel in the phase of yangization, and along the Function Channel in the phase of yinization. . . . The first pass, at the level of the coccyx, is called weilü (Caudal Funnel). . . . It represents the pivot of energy presided over by the kidneys, which are the santuary of the essence (jing) and organs of water. According to some texts, the weilü is located at the level of the third vertebra above the coccyx, and is called by various names such as . . . heche lu (Path the River Chariot/[Cart]). . . . The second pass, located in the middle of the spinal column where it joins the ribs at chest level (at the shoulder blades), is called jiaji (Spinal Handle [or Spine Ridge]). . . . this Pass is qualified as ‘dual’ (shuangguan ). . . . The third pass is at the level of the occipital bone and is called yuzhen (Jade Pillow).” From the entry on “sanguan, Three Passes” in ET 2: 835–36. Readers may recall that the episode of the Cart Slow Kingdom in chapters 44–46 makes conflated use of the metaphoric images and descriptions of the first two passes.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  1. Twelve hours: the Chinese day traditionally is divided into twelve two-hour periods, and they are designated by the names of the Twelve Branches (e.g., the hour zi refers to the corresponding hours of 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.).

  2. Night and day: literally , one hundred markings. This refers to the markings carved on the ancient clepsydra to indicate a twenty-four-hour period. The most well-known allusions to this instrument and the official in charge of Raising the Vessel (Qiehu Shi ) are to be found in the Zhouli , j 28, 30 in SSJZS 1: 831a, 844c–845a. See Needham, SCC 3: 190–91, 319 ff., for discussions. Later descriptions of baike may be found in Jiu Tangshu , j 35 and Liaoshi , j 44.

  3. One hundred and eight thousand rounds: the figure here should read, actually, one hundred and eighty thousand rounds. The zhou (round) refers to the period of one day or one hundred markings. In one year, there would be thirty-six thousand rounds (100 x 360), and in five years, one hundred and eighty thousand.

  4. Cloudy tower: yunlou or yunfang (, ), names for the abode of Daoist adepts.

  5. Yuanming: = or , actually the attending or presiding spirit (shen ) of the first month of winter, according to the chapter on “Yueling ” in the Record of Rites , j 17 in SSJZS 2: 1380c. In these chapters on the official rituals prescribed for the royal ruler, each month of the year has a presiding “high god (di )” or “spirit (shen ).” The latter is used in the Chinese text here, but the XYJ author might have remembered the passage incorrectly.

  6. Weiyang Palace: , a palace built by Xiao He of the Han. It is located northwest of the modern Xi’an.

  7. The period of 3:00–5:00 p.m.

  8. See JW 1, chapter 13.

  9. Finger-guessing games: , a game usually associated with drinking, in which the two players simultaneously call out numbers and stick out certain fingers in one of their two hands. If the number (from one to ten) called by one party matches the total number of fingers put forth by both players, that party wins.

  10. Śarīra Buddhist treasure: the relic or ashes of a Buddha or a saint after the person is cremated, it is usually depicted in Chinese anecdote and fiction as an egg or pearl-like object. See JW 2, chapter 31. For this and related objects, see the authoritative study by John S. Strong, Relics of the Buddha (Princeton, 2004).

  11. Embroidered-Uniform Guard: , “Imperial Guard, the most prestigious and influential of the Imperial Guards (ch’in-chün wei), functioned as the personal bodyguard of the Emperor; cooperated with influential eunuchs in maintaining an empire-wide, irregular police and judicial service; and provided sinecure appointments for palace hangers-on and favorites, including court painters.” See # 1127 in Hucker, p. 166. The use of this term in the XYJ text leads many scholars to believe that the text published as the 1592 edition had to be a product of the Ming, since the guard was a distinctive institution of this dynasty.

  12. Jianzhang Palace: , another palace west of the modern Xi’an and built in the Han.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  1. Crescent-tooth spade: , a spade or shovel-like weapon on one end, and with a crescent-shaped blade at the other. See Zhou, plate 80, fig. 3. In popular Chinese fiction, the weapon is sometimes called fangbian chan (the shovel of convenient means), and it is usually a weapon of
choice by clerics.

  2. First stroke of yang: that is, the new moon. For the theory of the moon’s appearance as correlated with Classic of Change ideas, see JW 2, chapter 36.

  3. Erlang and the Sages of Plum Mountain: see JW 1, chapter 3.

  4. Stiff Bristles Hog: this is the secular name of Eight Rules at the time of his banishezd incarnation. See JW 1, chapter 19.

  5. The nine-headed bird, according to tradition, usually identified with the canggeng [or ] , possibly the mango-bird or oriole. The source for this particular episode, which attributes its blood-dripping to the fact that a dog has bitten off one of its heads, may be traced perhaps to the story of “Xiuliu mu yeming ,” in TPGJ, j 462, 5: 3799.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  1. Squire Eight-and-Ten: as we shall learn at the end of the chapter, Tripitaka has encountered a number of different tree spirits. The old man now speaking is the spirit of the pine tree, and his name is made of the ideographic components contained in the Chinese graph for pine, song : ten (shi ), eight (ba ), and squire (gong ).

  2. Seven Worthies: see JW 2, chapter 48, note 9.

  3. Six Hermits (or Transcendents): liuyi . These are the five drinking friends of the Tang poet Li Bo/Bai (701–62), who called themselves the Six Hermits of the Bamboo Brook . See [Jiu] Tang Shu , j 190d in Ershiwushi 4: 3586b.

  4. Four White-Haired Ones: sihao , four famous recluses at Mount Shang at the time of Han Gaozu (r. 206–194 BCE), all said to have flowing white hair and beards. See the Han Shu , j 72, in Ershiwushi 1: 0538c.

  5. Tripitaka’s reference to his own age here makes clear again that the fictive pilgrim still on his journey is one wholly different from the historical Xuanzang.

  6. Middle Land: Zhongtu , another name for China.

  7. Primal Origin: yuanshi , possibly a reference to one member of the Daoist “Trinity,” Yuanshi tianzun , now commonly translated as the Celestial Worthy of Original Beginning or Commencement. Mallet and tongs are metaphors for the religious laws or prohibitions. Truth, zhen , in the textual context means the art of realized immortality or transcendence. As noted in JW 1, introduction III, item 13, the several lines of Tripitaka’s exposition here actually quote, with very minor alterations, directly from the “Treatise on the Ascension of the Hall (Shengtang wen ),” in Minghe yuyin , DZ 1100, 24: 308. The relevant portion of the Daozang text is translated in the introduction.

  8. “The power of mindlessness”: an allusion to Zhuangzi , book 12, “Heaven and Earth.”

  9. “The way of no birth”: wusheng zhi dao . This may be a pointed reference to a widespread notion in popular religious movements disseminated principally through Books of Good Deeds (shanshu ) and Precious Scrolls (baojuan ) throughout the Ming-Qing period. The term is specifically associated with the figure of Unborn Venerable Mother (Wusheng Laomu ) celebrated in scroll and tract literatures. See the entry on “baojuan” in ET 1: 212–15, and Janet McGregor Lynn Kerr, “Precious Scrolls in Chinese Popular Religious Culture,” Unpublished PhD dissertation, the University of Chicago, 1994.

  10. “Now, the Dao”: as noted in JW 1, introduction III, item 14, the section following in the Cloud-Brushing Dean’s speech also quotes directly from the same “Treatise on the Ascension of the Hall (Shengtang wen ),” in Minghe yuyin , DZ 1100, 24: 308. The relevant portion of the Daozang text is translated in the introduction. What the XYJ author has done, in other words, is to divide one Daoist text and make portions into different words for two persons conversing: that is, Tripitaka and the tree spirit. For information on the author of the text, one Feng Zunshi , see Chen Ji-aoyou , “Changchun Daojiao yuanliu ,” in Daojiao ziliao di’er ji , ed. Yan Yiping (Taipei, 1974), p. 304; Liu Ts’un-yan, “Quanzhen jiao yu xiaoshuo Xiyouji,” in HFTWJ 3: 1332–35.

  11. Six Periods: liuchao , the Six Dynasties, Wu, Eastern Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen during the third to the sixth century CE, when the literary style was generally dominated by elaborate and florid constructions.

  12. Book of Odes is an earlier preferred translated title of the Classic of Poetry or Shijing , the foundational poetic anthology of Chinese civilization and the text of first importance in the canon of classics. Confucius was traditionally regarded as its chief compiler and editor, deciding crucially what poems were to be included.

  13. “Pushing the Needle”: or the style of the thimble, dingzhen . This is the Chinese rhetorical term for anadiplosis, repetition of the last word of one line to begin the next. Squire Eight-and-Ten thus used the word “spring,” the last one of Tripitaka’s poem, to begin his own.

  14. King’s estrade: this is the Estrade Numina or lingtai, the royal astonomical observatory.

  15. Reply in kind: he . In premodern Chinese poetic practice, replying or responding in kind to a regulated poem (short or long) or a lyric means the composition of another poem using the same end rhyme scheme as that of the first.

  16. “Thrice-blooming . . . scent”: this parallel couplet is actually a near verbatim quotation of two lines by the Song poet Yuan Haowen (1190–1257). In the translation, I follow the original, which reads: “, .” See “Zengda Pu’an shi (A gift as a reply to Master Pu’an),” in Yishan xiansheeng wenji , j 10, 15b–16a (SBCK).

  17. “Long-lived thing”: lingchun , an allusion to the trees mentioned in Zhuangzi, book 1, where it is said that “in the south of Chu, there is the tree named Mingling, whose spring is 500 years and whose autumn is also 500 years. There is high antiquity the tree named Greant Chun, whose spring was 8,000 years and whose autumn was also 8,000 years.” See Liezi, book 5.

  18. Hall of Four Great Things: Sijue tang . The term sijue in the literary tradition often refers to four exceptional kinds of talent such as poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal-making (or seal-script writing). However, it may also refer to an hour before the four dates of Spring Begins, Summer Begins, Autumn Begins, and Winter Begins. The context of the poem would perhaps make the second option the more appropriate reference, because the line seems to be a self-reference of Lonesome Rectitude. On the other hand, the tree spirits and the pilgrim monk are, after all, engaging in a spirited game of poetic contest.

  19. Grand Pure Palace: Taiqing gong , one of the three Daoist Heavens, the other two being the Superior Pure Palace and the Jade Pure Palace. Pure (qing 清) is often translated by contemporary scholars as “clear” or “clarity,” but the Chinese graph conveys a double meaning hard to attain in translation.

  20. Qi-Yu: , the names of two rivers mentioned in the “Weifeng ” section of the Classic of Poetry, according to most traditional Chinese commentators. Most modern scholars, however, take the second graph yu to mean a little bay or recess. Whatever the meaning, the main point of the line here is that his region is noted for its fresh, luxuriant bamboo.

  21. Wei: the name of a river in the modern province of Shaanxi. Tradition has it that its course is flanked by rows of lush bamboos on both banks.

  22. “Mott led sheaths . . . contained”: an allusion to the early Chinese practice of writing on bamboo strips. See the classic study by T.H.Tsien, Written on Bamboo and Silk, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 2004), and Tsien’s volume in SCC V/1 (1985).

  23. Ziyou: Wang Ziyou , who is one of the sons of the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi of the Jin. Ziyou was so fond of bamboos that he once said that he could not live one day without their company. See Jin Shu , j 80, in Ershiwushi 2: 1291d.

  24. “Scholars’ praise”: the bamboo’s particular association with scholars is attributable to the fact that brushes for both Chinese calligraphy and painting have bamboo stems.

  25. Daji: , a variation of Daji , favorite concubine of King Zhou, last tyrant of the Shang.

  26. I have not been able to discover the source of this allusion to Han Wudi’s association with apricot, xing .

  27. Confucius was said to have stood on a platform made of apricot wood to lecture his pupils. See Zhuangzi, book 31.

  28. Dong Xian: . This is Dong Feng , a legendary physician of the Three Kingdoms period.
Instead of asking for the usual fees, Dong requested that his patients pay him with apricot trees. Those with grave illnesses were to plant five trees, while those with minor ailments would plant only one. After a few years, Dong had a large apricot grove.

  29. Sun Chu: was a Jin official with considerable literary reputation. See Jin Shu, j 56, in Ershiwushi 2: 1233a–b, for his biography. To my knowledge, however, there is no historical or documentary justification for his association with the apricot at the time of the Festival of Cold Food (Hanshi ), a time of spring cleaning of graves accompanied by eating cold or uncooked foods. Sun’s relationship with the Festival might have stemmed from the brief mention (in TPYL, j 30, 1: 142b) of his offering a sacrificial eulogy for the noble minister Jie Tui , or Jie Zitui , who was recorded to have served Duke Wen of Jin loyally for nineteen years. When the Duke returned to his state to rule, Jie insisted on remaining as a mountain recluse. When the Duke set fire to the mountain to force his subject to come out and serve, Jie burned himself to death by hugging a tree and refused to let go. The Festival of Cold Food was said to have begun as a popular commemoration for Jie’s virtue and courage.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  1. Ghee: according to Tiantai Buddhism, the perfect truth of Buddha is likened to ghee, or clarified butter . See, for example, the Nirvāṇa and the Lotus Sūtras.

  2. Three Passes: see note 6 of chapter 61, this volume.

  3. “Dipper’s . . . yin”: doubing huiyin , a traditional saying based on the discourse of the Classic of Change, that when the Dipper points to the east (the position of yin), it is spring again.

  4. Wang Wei’s painting: Wang Wei is the Tang poet (701–61) famous for both his poetic “pastoralism” and his landscape paintings. For Wang’s specific remarks on painting mountains, see his “Shanshui lun ,” in Zhongguo hualun leipian , ed. Yu Jianhua (Hong Kong reprint, 1973), pp. 596–97.