by Unknown
When Tripitaka heard these words, he thought they were the truth and immediately asked Eight Rules to loosen the ropes and rescue the child. Not knowing any better either, Idiot was about to act when Pilgrim on one side could not restrain himself any longer. “You brazen thing!” he shouted. “There’s someone here who recognizes you! Don’t think you can use your humbuggery to hoodwink people! If your possessions were stolen, if your father was killed and your mother taken by thieves, to whom would we entrust you once we rescued you? With what would you thank us? Your fables don’t add up!”
When the fiend heard these words, he became frightened, realizing that the Great Sage was an able man to be reckoned with. Trembling all over, the fiend spoke as tears flowed down his face, “Master, though my parents are lost and gone, and though the wealth of our family is reduced to nothing, I still have some land and relatives.” “What sort of relatives do you have?” asked Pilgrim. The fiend said, “The household of my maternal family lives south of this mountain, while my aunties reside north of the peak. Li Four at the head of the brook is the husband of my mother’s sister, and Red Three in the forest is a distant uncle. I have, moreover, several cousins living here and there in the village. If Venerable Master is willing to save me and take me to see these relatives at the village, I shall certainly give them a thorough account of your kindness, and you will be handsomely rewarded when we sell some of our land.”
When Eight Rules heard what he said, he pushed Pilgrim aside, saying, “Elder Brother, this is only a child! Why keep on interrogating him? What he told us was that the thieves had robbed them of their liquid assets. They couldn’t take their houses and land, could they? If he will speak to his relatives, we may have huge appetites, but we can’t eat up the price of ten acres of land. Let’s cut him down.” Idiot, of course, thought only of food; he had no further regard for good or ill, and using the ritual razor, he ripped open the ropes to free the fiend. Facing the Tang Monk tearfully, the fiend knelt beneath the horse and kept on kowtowing. A compassionate man, the elder called out, “Child, get up on the horse. I’ll take you there.” “O Master,” said the fiend, “my hands and feet are numb from the hanging, and my torso hurts. Moreover, I’m a rural person and not used to riding horses.” The Tang Monk at once asked Eight Rules to carry him, but the fiend, after glancing at Idiot, said, “Master, my skin is frostbitten, and I dare not let myself be carried by this master. He has such a long mouth and large ears, and the hard bristles behind his head can be frightfully prickly!” “Let Sha Monk carry you then,” said the Tang Monk. After glancing at him also, the fiend said, “Master, when those robbers came to plunder our house, each one of them had his face painted; they wore false beards and they held knives and staffs. I was terribly frightened by them, and now when I see this master with such a gloomy complexion, I’m even more intimidated. I just don’t dare to ask him to carry me.” The Tang Monk therefore told Pilgrim Sun to put the fiend on his back. Laughing uproariously, Pilgrim said, “I’ll carry him! I’ll carry him!”
Secretly pleased, the fiendish creature gave himself willingly to Pilgrim to carry. When Pilgrim pulled him up from the side of the road to test his weight, he found that the fiend weighed no more than three catties and ten ounces. “You audacious fiend!” said Pilgrim, laughing. “You deserve to die today! How dare you pull tricks before old Monkey? I recognize you to be ‘that something.’” “I’m the offspring of a good family,” said the fiend, “and it is my misfortune to face this great ordeal. What do you mean by ‘that something’?” “If you are an offspring of a good family,” said Pilgrim, “why are your bones so light?” “They are small,” said the fiend. “How old are you now?” said Pilgrim, and the fiend said, “I’m seven years old.” “Even if you put on only one catty of weight per year,” said Pilgrim, “you should now weigh seven catties. How is it that you are not even a full four catties?” “I didn’t get enough milk when I was a baby,” said the fiend. Pilgrim said, “All right, I’ll carry you, but if you want to piss, you must tell me.” Tripitaka then walked in front with Eight Rules and Sha Monk, while Pilgrim followed behind with the child on his back. As they proceeded toward the West, we have a poem as a testimony, and the poem says:
Though virtue’s lofty, demonic blocks are high.
Chan promotes stillness, but stillness breeds fiends.
Lord of the Mind’s upright, he takes the middle way;
Wood Mother’s3 naughty, he walks a wayward path.
Horse of the Will’s silent, nursing want and greed;
Yellow Dame’s wordless, feeling his unease.
Guest-Error succeeds but his joys are vain—
They will, at last, be melted by the Right.
As the Great Sage Sun carried the demon on his back, he began to brood over his resentment toward the Tang Monk, thinking to himself, “Master truly does not know how difficult it is to traverse this rugged mountain; it’s hard enough to do so when you are empty-handed, but he has to ask old Monkey to carry someone else, not to mention a fellow who’s a monster no less. Even if he were a good man, it would be worthless to carry him along, since he had already lost both parents. To whom would we carry him? I might as well smash him dead!” At once the fiendish creature became aware of what Pilgrim was thinking and he, therefore, resorted to magic: taking four deep breaths from the four quarters, he blew them onto the back of Pilgrim, and his bearer immediately felt as if a weight of a thousand pounds were on him. “My child,” said Pilgrim, chuckling, “you are using the heavy-body magic to crush your venerable father?” When the fiend heard those words, he became afraid that the Great Sage might harm him. He liberated himself from his corpse and his primal soul rose into the air and stood there, while the weight on Pilgrim’s back grew heavier. Growing angry, the Monkey King grabbed the body on his back and hurled it against some rocks at the side of the road; the body was reduced to a meat patty. Fearing that it would still be resistant, Pilgrim tore off the four limbs and smashed them to pieces, also by the road.
When the fiend saw clearly what happened in midair, he could not restrain the fire leaping up in his heart, saying to himself, “This monkey monk! How villainous of him! Even if I am a demon plotting to harm your master, I have yet to raise my hand. How could you seek to inflict on me such injury? It’s a good thing that I have enough foresight to leave with my spirit; otherwise, I would have unwittingly lost my life. I might as well make use of this opportunity to seize the Tang Monk, for if I delay any further, he might get even smarter.” Dear monster! He at once caused to rise in midair a truly fierce whirlwind, which threw up rocks and kicked up dirt. Marvelous wind!
Angrily it whipped up clouds and waters rank,
As rising black ether blotted out the sun.
All summit trees were pulled out by their roots;
Wild plums were wholly leveled with their branches.
Yellow sand dimmed the eyes, so men could not walk.
Strange rocks battered the road, how could it be smooth?
It churned and tossed to darken all the plains
While birds and beasts howled throughout this whole mount.
The wind blew until Tripitaka could hardly stay on the horse, until Eight Rules refused to look up and Sha Monk lowered his head and covered his face. Only the Great Sage Sun knew that it was a wind sent up by the fiend, but when he ran forward to try to catch up with the others, the fiend riding on the head of the wind had already caught hold of the Tang Monk and whisked him away. Instantly they vanished without a trace, so that there was no way for the disciples to know even where to look for them.
In a little while, the wind began to subside and sunlight appeared once more. Pilgrim walked forward and saw that the white dragon horse was still trembling and neighing uncontrollably. The load of luggage was thrown by the road, Eight Rules lay sprawled beneath a ledge moaning, and Sha Monk was making noises while crouching on the slope. “Eight Rules!” shouted Pilgrim. When Idiot heard the voice of Pilgrim and looked up, th
e violent wind had calmed. He scrambled up and tugged at Pilgrim, saying, “O Elder Brother, what a terrific wind!” Sha Monk also came up and said, “Elder Brother, this is a whirlwind.” Then he asked, “Where’s Master?” Eight Rules said, “The wind was so strong that we all hid our heads and covered our eyes, each trying to find shelter. Master seemed to have put his head down also on the saddle.” “But where is he now?” asked Pilgrim. “He must have been made of straw,” said Sha Monk, “and got blown away!”
Pilgrim said, “Brothers, it’s time for us to disband.” “Exactly,” said Eight Rules, “while there’s still time. It’s better for each of us to find our own way off. The journey to the Western Heaven is endless and limitless! When will we ever get there?” When Sha Monk heard these words, he was so shocked that his whole body began to turn numb. “Elder Brother,” he said, “how could you say something like that? Because we committed crimes in our previous lives, we were lucky to be enlightened by the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin, who touched our heads, gave us the commandments, and changed our names so that we could embrace the Buddhist fruit. We willingly accepted the commission to protect the Tang Monk and follow him to the Western Heaven to worship Buddha and acquire scriptures, so that our merits would cancel out our sins. Today we are here and everything seems to come to an end abruptly when you can talk about each of us finding our own way off, for then we would mar the good fruits of the Bodhisattva and destroy our virtuous act. Moreover, we would provoke the scorn of others, saying that we know how to start but not how to finish.”
“Brother,” said Pilgrim, “what you say is right, of course, but what are we to do with Master, who refuses to listen to people? I, old Monkey, can with this pair of fiery eyes and diamond pupils discern good and evil. Just now this wind was called up by that child hanging on the tree, for I could tell that he was a monster-spirit. But you didn’t know, nor did Master; all of you thought that he was an offspring of some good family and told me to carry him along instead. Old Monkey was planning to take care of him when he tried to crush me with the heavy-body magic. Then I smashed his body to pieces, but he resorted to the magic of the liberation of the corpse and kidnapped Master with the whirlwind. Because Master so frequently refused to listen to my words, I became terribly discouraged and that was why I said we should disband. Now that you, Worthy Brother, have shown such faithfulness, old Monkey finds it difficult to make up his mind. Well, Eight Rules, what exactly do you want to do?” Eight Rules said, “I was stupid enough just now to mouth some foolish words, but we truly should not disband. We have no choice really, Elder Brother, but to listen to Younger Brother Sha and try to find the monster and save Master.” Brightening up all at once, Pilgrim said, “Brothers, we shall unite our minds to do what we must; after we have picked up the luggage and the horse, we shall ascend this mountain to find the monster and save Master.”
Pulling at creepers and vines, descending into ravines and crossing streams, the three of them journeyed for some seventy miles without turning up anything. That mountain did not have a single bird or beast, though old cedars and pines were often sighted. Growing more and more anxious, the Great Sage Sun leaped up to the summit with a bound and shouted, “Change!” He changed into someone with three heads and six arms, just as he did when he caused great disturbance in Heaven. Waving the golden-hooped rod once, he changed it into three rods, which he wielded and began to strike out madly in both directions of east and west. When Eight Rules saw him, he said, “Sha Monk, this is bad! Elder Brother is so mad because he can’t find Master that he’s having a fit.”
After awhile, the mock combat of Pilgrim brought out a band of indigent deities, all dressed in rags; their breeches had no seats and their trousers had no cuffs. Kneeling before the mountain, they cried, “Great Sage, the mountain gods and the local spirits are here to see you.” Pilgrim said, “How is it that there are so many mountain gods and local spirits?” Kowtowing, the various deities said, “Let us report to the Great Sage, this mountain has the name of Roaring Mountain of the Six-Hundred-Mile Awl-Head Peak.4 There are one mountain god and one local spirit for each ten-mile distance; altogether we have, therefore, thirty mountain gods and thirty local spirits. We heard yesterday already that the Great Sage had arrived, but since we could not assemble all at once, we were tardy in our reception and caused the Great Sage to be angry. Please pardon us.”
“I’ll pardon you for the moment,” said Pilgrim, “but let me ask how many monster-spirits there are in this mountain?”
“O Father!” said the deities, “there’s only one monster-spirit, and he has just about worn our heads bald! He has been such a plague that we have little incense and no paper money, and we are completely without offerings. Every one of us has hardly enough clothes to wear and food for our mouths. How many more monster-spirits could we stand?” Pilgrim said, “Where is this monster-spirit living, before or behind the mountain?” “Neither place,” said the deities, “for in this mountain is a stream, which has the name of Dried Pine Stream. By the stream is a cave, which has the name of Fiery Cloud Cave. In the cave there is a demon king of vast magic powers, who frequently abducts us local spirits and mountain gods there to do such menial tasks for him as tending fire, guarding the door, beating the rattle, and shouting passwords at night. The little fiends under him also ask us frequently for payola.”
“You are the immortals of the Region of Darkness,” said Pilgrim. “Where would you have money?” “Exactly,” said the deities. “We don’t have any money to give them, and all we can do is to catch a few mountain antelopes or wild deer to pay off this gang of spirits now and then. If we don’t have any presents for them, they will come to wreck our temples and strip our garments, giving us such harrassment that we can’t possibly lead a peaceful existence. We beseech the Great Sage to stamp out this monster for us and rescue the various living creatures on this mountain.” “If all of you are under his thumb so that you have to be in his cave frequently,” said Pilgrim, “you must know the name of this monster-spirit and where he is from.” “When we speak of him,” said the deities, “perhaps even the Great Sage knows of his origin. He is the son of the Bull Demon King, reared by Rākṣasī. After he had practiced self-cultivation at the Blazing Flame Mountain for three hundred years, he perfected the true fire of Samādhi and his magic powers were great indeed. The Bull Demon King told him to come and guard this Roaring Mountain; his childhood name is Red Boy, but his fancy title is Great King Holy Child.”
Highly pleased by what he heard, Pilgrim dismissed the local spirits and mountain gods and changed back into his original form. Leaping down from the summit, he said to Eight Rules and Sha Monk, “Brothers, you may relax. No need to worry anymore. Master won’t be harmed, for the monster-spirit is related to old Monkey.” “Elder Brother,” said Eight Rules with a laugh, “don’t lie! You grew up in the East Pūrvavideha Continent, but this place here belongs to the West Aparagodānīya Continent. The distance is great, separated by ten thousand waters and a thousand hills, and by at least two oceans. How could he be related to you?” Pilgrim said, “Just now this bunch of deities that appeared to me happen to be the local spirits and mountain gods of this region. When I questioned them on the origin of the monster, they told me that he was the son of the Bull Demon King reared by Rākṣasī. His name is Red Boy, and he also has the fancy title of Great King Holy Child. I remember that when old Monkey caused great disturbance in Heaven five hundred years ago, I made a grand tour at the time of the famous mountains in the world to search for the heroes of this great Earth. The Bull Demon King at one time joined old Monkey and others to form a fraternal alliance of seven; of the some five or six demon kings in this alliance, only old Monkey was quite small in size. That was the reason why we addressed the Bull Demon King as big brother. Since this monster-spirit is the son of the Bull Demon King, who is an acquaintance of mine, I should be regarded as his old uncle if we begin to talk about relations. How would he dare harm my master? Let’s get to his place
quickly.”
With laughter, Sha Monk said, “O Elder Brother! As the proverb says,
Three years not showing at the door,
A relative is one no more.
You were parted from him for five, perhaps six hundred years; you haven’t even drunk a cup of wine with him, nor have you exchanged invitations or seasonal gifts. How could he possibly think of himself as your relative?” “How could you measure people this way?” said Pilgrim. “As the proverb says,
If lotus leaf can to the ocean flow,
Where would people not meet as they come and go?
Even if he doesn’t admit the fact that we are relatives, it will still be unlikely that he would harm my Master. If we don’t expect him to give us a banquet, we most certainly may expect him to return to us the Tang Monk whole.” So, the three brothers in all earnestness led the horse, which carried the luggage on its back, and found the main road to proceed.
Without stopping night or day, they came upon a pine forest after having traveled for over a hundred miles. Inside the forest was a winding brook in which clear green water swiftly flowed. At the head of the brook there was a stone-slab bridge, which led directly up to the entrance of a cave dwelling. “Brothers,” said Pilgrim, “look at that craggy cliff over there with all those rocks. It must be the home of the monster-spirit. Let me discuss the matter with you: which of you is going to stand and guard the luggage and the horse, and which of you will follow me to subdue the fiend?” Eight Rules said, “Elder Brother, old Hog can’t sit still for too long. Let me go with you.” “Fine! Fine!” said Pilgrim. “Sha Monk, hide the luggage and the horse deep in the forest, and guard them carefully. The two of us will go up there to search for Master.” Sha Monk agreed; Eight Rules then followed Pilgrim to move forward, each of them holding his weapon. Truly
