The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 4

by Unknown

  Their births with us in paradise

  Will be this body’s recompense.

  All the Buddhas of past, present, future in all the world,

  The various Honored Bodhisattvas and Mahāsattvas,

  Mahā-prajñā-pāramitā!

  Here ends The Journey to the West.

  Notes

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  1. Three Forces: sancai , that is, Heaven, Human, and Earth.

  2. Clear Brightness: qingming , one of the twenty-four solar “Nodes,” spaced at approximately fifteen-day intervals, that divide the Chinese year. Clear Brightness usually occurs around April 6 of the Gregorian Calendar. It is generally a time for sweeping family tombs in the countryside, offering sacrifices, picnicking, eating cold foods, and flying kites. See Bodde, pp. 296 and 394.

  3. Mace . . . candareen: traditional monetary (silver) units in China, the mace (qian ) is one-tenth of the Chinese ounce or tael (liang ), and the candareen (fen ) is one-tenth of the mace.

  4. The dread day of the Red Sand: hongsha . According to calendrical literature, certain days of certain months bear the name of Red Sand, and such days are inauspicious (ji ) for marriages. See the Qinding xieji bianfang shu , j 36, 44a–b (Siku quanshu zhenben ; Taiwan Commercial facs. edition).

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  1. One Body: see JW 3, chapter 58, note 1. “True Suchness” is the Bhūtatathatā, yiru , the absolute or norm, or zhenru , the true suchness or character of reality.

  2. Substances and forms: the technical Buddhist term used in the original is tixiang , substance and characteristics or phenomena. The first stands for the unity, the second for the diversity, of all things.

  3. Six evils . . . desires: The six organs are the liugen , the six indriyas or sense organs of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The six desires, liuyu , are the lustful attractions forming from color, form, carriage, speech, touch (i.e., smoothness or soft-ness), and features.

  4. Six paths—six forms of birth: that is, liusheng liudao liuqu , the six directions of reincarnation.

  5. Thirty-six Halls: sanshiliu gong , the traditional number of halls or palatial chambers in the Han palace.

  6. Forms or features: xingse , or samsthānarūpa, which are the features or characteristics of form—long short, square, round, high, low, straight, and crooked. These are what also awaken or stimulate the six desires.

  7. Let Oṁ . . . : for the translation of the spell, see JW 3, chapter 65, note 7.

  8. North Heaven Gate: Dhṛtarāṣṭra, , the Maharāja-deva who keeps his kingdom, is usually associated with the East. I have not emended the text.

  9. Luminsecent pearl: see JW 1, chapter 12, for the description of Tripitaka’s cassock.

  10. Wall-climbing priests: in traditional Chinese fiction, such clerics are usually either thieves or adulterers.

  11. Brocade-fragrance: jinxiang , usually a metaphor for the pomegranate.

  12. Wondrous palm: Posuo , another name for the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha was supposed to have attained enlightenment. See the Youyang zazu , j 18, 6a–b (SBCK).

  13. Restrained the Bull Demon: see JW 3, chapter 61.

  14. Mahārāja Mayūra: the former incarnation of Śākyamuni, said to be a peacock, also manifests himself as a four-armed mahārāja bodhisattva riding a peacock. Hence I have retained the masculine gender in the translation.

  15. Wisdom: literally, famen , dharmaparyāya, those teachings or wisdom of Buddha venerated as the gate to enlightenment.

  16. The head that had once supported a nest of magpies: during the time of intense meditation that led to his final enlightenment, the Buddha’s appearance was said to so resemble a tree that magpies or other kinds of birds nested on his head and laid eggs in the nest. See the Dachidu lun (the Mahāprañā-pāramita Śāstra), j 17, #1509, T 25: 188. See also the “Xiangmo bianwen ,” in DHBWJ, 1: 377.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  1. Causations: yuan , pratyaya, the conditional or circumstantial causation that gives rise to every phenomenon in the world.

  2. Great Canopy: Daluo tian , the Great Canopy Heaven is the highest level in the Daoist Heaven. See ET 1: 299.

  3. Folk songs: an allusion to the alleged ancient tradition (dating from the Han) that folk songs were most expressive of the mores and temper of the people, especially in their discontent with bad governmental policies or wicked officials. Such songs or poems would be gathered by officials to be presented to the ruler, presumably for an admonitory purpose. See, for example, the “Zhou Yu ,” in Guo Yu , j 1, 5a (SBBY): “therefore the Son of Heaven, attending to governmental affairs, would order the ministers down to the ranked officials to present poems .”

  4. For medical supplement, see JW 3, chapter 69, note 12.

  5. Buddha of Medicine: , the buddha who heals all illnesses, including the disease of ignorance.

  6. The Great: the original text is mohe , the Chinese transcription for Mahā, meaning great or large.

  7. Triratna: literally, sangui , the three refuges of the Buddhist, being the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha.

  8. Five laws or rules of prohibition: wujie , the first five of the ten commandments, against the taking of life, stealing, adultery, lying, and taking intoxicating drinks.

  9. The journey to the West . . . darkness: this is a pun on the popular phrase, shang xi-tian (ascending the western Heaven), which means death.

  10. Great knowledge . . . comprehensive: dazhi xianxian , a phrase quoted from Book 1 of the Zhuangxi , j 1, 11b (SBBY).

  11. This lengthy disquisition articulating an implied critique of Daoism from the Buddhist point of view is actually fashioned from selected lines and phrases from a “Rhymeprose on the Ground of the Mind, Xindi fu ,” by Sanyu Zhenren , in Minghe yuyin , DZ 1100, 24: 305. See discussion also in JW 1, introduction II, item 16. The line uttered by Tripitaka—“For a mind purified shines in solitary enlightenment ”—is a verbatim quotation from the rhymeprose, and it will be cited again in JW, chapter 85, when Pilgrim chides his Master for not remembering the essential lessons of mind cultivation.

  12. Two Eights: erba ; for a discussion of this term and its sources, see JW 2, chapter 36, notes 21 and 23.

  13. Three Nines: sanjiu . Three times nine is twenty-seven. This is likely a reference to alchemical theories based on the lunar month correlated with the lore of the Classic of Change. At the end of the month (between the twenty-seventh and thirtieth day), the moon is almost completely obscure, but when the crescent first appears like a thin line thereafter, the force of yang thus graphically represented is said to grow once more. See JW 2, chapter 36, note 21.

  14. As noted also in JW 1, introduction III, item 17, the words of the Daoist royal father-in-law are actually assembled from parts of a “Rhymeprose on Honoring the Way, Zun-dao fu ,” by the Song emperor Renzong (1040–63), collected in the Minhe yuyin , in DZ 1100, 24: 305.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  1. Babies: in the context of this episode, the word refers, of course, to the young boys Pilgrim has rescued. But the Chinese term, ying’er , with its inherent numerical ambiguity, may have been used, deliberately but also facetiously, to enhance the allegorical flavor of the story, since as we have pointed out throughout the novel, the term “baby boy” is a standard metaphor for the state of realized immortality in internal alchemy.

  2. Many hearts: a pun, since the Chinese term, duoxin , can also mean fickle or suspicious.

  3. Black heart: this brief episode is built on an extended pun on the term, because heixin , is a well-known metaphor for an evil heart and mind.

  4. Hall of Careful Conduct: literally, the Hall of careful or vigilant surveillance of one’s personal conduct. The term jinshen is an ironical allusion to Bk. 6 of the Classic of Filial Piety : “To keep careful watch over one’s personal conduct and to spend frugally in order to care for one’s parents—this is the filiality of the common people , , .”

  5. Langyuan: , an abode of immortals.
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br />   6. Peng and Ying: Penglai and Yingzhou, two of the three famous mythical islands on which immortals live. For a brief description of their scenic splendor and inhabitants, see JW 2, chapter 26.

  7. Supreme Ruler of the East: Donghua dijun , the deity who inhabits the blessed island of Fangzhang . See JW 2, chapter 26.

  8. Reversion of the elixir: huandan , “a generic term” in inner alchemy wherein the process enables the various harnessed ingredients to “revert” to their original state. See ET 1: 498–500. For this regenerated and rejuvenating elixir thus achieved, Joseph Needham and his associates coined the neologism, anablastemic enchymoma. See Lu Gwei-Djen, “The Inner Elixir (Nei Tan): Chinese Physiological Alchemy,” in Changing Perspectives in the History of Science: Essays in Honour of Joseph Needham, ed. Mikuláš Teich and Robert Young (London, 1973), pp. 68–84, and SCC V/4: 210–323. The term apparently was also used in the syncretic Three-Religions-in-One (Sanjiao he yi) discourse. See Judith A. Berling, “Paths of Convergence: Interactions of Inner Alchemy Taoism and Neo-Confucianism,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 6 (1979): 123–47.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  1. Seedtime rites: these are the sacrifices offered at the soil alters (she ), which, according to Bodde, p. 197, “have existed in China all the way from the Shang dynasty down to the twentieth century.” The sacrificial days occur once in the spring and once in autumn. See Edouard Chavannes, Appendix, “Le Dieu du Sol dans la Chine antique,” in Le Tai Chang: essaie de monographie d’un culte chinois (Paris, 1910), pp. 437–525.

  2. Heaven’s plaque: this regulated verse, like the poems in chapters 28 and 36 (See JW 2), is composed by means of a series of conventional names used for certain combinations in the traditional Chinese game of “dominoes” (bone tiles or ivory tiles, gupai or yapai ). Each line of the poem, in fact, has reference to one combination: thus line 1, tianpai (Heaven’s plaque or sky tiles); line 2, jinpingfeng (brocaded screens); line 3, guandeng shiwu (The Lantern Feast on the 15th of the first lunar month); line 4 tiandi fen (Heaven and Earth parting); line 5, longhu fengyun hui (dragon and tiger meeting [like] wind and cloud); line 6, yaoma-jun (countered by cavalry); line 7, Wushan feng shi’er (the twelve summits of Mount Wu); line 8, duizi (lit., to face the master, but in the game, it means a pair). In the following diagrams, three of such combinations are illustrated:

  (1) “Heaven or Sky”

  (2) “Lantern Feast”

  (3) “Dragon and Tiger meeting wind and cloud”

  For other combinations, see Qu You , “Xuanhe paipu ,” in Tao Zongyi ed., Shuofu , ce 154, vol. 33 (1647 edition); Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, translated by David Hawkes (Bloomington, IN, 1979), 2: 586–87.

  3. Big creature: dachong , another term for tiger in traditional vernacular fiction.

  4. Bimbāna Kingdom: I follow Ōta’s suggestion (2: 184) that pinpo (or ) may be the transcription for Bimba or Vimba, a bright red gourdlike fruit, momordica monadelphia.

  5. “Lead the horse”: a Chinese colloquialism meaning to be a marriage go-between, first used in JW, chapter 23.

  6. This poem is a lyric written to the tune of “Moon Over the West River” in double stanzas (i.e., shuangdiao ), with an extra line tagged on in the sceond part.

  7. Floriate Canopy: huagai , a series of stars between Cassiopeia and Camelopar-dus. My translation of the term here follows that of Schafer, pp. 46–47. Although the lama priest is ostensibly a Buddhist, the reason he gives for taking up the priestly vocation is similar to that of many Daoists. See Yoshiotoyo Yoshioka, “Taoist Monastic Life,” in Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese Religion, eds. Holmes Welch and Anna Seidel (New Haven and London, 1979), pp. 234–35.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  1. Temple: literally, tianjie , the streets of Heaven. As an astronomical term, this could refer to either the Milky Way or the stars kappa and nu in Taurus. Another meaning is the street of the imperial capital. In this particular context, however, it seems more appropriate to use the term’s less common meaning of the abode of Buddha, as found in the Liang Yuandi , “Liang An sisha xiaming ”: “, (We watch the tower of wisdom and bow low; we gaze at Buddha’s abode and stir up virtue).” Cited in Zhongwen da cidian (10 vols., Taipei, 1973), 2: 1568, gloss 994.

  2. Triyāna means: see JW 1, chapter 2, note 2.

  3. Dharmamega: fayun , the metaphor of Buddhist teaching as a fertilizing cloud.

  4. Dānapati: tanyue , a patron or almsgiver.

  5. Water Litany of King Liang: see JW 2, chapter 37, note 1.

  6. The gate beneath the moon: yuexiamen . The phrase may be an allusion to two lines by the Tang poet, Jia Dao . See his “Ti Li Ning youju ”: “, ,” in QTS 9: 6639.

  7. Suoluo tree: , Cunninghamia anceolata.

  8. Stinky root: that is, his penis.

  9. Mythic, sea-filling bird: tianhai niao , this is Jingwei , daughter of Yandi , one of the five legendary rulers (i.e., Wudi ) of high antiquity. She went swimming in the Eastern Sea and drowned. Her spirit became a bird, which frequently picked up plants and stones from the West Mountain and tried to fill the ocean. See the TPYL, j 925, in 4: 4112.

  10. Turtle: daishan ao . The turtle, or scorpaenid, as a mythic creature is said to bear on its back Mount Penglai in the Eastern Sea.

  11. Lei Huan: , a master of astonomy in the Jin period, who was also the discoverer of two magic swords. See the Jin Shu , j 36, in Ershiwushi, 2: 1184d.

  12. Lü Qian: , who came to the state of Wei in the Three Kingdoms period. He was famous for the cutlass or scimitar (dao ) that he wore. See the Jin Shu, j 33, in the biographies of Wang Xiang and his brother, Lan , in Ershiwushi 2: 1175b–d.

  13. Guan and Bao: this refers to the story of Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya . Guan was quite poor in his youth, but Bao was such a good friend that he frequently shared his wealth with Guan. See the Liezi , j 6, “Li ming [Endeavor and Destiny]”; and The Book of Liehtzǔ: A Classic of Tao, translated by A.C. Graham (New York, 1960), pp. 124–26.

  14. Sun and Pang: this refers to Sun Wu , a master strategist from the State of Qi in the Warring Kingdoms period, and Pang Juan , a general from the State of Wei . For the story of how Sun outfoxed Pang in a battle and drove the latter to commit suicide, see the Shiji , j 65, in Ershiwushi, 1: 0182b–c.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  1. Product of yin-yang copulation: that is, water of nature.

  2. Cave-Heaven, a blessed region: dongtian fudi , sometimes translated as “Grotto Heavens and Blissful Lands.” See the entry so named in ET 1: 368–73. The nomenclature is a standard one for rural retreats of Daoist recluses.

  3. Orchid-gland: lanshe , the gland of the musk deer, used in China as a kind of perfume.

  4. Fangdan: , I have not been able to discover this term’s exact meaning. There is, however, a kind of traditional candy named fangdan tang , usually made of sugar mashed with cream. The white pulp of the winter melon , with its seeds and skin removed, might resemble such a form of candy.

  5. This is a lyric written to the tune of “Moon Over West River.”

  6. Dear . . . : literally, elder brother or gege , a term in the context of amorous play as one of endearment.

  7. Tumi: written in Chinese as and , it is a climbing plant with white or yellow blossoms.

  8. Shaoyao: , paonia abiflora.

  9. Yehe: , magnolia pumilia.

  10. Yao’s yellow or Wei’s purple: . According to Ouyang Xiu’s treatise on the peony in the ancient capital of Luoyang, there are some thirty varieties of this flower, some named by the families who plant them and some by the places where they are found. Thus the “Yellow of Yao” refers to a species with yellow blossoms and dense leaves grown by a commoner household named Yao (“”). The “Purple of Wei” refers to another species with meat-red flowers grown by the household of a Minister Wei. See “Luoyang mudan ji ,” in Ouyang Wenzhong quanji , j 72, 4a (SBBY).

  11. True man: this is a pun on zhenren , which can mean literally a true man/person, or someone of realized tra
nscendence or immortality.

  12. Six loaves of liver and lung: this and the description of the heart in the next line are allusions to Problem 42 () in the Nan Jing , j 4, 5a–b (SBCK). See also Nan-Ching, The Classic of Difficult Issues, translated and annotated by Paul U. Unschuld (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1986), pp. 416–24. In the book’s chapter, it is stated that “the heart weighs twelve ounces, and in the middle it has seven apertures and three hairs ,” and that “the lung, weighing three ounces . . . has six loves or leaves . . . .”

  13. Scarlet thread: husbands and wives are said to have had their feet bound by scarlet cord or thread by fate.

  14. Blue Bridge tide: , refers to the legend of one scholar Wei , who was to meet his girlfriend beneath the Blue Bridge. The girl failed to appear, and when the tide rose, Wei drowned hugging the bridge’s pillar.

  15. Temple incense: an allusion to the love story of Cui Yingying, the heroine of the famed Xixiangji , the title of the dramatic version more recently translated as The Story of the Western Wing. In both narrative and dramatic versions of the story, the girl met her lover in a Buddhist temple.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  1. Holy babe: shengtai , literally, the holy embryo. As has been pointed out and discussed in the introduction and notes of this edition, the metaphor is used for the attainment of realized immortality in the discourse of internal alchemy.

  2. Basuc way: mudao , literally, the way of the mother. In this context, however, it may also mean the basic or the fundamental principle.

  3. In premodern Chinese fiction and drama, there are many accounts of, and allusions to, the story of the Pagoda-Bearer Li and his third son Naṭa (or Nezha, alternate Mandarin trascription of , a diminished form of the Sanskrit name, Nalakūb[v] ara). The XYJ episode represents one of the two longest accounts of the story in traditional prose fiction, and the details concerning how the Buddha redeemed the prince’s wandering soul after his suicide and assumed later the mediatorial role between the bitterly feuding father and son by providing a Buddhist relic of pagoda or stūpa might have been closer to the Indian mythology transmitted to China through Tantric Buddhism. Naṭa’s story can also be found in a classic text like the Buddacarita-kāvya sūtra , an account of Buddha’s life by the poet Aśvaghoṣa and translated into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa in the fifth century CE. The even lengthier episode in late-imperial Chinese fiction is enshrined in the seventeenth-century novel Investiture of the Gods. See Xu Zhonglin , Fengshen yanyi , , eds. Li Yunxiang and Zhong Bojing (Nanjing, 1991), chapters 12–14, but here, the deities have all been changed to those of the Daoist pantheon. This significant change may reflect, as editors Li and Zhong suggest, the influence of the Sanjiao yuanliu Shengdi Fozu soushen daquan , eds. Wang Qiugui and Li Fengmao (Taipei, 1989), a Ming text steeped in the Three-Religions-in-One’s integrationist theology. For scholarly studies, see Liu Ts’un-yan, “Pishamen tianwang fuzi yü Zhongguo xiaoshuo zhi guanxi ,” (rpt. of 1958 essay) in HFTWJ 2: 1045–1094; Liu Ts’un-yan, Buddhist and Taoist Influences on Chinese Novels (Wiesbaden, 1962), pp. 217–42; Chen Xiaoyi , “Nezha renwu ji gushi zhi yanjiu ” (PhD dissertation, Fengjia University, 1994); and Chen Hok-lam , “, , ,” and “,” two essays reprinted in Mingchu di renwu, shishi yü chuanshuo , (Beijing, 2010), pp. 213–47 and 294–313. As can be seen in the scholarship enumerated here, temples dedicated to the cult of Nezha range from Beijing in the north all the way to the peninsula port city of Macau southwest of Hong Kong. The most authoritative analysis of sources and cultural meaning of this popular story is likely to be found in Meir Shahar’s forthcoming study, Oepidal God: The Legend and Cult of Ne-zha (Nalakūbara).