The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1

by Unknown

  It may be asked at this point what sort of merit the disciples do succeed in making during their lengthy journey. The most obvious answer to this question must be, of course, their success in overcoming the marauding hordes of demons and monsters along the way which seek to harm the pilgrim monk. Thus when Eight Rules kills the Tiger Vanguard in chapter 20, he is congratulated by both the narrator (in verse) and by Wukong for achieving his first merit. But to consider the worth of the disciples to reside solely in their protection of the Tang Monk, however demanding such a responsibility may be, is to miss the more profound meaning. The later sections of the novel unmistakably indicate that the narrative does not merely focus on what sort of personal, or even imperial, rewards the action of the pilgrims will bring with their successful journey. There are also insistent rehearsals of how the excesses, the heroic energies, and the representative individualism of a Sun Wukong (restless intelligence, resourcefulness, impetuosity) or a Zhu Eight Rules (appetites for food and sex, sloth) are transformed and used to benefit countless people along the way.

  It is remarkable how many episodes of encounters with ogres and demons end, not only in their defeat or in Tripitaka’s deliverance, but also in a kingdom restored, a lost child recovered, an estranged family reunited, and a Flame-Throwing Mountain extinguished so that travel and agriculture may resume. The conquest of the monsters is not simply a victory for the heavenly powers or a restoration of an individual ascetic’s psychic or mental equilibrium; the reestablishment of human social order is just as crucial because it comes as a result of the defeat of the chthonic, antinomian forces resident in the demonic world. That even the rather shallow and insensitive Tripitaka begins to appreciate the character of Monkey and the frequency with which he has performed eleemosynary service of great magnitude is what we see at the beginning of chapter 88, after that disciple has brought rain to a region suffering from intense drought. “As he rode, the Tang monk said to Pilgrim: ‘Worthy disciple! Your virtuous fruit this time even surpasses your achievement when you rescued those infants at the Bhikṣu Kingdom. It’s entirely your merit!’” (XYJ, p. 998).

  To understand the meaning of the journey as involving atonement and redemption for all five pilgrims is also to recognize the salvific implications of all Three Religions in the novel. Confucianism, insisting on unyielding loyalism to state, parents, and familial patriarchs even in the face of death, has long canonized officials and plebians after death for their meritorious virtue. The rites authorized by the state mark these persons as transcendent beings worthy to receive worship and regular sacrifice. Some of the teachings of Buddhism conflated with Daoism (such as the need to purge harmful desires) are similarly acknowledged. Buddha and his divine followers do constitute part of the entire celestial hierarchy (the rest are popular and Daoist divinities of both native and foreign origins), and in this sense the Buddhist pantheon may seem, in Arthur Wright’s words, “a victim of its own adaptability.”152 There are nonetheless some subtle differentiations in the narrative concerning the three groups of deities. Whereas the bureaucratic pretension and incompetence of all three become frequent targets of the author’s biting satire, the wisdom and compassion of Buddha—and, to a slightly lesser degree, of Guanyin—are characteristics the other deities (including the Jade Emperor) do not share.

  Because of the immense appeal of Sun Wukong’s character, many modern critics, especially those who favor a political interpretation of the narrative,153 have found it difficult to accept Monkey’s subjugation in chapter 7, let alone the use of the golden fillet later as an instrument of discipline to inflict unbearable pain whenever he is recalcitrant. Monkey’s “conversion” for them becomes a basic flaw in the narrative. After his release from the Five Phases Mountain in chapter 14, his portrayal as a faithful guardian of the cowardly and ineffectual Buddhist pilgrim seems to contradict the magnificent heroic character whose defiance and love of independence we have come to cherish and admire in the first seven chapters.

  Such a view fails to do justice to the complexity of the narrative. If the journey signifies for the pilgrims a new beginning, as we have argued, a freely given opportunity for self-rectification, it also becomes a gradual process of merit-making that complements and magnifies the theme of Buddha’s mercy. This motif recurs in the narrative. A conspicuous example is when the dragon joins the pilgrimage in chapter 15 after Guanyin brings it to submission at the Eagle Grief Stream, transforming it to a horse for the use of the human pilgrim and promising “the true fruit of a golden body” when it achieves the proper merit. Monkey eventually turns recalcitrant again, complaining to the goddess that “the road to the West is so treacherous! If I have to accompany this ordinary monk, when will I ever get there? If I have to endure all these miseries, I may well lose my life. What sort of merit do you think I’ll achieve?” (JW 1: 328). Guanyin’s response to this outburst is not only a further promise that she would always come to Pilgrim’s aid, but also the gift of three more magic hairs “with life-saving power” that she implants on the back of Monkey’s head, thereby winning his just gratitude for her acting as “the Bodhisattva of Great Mercy and Compassion.” By her words of encouragement and her additional gift of magic power to Monkey, which will indeed prove to be life-saving in a later crisis (chapter 70), the Bodhisattva Guanyin is consistent with a long tradition that venerates Avalokiteśvara for enlightening and delivering her followers from all kinds of perils and pains.154

  Fourth, the common fate of the pilgrims not only serves to emphasize the pilgrimage as communal enterprise, but their very number facilitates the proliferation of allegory because they multiply the possibility of signs. This advantage does not mean that the disciples themselves are consciously playing multiple roles because their characters and their names signify many things in the discourse of internal alchemy. To give a parallel but not far-fetched example, the Beatrice of Dante’s Commedia may symbolize a “historical” young lady, a devout Christian believer and thus also a figuration of the Church as the Bride of Christ, and a type of Mary, the Mother of Christ who would be elevated eventually to the position of coredemptrix in Roman Catholic theology. But in the poem itself, Beatrice the imagined character simply acts as a human person providentially ordained to appear after her death in a vision to the mortal poet-pilgrim; her words and actions do not imply her full awareness that she personifies all those other roles. The multiple allegorical meanings of her person are troped to the readers only through the poet’s inventive language.

  This is exactly what happens also with respect to the Chinese novel, for it frequently designates the three disciples of Tripitaka by the terminology of Five Phases (wuxing ) and of alchemy. A quick glance at some of the titular couplets will make such usages apparent (emphasis mine).

  Chapter 32:

  On the Level-Top Mountain the Sentinel brings a message;

  At the Lotus-Flower Cave the Wood Mother meets disaster.

  Chapter 40:

  The Baby’s playful form disturbs the Mind of Chan;

  Ape, Horse, Spatula,155 and Wood Mother all [fight] in vain.

  Chapter 47

  The Sage Monk is blocked by night at the Passing-to-Heaven River;

  In compassion Metal and Wood rescue a little child.

  Chapter 53

  Eating and drinking, the Chan Lord is demonically conceived;

  The Yellow Dame carries water to abort the weird child.

  It is impossible to correlate all five members of the pilgrimage with the many traditional orders of the Five Evolutive Phases—cosmogonic, mutual production, mutual conquest, and “modern”156—in a satisfying way, but the associations of Wukong, Wuneng, and Wujing are consistent. Monkey is invariably identified with metal or gold (jin ), and he is frequently referred to as jingong or jinweng (the Lord or Squire of Gold or Metal). According to the notes following chapter 22 of the 1954 Beijing edition, the reason is threefold: first, in spagyrical literature, lead (qian )—one of the two or three most important
ingredients in alchemy—is given the name of Lord or Squire of Gold, from the belief that true lead is born from the Celestial Stem (tiangan ) of Geng . Not surprisingly, the corresponding metal to the stem is either metal or gold. Moreover, the Branches of the Earth (dizhi ), which with the Celestial Stems combine to form the Chinese sexagenary cycle, are so arranged that the combination of shenyou directly matches the combination of gengshen in the celestial system. Because the symbolical animal of the horary character shen is a monkey, the correlation is thus made complete. By the same process of reasoning, Zhu Wuneng is given the name Wood Mother (mumu ) in the narrative, for it is a term used by alchemists to designate mercury (gong ). True mercury is supposed to have been born from the horary character of hai , for which the symbolical animal is a boar or a pig.157 As for Sha Wujing, he is almost always linked to the earth, bearing at times the name Earth Mother (tumu ), at times the name Yellow Dame (huangpo ), and at times the name Spatula. Since in the literature of internal alchemy the five phases are further correlated with the pneumatic vitality (qi ) of the five viscera, these three disciples of Tripitaka are thereby made symbols of the interior elements ascribed to the human body. According to the Neidan huanyuan jue (Formula for the Internal Elixir reverting to the Origin), for example, metal or gold is correlated with the secretion of the lungs, earth or Yellow Dame points to the liquid or secretion of the spleen, and wood corresponds to the pneumatic vitality of the liver.158 Such a schematization thus provides the narrator of XYJ with a complex system of correspondences by which he may account for, and comment on, the experience and action of the pilgrims.

  When Wukong first brings Wuneng to submission and leads him back to see Tripitaka, the narrator, as we have seen at the end of part III of this introduction, presents a testimonial regulated poem to comment on the action. We should further observe in this poem that the emphasis is placed upon the peaceful relation that exists—and should exist—between Wukong and Wuneng, just as the ideal state of the body sought by those engaging in the process of self-cultivation is one characterized by the harmonious balance of the pneumatic vitalities. This is the reason why somatic or physiological elements are still affirmed in the linguistic subconscious as the verities of social relations, so that adepts still wrote of them as “ruler and subject,” “husband and wife,” “friends,” and “host and guest.” It is for this same reason, therefore, that when the pilgrims reach one of the lowest points in their journey—the occasion of Wukong’s first banishment, when Tripitaka believes the Pig’s slander—the narrator comments in chapter 30:

  The Horse of the Will and the Ape of the Mind are all dispersed;

  The Metal Squire and the Wood Mother are scattered both;

  Yellow Dame is wounded, from every one divorced;

  With reason and right so divided, what can be achieved?

  Throughout the long tale, the ubiquitous but unobtrusive voice of the narrator in fact provides a running, reflexive commentary—usually through interpolated verse of many varieties and the brief prose introductions to new episodes—and gently reminds the reader of allegory’s presence even within the fun-filled and lively depictions of cosmic battles, fantastic beings, bizarre experiences, and extraordinary feats of mental and physical bravura. To craft a story radically different from a synopsis of secular canonical or Buddhist history, the author has manipulated idioms and terms from selected writings in both the Buddhist and the Daoist canons. Constructing an intricate story with multiple lines of signification and at the same time providing its own commentary reflects the discursive predilection of the “Three Religions as One” movement to which I have referred to several times. By the late Ming, it had gained widespread adherence throughout the populace.159 As frequently articulated in fiction and fiction commentaries of the Ming-Qing periods, the movement’s syncretic discourse was truly a hermeneutics of fusion or integration, wherein the widely disparate concepts and categories of traditional Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddism were deliberately harmonized and unified as mutually interpretive terms. That this discourse was intimately known to our novel’s author could be seen in lines of poetry describing a lecture by Subhodi (chapter 2), the master who first transmitted to the Monkey King the secrets of immortality and other magic powers. The content and method of his lecture are revealing: “The doctrines of three vehicles he subtly rehearsed / . . . . For a while he lectured on Dao; / For a while he spoke on Chan— / To harmonize the Three Parties was a natural thing , . . . / , , ” (XYJ, chapter 2, p. 13; JW 1: 116).

  Scholars usually take the Three Parties (sanjia, literally Three Lineages but often translated also as Schools) to be another standard name of the three religious traditions, but in the novel’s context, even such a seemingly innocuous nomenclature takes on special significance. In the Xingming guizhi to which I have alluded earlier, there is an illustration of a seated adept cultivating physiological alchemy (neidan) with the label, “Diagram of the Three Parties meeting each other .” It bears in its upper left corner the inscription, “Spermal essence, pneumatic vitality, and spirit are fused by me into one entity .” A triangle of three circles is drawn across the center of his abdomen bearing the labels of the three (see fig. 1).160

  This chapter in the novel is when Monkey acquires his first lessons in the spagyrical arts. The first poetic formula Subhodi communicated to him aloud (koujue ) contains the line “All power resides in the semen, the breath, and the spirit (jing, qi, shen).” Its syncretic implications are noteworthy. Indeed, the text of the XMGZ seems to have provided the most illuminating exegesis for both its own diagram and the formula imparted to Monkey by Subhodi:

  Collecting the Three to return to the One is based on emptiness and quiescence. Empty the mind, and spirit will unite with the nature; quiet the body, and spermal essence and emotion will become quiescent. When intention reaches Great Concentration [dading, a Buddhist term], then the three origins fuse to become one. When emotion unites with the nature, it is called the pairing of Metal and Wood [because emotion correlates with metal and nature correlates with wood]; when spermal essence unites with spirit, it is called the intercourse of Fire and Water [because dragon as spirit correlates with water, while spermal essence as tiger correlates with fire]; when intention reaches Great Concentration, the Five Phases are complete. However, the transformation of spermal essence into pneumatic vitality stems from the body not being moved; the transformation of pneumatic vitality into spirit stems from the mind not being moved; and the self-transformation of spirit into emptiness comes about because intention is unmoved. . . . When body, mind, and intention fuse together, then the Three Parties meet each other to create the Baby Boy , . , ; , ; , . , , . , . , . , . . . . , . (XMGZ-Taipei, p. 115)

  FIG. 1 Diagram of “The Three Parties Meeting”

  The Baby Boy is none other than the “holy embryo or shengtai ,” the avatar of the realized state of immortality in the adept’s body. It also explains why Subhodi says in chapter 1 that the name he gives to Monkey “exactly accords with the fundamental doctrine of the Baby Boy .”

  Lest this “Baby” talk seems wildly esoteric, another visual example is given here to illustrate the amazing inconographic syncretism documented in modern scholarship (see fig. 2).

  FIG. 2 Image of a Buddha with a smiling baby boy (from SCC V/5: 62). This kind of icon is not an isolated specimen, but according to Needham’s documentation, many Buddhas and arhats are made or fashioned with the additional head of a baby lodged in their abdomens. See additional photographs in SCC V/5: 81, 83, 84, and 90.

  These material images, in turn, elucidate the comic episode in chapters 53 and 54 of the novel, when by accident Tripitaka and the Pig drink some water from a stream named Mother-and-Child River bordering the Women Kingdom of Western Liang. The geographical sources for this kingdom may have derived from texts associated with Xuanzang (e.g., the Da Tang Xiyuji, j 11, and the FSZ, j 4) and those of canonical history, but the narrative focuses satirically on the mistakes of the pilgrims in relie
ving their thirst, for the water makes both of the males pregnant. Appositely, the titular couplets label their experience as “demonic conception and perverse pregnancy ” that only the magic water of Abortion Stream can dissolve. When Monkey and Sha Monk return with the hard-won liquid to rectify their companions’ errors, the commentarial poem celebrates in explicit alchemical rhetoric:

  In vain the form of Baby Boy’s conceived;

  Earth Mother [i.e., Sha Monk] with ease has merit achieved.

  Heresy pushed down, right faith’s on track,

  The lord of the mind [i.e., Monkey], all smiles, now comes back. (XYJ, chapter 53, p. 618)

  In an even more decisive indication of such syncretism, Buddha proclaims at the novel’s beginning (chapter 8) that in his possession were “the scriptures for the cultivation of immortality, the gate to ultimate virtue , .” Repeated more expansively at the end (chapter 98), he calls the scriptures “not only . . . the numinous mirror of our faith, but actually the source of the Three Religions , .” Such a line of affirmation would surely astonish orthodox Buddhists, but for the serious student of the novel, what is even more astonishing is not just this asserted unity of the three religions vis-à-vis the Buddhist canon. It is the wide-ranging utilization of diverse source materials for the ingenious making of fiction that stamps the novel’s literary originality. The chapters of the Cart Slow Kingdom (44–46) may serve as a convenient and final example.