Monkey (12 page)

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Jade Emperor, ‘with a fellow like that, what line
can
one take ?’

‘It’s not surprising,’ said Lao Tzu. ‘After all, he ate the peaches of Immortality, drank the wine of Heaven, and stole the Elixir of Long Life; five bowls full, some raw, some cooked, are all inside him. No doubt he has worked on them with Samadhi fire and fused them into a solid, that makes his whole body harder than diamond, so that he is very difficult to damage. The best thing would be to bring him to me. I’ll put him in my Crucible of the Eight Trigrams and smelt him with alchemic fire. In a little while he will be reduced to ashes, and I shall recover my elixir, which will be left at the bottom of the crucible.’

So Monkey was handed over to Lao Tzu, and Erh-lang was rewarded with a hundred golden flowers, a hundred jars of heavenly wine, a hundred grains of elixir, along with a great store of jewels, pearls, brocades, and embroideries, which he was asked to share with his brothers. He thanked the Emperor, and went back to the River of Libations.

When Lao Tzu got back to the Tushita Palace, he untied Monkey’s ropes, removed the blade that was stuck through
his lute-bone, pushed him into the crucible, and told his servant to blow up a good fire. Now this crucible was in eight parts, each representing one of the eight trigrams. Monkey wriggled into the part corresponding to the trigram
sun.
Now
sun
is wind, and wind blows out fire; but wind raises smoke, and Monkey’s eyes smarted and became red; a condition from which he never recovered, which is why he is sometimes called Fiery Eyes. Time passed, and at last the forty-ninth day came, and Lao Tzu’s alchemical processes were complete. When he came to the crucible to take off the lid, Monkey was rubbing his eyes with both hands, so hard that the tears fell. When he heard the lid being moved, he looked quickly up, and the light that came in hurt him so much that he could not bear it and jumped straight out of the crucible, uttering a piercing cry and kicking over the crucible as he jumped. He rushed out of the room pursued by Lao Tzu’s servants, all of whom he tripped up, and when Lao Tzu clutched at him, he gave him such a push that he went head over heels. Then he took his cudgel from behind his ear and, armed once more, ran amok in Heaven, frightening the Nine Planets so much that they locked themselves in, and the kings of the Four Quarters vanished from the scene. This time Monkey hit out recklessly, not caring whom he struck or what he smashed. No one could stop him, and he would have broken up the Hall of Magic Mists, had not the divinity Wang Ling-kuan rushed forward with his great metal lash. ‘Halt, cursed Monkey I’ he cried. ‘See who stands before you, and cease your mad pranks 1’ Monkey did not deign to parley with him, but raised his cudgel and struck. Ling-kuan faced him with his whip aloft. It was a great fight that the two of them had, in front of the Hall of Magic Mists, but neither gained the advantage. At last the thirty-six thunder deities came to Ling-kuan’s aid, and Monkey found himself beset on every side by swords, lances, spears, whips, axes, hooks, sickles. He thought it time to transform himself, and took on a form with three heads and six arms, and wielded six magic cudgels which he whirled like a spinning-wheel, dancing in their midst. The thunder deities dared not approach him.

The noise of the combat reached the Jade Emperor who in great consternation sent two messengers to the Western Region to see if Buddha could not come and help. When they had recounted Monkey’s misdeeds and explained their mission, Buddha said to the Bodhisattvas who surrounded him, ‘You stay quietly here in the Hall of Law, and don’t relax
yout yoga
postures. I’ve got to go and deal with this creature who is making trouble at the Taoist court.’ But he called on his disciples Ananda and Kasyapa to follow him. Arriving in Heaven, they heard a fearful din and found Monkey beset by the thirty-six deities. Buddha ordered the deities to lower arms and go back to their camp, and called Monkey to him. Monkey changed into his true form and shouted angrily, ‘What bonze are you that you ask for me in the middle of a battle ?’

‘I am the Buddha of the Western Paradise. I have heard of the trouble you have been giving in Heaven. Where do you come from, and how long ago did you get your Illumination, that you should dare behave like this ?’

‘Born of sky and earth, Immortal magically fused,

From the Mountain of Vlowers and Fruit an old monkey am I

In the cave of the Water-curtain I ply my home-trade;

I found a friend and master, who taught me the Great Secret.

I made myself perfect in many arts of Immortality,

I learned transformations without bound or end.

I tired of the narrow scope afforded by the world of man,

Nothing could content me but to live in the Green Jade Heaven.

Why should Heaven’s halls have always one master?

In earthly dynasties king succeeds king.

The strong to the stronger must yield precedence and place,

Hero is he alone who vies with powers supreme?

So Monkey recited; at which Buddha burst out laughing. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘you’re only a monkey-spirit. How can you delude yourself into supposing that you can seize the Jade Emperor’s throne? He has been perfecting himself for 1750 kalpas, and every kalpa is 129,000 years. Just see how long it takes to achieve such wisdom as his! How can you, an animal, who have only in this incarnation received half-human form,
dare make such a boast? You exceed yourself, and will surely come to a bad end. Submit at once and talk no more of your nonsense. Otherwise I shall have to deal sharply with you, and there won’t be much left of the longevity you crave.’

‘He may have begun young,’ said Monkey, ‘but that is no reason why he should keep the throne forever. There is a proverb that says “This year, the Jade Emperor’s turn; next year, mine.” Tell him to clear out and make room for me. That is all I ask. If he won’t, I shall go on like this, and they will never have any peace.’

‘What magic have you got,’ asked Buddha, ‘that would enable you to seize the blessed realms of Heaven?’

‘Many,’ said Monkey. ‘Apart from my seventy-two transformations, I can somersault through the clouds a hundred and eight thousand leagues at a bound. Aren’t I fit to be seated on the throne of Heaven ?’

‘I’ll have a wager with you,’ said Buddha. ‘If you are really so clever, jump off the palm of my right hand. If you succeed, I’ll tell the Jade Emperor to come and live with me in the Western Paradise, and you shall have his throne without more ado. But if you fail, you shall go back to earth and do penance there for many a kalpa before you come to me again with your talk.’

“This Buddha,’ Monkey thought to himself, ‘is a perfect fool. I can jump a hundred and eight thousand leagues, while his palm cannot be as much as eight inches across. How could I fail to jump clear of it ?’

‘You’re sure you are in a position to do this for me?’ he asked.

‘Of course I am,’ said Buddha.

He stretched out his right hand, which looked about the size of a lotus leaf. Monkey put his cudgel behind his ear, and leapt with all his might. “That’s all right,’ he said to himself. ‘I’m right off it now.’ He was whizzing so fast that he was almost invisible, and Buddha, watching him with the eye of wisdom, saw a mere whirligig shoot along.

Monkey came at last to five pink pillars, sticking up into the
air. ‘This is the end of the World,’ said Monkey to himself. ‘All I have got to do is to go back to Buddha and claim my forfeit. The Throne is mine.’

‘Wait a minute,’ he said presently, ‘I’d better just leave a record of some kind, in case I have trouble with Buddha.’ He plucked a hair and blew on it with magic breath, crying ‘Change!’ It changed at once into a writing brush charged with heavy ink, and at the base of the central pillar he wrote, ‘The Great Sage Equal of Heaven reached this place’. Then to mark his disrespect, he relieved nature at the bottom of the first pillar, and somersaulted back to where he had come from. Standing on Buddha’s palm, he said, ‘Well, I’ve gone and come back. You can go and tell the Jade Emperor to hand over the Palaces of Heaven.’

‘You stinking ape,’ said Buddha, ‘you’ve been on the palm of my hand all the time.’

‘You’re quite mistaken,’ said Monkey. ‘I got to the end of the World, where I saw five flesh-coloured pillars sticking up into the sky. I wrote something on one of them. I’ll take you there and show you, if you like.’

‘No need for that,’ said Buddha. ‘Just look down.’ Monkey peered down with his fiery, steely eyes, and there at the base of the middle finger of Buddha’s hand he saw written the words “The Great Sage Equal of Heaven reached this place’, and from the fork between the thumb and first finger came a smell of monkey’s urine. It took him some time to get over his astonishment. At last he said, ‘Impossible, impossible! I wrote that on the pillar sticking up into the sky. How did it get on to Buddha’s finger? He’s practising some magic upon me. Let me go back and look.’ Dear Monkey 1 He crouched, and was just making ready to spring again, when Buddha turned his head, and pushed Monkey out at the western gate of Heaven. As he did so, he changed his five fingers into the Five Elements, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. They became a five-peaked mountain, named Wu Hsing Shan (Mountain of the Five Elements), which pressed upon him heavily enough to hold him tight. The thunder spirits, Ananda, and Kasyapa all pressed the palms of their hands together and shouted’ Bravo!’

Buddha, having thus quelled the baleful monkey, called to Ananda and Kasyapa to come back with him to the Western Heaven. Just as they were leaving, two messengers arrived from the Hall of Magic Mists saying, ‘We beseech the Tath-agata to wait a minute. Our master is on his way’ Buddha turned his head, and a moment later saw a chariot drawn by eight phoenixes, covered by a canopy gleaming with jewels. There was a sound of many instruments and a chanting of innumerable spirit hosts. Flower-petals fell through the air, and the smell of incense belched.

‘I am profoundly beholden to you for dealing with that monster,’ said the Jade Emperor, when his equipage drew up, ‘and if you will consent to stay for a while, I will invite all the Immortals to join us in a feast of thanks.’

Buddha did not like to refuse. ‘I could not do otherwise than come at your Majesty’s request,’ he said. ‘What small success we have had is however not my work, but is entirely due to the Founder of Tao and the other divinities.’

The banquet was nearing its end when one of the heavenly detectives arrived saying ‘The Great Sage is sticking out his head!’

‘No matter,’ said Buddha, and he took out of his sleeve a seal on which was engraved Om Mani Padme Hum. He gave it to Ananda and told him to stamp it on the top of the mountain. So Ananda left Heaven, carrying the seal, and when he got to the mountain of the Five Elements, he stamped the seal hard upon a square slab of rock that lay right on the top of the mountain. At once this mountain struck root and joined its seams. There was enough air to breathe, but not a crack through which hand or head could squeeze.

‘I have sealed him down,’ Ananda announced; whereupon Buddha said good-bye to the Jade Emperor and all the spirits, and with his two disciples left the gate of heaven. But in his mercy he appointed a guardian spirit to watch over the mountain. ‘When he is hungry,’ he said, ‘give him an iron pill to eat. When he is thirsty, give him verdigris to drink. When the days of his penance are fulfilled, there will be one who will come to rescue him.’

And if you do not know how long afterwards, in what year and in what month, the time of his penance was fulfilled, you must listen to what is related in the next chapter.

O
NE
day when Buddha had been preaching to the Bod-hisattvas and Arhats, he said at the end of his sermon, ‘I have been noticing that there is a lot of difference in the inhabitants of the Four Continents of the universe. Those in the Eastern Continent are respectful, peaceable and cheerful; those of the Northern are somewhat prone to take life, but they are so dumb, lethargic and stupid that they don’t do much harm. In our Western Continent, there is no greed or slaughter; we nurture our humours and hide our magic, and although we have no supreme illuminates everyone is safe against the assaults of age. But in Jumbudvipa, the Southern Continent, they are greedy, lustful, murderous, and quarrelsome. I wonder whether a knowledge of the True Scriptures would not cause some improvement in them?’

‘Do you yourself possess those scriptures?’ asked the Bodhisattvas.

‘Yes, three baskets of them,’ said Buddha. ‘One contains the Vinaya, which speaks of heaven, one contains the Saastras, which tell of Earth, one contains the Sutras, which save the damned. The whole is divided into thirty-five divisions written on 15,144 rolls. These are the path to perfection, the only gate to virtue. I would send it straight to the people of the common world; but they are so stupid that they would only jeer at the truth, misunderstand the meaning of my Law, and scorn the true sect of Yoga. I wish I knew of a holy one who would go to the eastern land and find a believer who could be sent over hill and dale, all the way from China to this place. I would give him the scriptures to take back to China, and he would explain them to the people and change their hearts. That would be an untold blessing. Is any of you willing to go ?’