Monkey (34 page)

Sandy burst into an exclamation of rage, and Pigsy loudly abused Monkey for his slowness. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t look sharp and stop him,’ he said. ‘Now he has sailed off on a cloud, and we shall never be able to find him.’

‘Don’t shout at me, brothers!’ said Monkey laughing. ‘Let us call to the prince to come and do reverence to his true father, and the queen to her husband.’ Then undoing by a magic pass the spell that he had put upon the officers, he told them to wake up and do homage to their lord, acknowledging him as their true king. ‘Give me a few facts to go upon,’ he said, ‘and as soon as I have got things clear, I will go and look for him.’

Dear Monkey! He instructed Pigsy and Sandy to take good care of the prince, king, ministers, queen, and Tripitaka; but while he was speaking he suddenly vanished from sight. He had already jumped up into the empyrean, and was peering round on every side, looking for the wi2ard. Presently he saw that monster flying for his life towards the north-east. Monkey caught him up and shouted, ‘Monster, where are you off to? Monkey has come.’ The wizard turned swiftly, drew his dagger, and cried, ‘Monkey, you scamp, what has it got to do with you whether I usurp someone else’s throne? Why should you come calling me to account and letting out my secrets ?’

‘Ho, ho,’ laughed Monkey. ‘You impudent rascal 1 Do you think I am going to allow you to play the emperor? Knowing who I am you would have done well to keep out of my way.
Why did you bully my master, demanding depositions and what not ? You must admit now that the deposition was not far from the truth. Stand your ground and take old Monkey’s cudgel like a man!’

The wizard dodged and parried with a thrust of his dagger at Monkey’s face. It was a fine fight! After several bouts the magician could no longer stand up against Monkey, and suddenly turning he fled back the way he had come, leapt into the city, and slipped in among the officers who were assembled before the steps of the throne. Then giving himself a shake, he changed into an absolute counterpart of Tripitaka and stood beside him in front of the steps. Monkey rushed up and was about to strike what he supposed to be the wizard, when this Tripitaka said, ‘Disciple, do not strike 1 It is I!’ It was impossible to distinguish between them. ‘If I kill Tripitaka, who is a transformation of the wizard, then I shall have achieved a glorious success; but supposing, on the other hand, it turns out that I have killed the real Tripitaka, that would not be so good ...’ There was nothing for it but to stay his hand, and calling to Pigsy and Sandy he asked, ‘Which really is the wizard, and which is our master? Just point for me, and I will strike the one you point at.’

‘We were watching you going for one another up in the air,’ said Pigsy, ‘when suddenly we looked round and saw that there were two Tripitakas. We have no idea which is the real one.’

When Monkey heard this, he made a single pass and recited a spell to summon the
devas
that protect the Law, the local deities and the spirits of the neighbouring hills, and told them of his predicament. The wizard thought it time to mount the clouds again, and began to make towards the door. Thinking that Tripitaka was clearing the ground for him, Monkey raised his cudgel, and had it not been for the deities he had summoned he would have struck such a big blow at his master as would have made mince-meat of twenty Tripitakas. But in the nick of time the guardian deities stopped him, saying, ‘Great Sage, the wizard is just going to mount the clouds again.’ Monkey rushed after him, and was just about to cut
off his retreat, when the wizard turned round, slipped back again into the crowd, and was once more indistinguishable from the real Tripitaka.

Much to Monkey’s annoyance, Pigsy stood by, laughing at his discomfiture. ‘You’ve nothing to laugh at, you hulking brute,’ he said. ‘This means you’ve got two masters to order you about. It’s not going to do you much good.’

‘Brother,’ said Pigsy, ‘you call me a fool, but you’re a worse fool than I. You can’t recognize your own Master, and it’s a waste of effort to go on trying. But you would at least recognize your own headache, and if you ask our Master to recite his spell, Sandy and I will stand by and listen. The one who doesn’t know the spell will certainly be the wizard. Then all will be easy.’

‘Brother,’ said Monkey, ‘I am much obliged to you. There are only three people who know that spell. It sprouted from the heart of the Lord Buddha himself; it was handed down to the Bodhisattva Kuan-yin, and was then taught to our master by the Bodhisattva herself. No one else knows it. Good, then! Master, recite!’

The real Tripitaka at once began to recite the spell; while the wizard could do nothing but mumble senseless sounds. ‘That’s the wizard,’ cried Pigsy. ‘He’s only mumbling.’ And at the same time he raised his rake and was about to strike when the wizard sprang into the air and ran up along the clouds. Dear Pigsy! With a loud cry he set off in pursuit, and Sandy, leaving Tripitaka, hastened to the attack with his priest’s staff. Tripitaka stopped reciting, and Monkey, released from his headache, seized his iron cudgel and sped through the air. Heigh, what a fight! Three wild priests beleaguered one foul fiend. With rake and staff Pigsy and Sandy assailed him from right and left. ‘If I join in,’ said Monkey, ‘and attack him in front, I fear he is so frightened of me that he will run away again. Let me get into position above him and give him a real garlic-pounding blow that will finish him off for good and all.’ He sprang up into the empyrean, and was about to deliver a tremendous blow when, from a many-coloured cloud in the north-east, there came a voice which said, ‘Monkey, stay your hand I’ Monkey looked
round and saw it was the Bodhisattva Manjukl. He withdrew his cudgel, and coming forward did obeisance, saying ‘Bodhisattva, where are you going to ?’

‘I came to take this monster off your hands,’ said Manjusri.

‘I am sorry you should have the trouble’ said Monkey.

The Bodhisattva then drew from his sleeve a magic mirror that showed demons in their true form. Monkey called to the other two to come and look, and in the mirror they saw the wizard in his true shape. He was Manjusrl’s lion! ‘Bodhisattva,’ said Monkey, ‘this is the blue-maned lion that you sit upon. How comes it that it ran away and turned into an evil spirit ? Can’t you keep it under control ?’

‘It did not run away,’ said Manjusri. ‘It acted under orders from Buddha himself.’

‘You mean to tell me,’ said Monkey, ‘that it was Buddha who told this creature to turn into an evil spirit and seize the Emperor’s throne? In that case all the troubles I meet with while escorting Tripitaka are very likely ordered by His Holiness. A nice thought!’

‘Monkey,’ said Manjusri, ‘you don’t understand. In the beginning this king of Crow-cock was devoted to good works and the entertaining of priests. Buddha was so pleased that he sent me to fetch him away to the Western Paradise, where he was to assume a golden body and become an Arhat. As it was not proper for me to show myself in my true form I came disguised as a priest and begged for alms. Something I said gave him offence, and not knowing that I was anyone in particular he had me bound and cast into the river, where I remained under water for three nights and three days, till at last a guardian spirit rescued me and brought me back to Paradise. I complained to Buddha, who sent this creature to throw the king into the well, and let him remain there three years as a retaliation for the three days that I was in the river. You know the saying: “Not a sip, not a sup .. .”
^*
But now you have arrived on the scene, the episode is successfully dosed.’

‘That is all very well,’ said Monkey. ‘All these “sips and sups” may have enabled you to get even with your enemy. But
what about all the unfortunate people whom this fiend has ruined?’

‘He hasn’t ruined any one,’ said Manjusri. ‘During the three years that he was on the throne, rain has fallen, the crops have been good, and the people at perfect peace. How can you speak of his ruining people ?’

‘That may be,’ said Monkey. ‘But how about all the ladies of the Court who have been sleeping with him and unwittingly been led into a heinous and unnatural offence ? They would hardly subscribe to the view that he had done no harm.’

‘He isn’t in a position to defile anyone,’ said ManjusrI. ‘He’s a gelded lion!’

At this Pigsy came up to the wizard and felt him. ‘Quite true,’ he announced, laughing. ‘This is a “blotchy nose that never sniffed wine”; “a bad name and nothing to show for it.”‘

‘Very well then,’ said Monkey. ‘Take him away. If you had not come just in time, he’d have been dead by now.’

ManjusrI then recited a spell and said, ‘Creature, back to your true shape and look sharp about it!’ The wizard at once changed into his real lion form, and ManjusrI, putting down the lotus that he carried in his hand, harnessed the lion, mounted him, and rode away over the clouds.

If you do not know how Tripitaka and his disciples left the city you must listen while it is explained to you in the next chapter.

M
ONKEY
and the other two disciples lowered the clouds on which they rode and returned to Court, where they received the humble thanks of the king, his ministers, heir and consort, and all the officers. Monkey told them how Manjusri had reclaimed the fiend, at which they prostrated themselves with extreme awe and reverence. In the midst of these congratulations and rejoicings a eunuch suddenly arrived, saying, ‘My lord and master, four more priests have arrived.’

‘Brother,’ said Pigsy, in consternation, ‘what if it should turn out that the fiend, having disguised himself as Manjusri and taken us all in, has now turned himself into a priest, in the hope of confounding us ?’

‘Impossible!’ said Monkey, and he ordered them to be shown in. The officers of the Court sent word that they were to be admitted, and when they appeared Monkey saw at once that they were priests from the Treasure Wood Temple, bringing the crown, belt, cloak and upturned shoes of the king. ‘Just at the right moment!’ said Monkey, delighted. He then called to the ‘porter’ to come forward, took off his head-wrap and put on the crown, took off his cloth coat and put on the royal robe, undid the sash and girded him with the belt of jades, slipped off his priest’s sandals and put on the upturned shoes. Then he told the prince to bring out the white jade tablet, and put it in the king’s hand, bidding him mount the dais and proclaim his sovereignty, in accordance with the old saying ‘A court must not, even for a day, be without a sovereign.’

But the king was very loth to sit upon the throne, and weeping bitterly he knelt on the centre of the steps, saying, ‘I was dead for three years, and having now by your doing been brought back to life, how can I dare proclaim myself your sovereign? It would be better that one of you priests should be king, and that I should take my wife and child and live like a commoner outside the walls of the city.’

Tripitaka of course would not accept, as his heart was set upon going to worship the Buddha and get scriptures. The king then asked Monkey.’ Gentlemen,’ said Monkey laughing, ‘I will not deceive you. If I had wanted to be an Emperor, I could have had the throne in any of the ten thousand lands and nine continents under heaven. But I have got used to being a priest and leading a lazy, comfortable existence. An Emperor has to wear his hair long; at nightfall he may not doze, at the fifth drum he must be awake. Each time there is news from the frontier his heart jumps; when there are calamities and disasters he is plunged in sorrow and despair; I should never get used to it. You go back to your job as Emperor, and let me go back to mine as priest, doing my deeds and going upon my way.’

Seeing that it was useless to refuse, the king at last mounted the dais, turned towards his subjects and proclaimed his sovereignty, announcing a great amnesty throughout his realm. He loaded the priests from the Treasure Wood Temple with presents and sent them home. Then he opened the eastern upper room and held a banquet for Tripitaka. He also sent for a painter to make portraits of the blessed countenances of Tripitaka and his disciples, which were to be hung in the Palace of Golden Bells, and reverenced as objects of worship.

Having put the king upon his throne, Tripitaka and his disciples were anxious to start out again as soon as possible. The king, his ladies, the prince, and all the ministers pressed upon them all the heirlooms of the kingdom, and gold, silver, silks, and satins, to show their deep gratitude. But Tripitaka would not accept so much as a split hair, and when their passports had been put in order, he urged Monkey and the rest to get the horse saddled, so that they might start at once. The king, very loth to part with them, ordered his State Coach to be got ready and made Tripitaka ride in it. He was drawn by officers civil and military, while the prince and ladies of the Court pushed at the sides, till they were beyond the walls of the town. Here Tripitaka alighted, and took leave of them all.

‘Master,’ said the king, ‘on your way back from India, when you pass this way, you must certainly visit me.’

‘I shall obey your command,’ said Tripitaka.

Then with his eyes full of tears the king, accompanied by all his ministers, returned to the Palace.

The Master and his three disciples travelled westward, going slowly the better to enjoy the scenery, when suddenly they heard what sounded like the hubbub of a hundred thousand voices. Tripitaka, much alarmed, reined in his horse, and turning to Monkey said, ‘Where does that strange noise come from ?’

‘It sounds to me like a landslide,’ broke in Pigsy.

‘I should say it was a thunderstorm,’ said Sandy.