Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West (Michigan Classics in Chinese Studies) (4 page)

It so happened that Monkey, although brave and belligerent, was, nevertheless, compassionate. As he placed the cudgel back behind his ear, tears unconsciously flowed from his eyes, and he said to himself contritely, “Great Heaven! Since I became a Buddhist, I've controlled my emotions and contained my anger. I've never wrongly killed a single man. Today I struck out in sudden anger and killed boys and girls who
weren't even monsters or thieves—old and young, maybe fifty in all. I completely forgot the heavy price for doing wrong.”

Monkey took two steps, and was again overcome by fear. He said to himself, “I've been thinking only of hell in the future. I'd completely forgotten the hell that is right in front of me. The day before yesterday I killed a monster, and right away the Master wanted to chant the charm.
⁸
Once when I killed several thieves, the Master renounced me on the spot. When he sees this pile of corpses today, he'll really be angry. If he chants the charm a hundred times, this noble Great Sage Sun
⁹
will be one skinned monkey. Will I have any honor left then?”

But after all, Mind-Monkey was intelligent and resourceful. He came up with another idea. He knew our old monk was a man of culture, but he was also overly compassionate, and the bones in his ears were soft.
¹⁰
To himself he said, “Today I'll write a eulogy for these wrongly killed innocents. I'll put on a crying face and read it as I walk. When the Master sees me crying so, he'll surely be suspicious and say, ‘Wu-k'ung, what's happened to that old pluck of yours?’ I'll say, ‘There are monsters on the Western road.’ The Master's suspicion will increase. He'll ask, ‘Where are these monsters? What are they called?’ I'll say, ‘They're called “man-beating monsters.” If you don't believe me, take a look and you'll see that the crowd of boys and girls have become bloody corpses.’ When Master hears how terrible the monsters are, his courage will fail and his heart will leap. Pigsy will say, ‘Let's get out of here.’ Sandy will say, ‘Let's go, fast!’ When I see that they're well shaken, I'll comfort them with one word: ‘Everything's been taken care of by Kuan-yin. There's not one tile left unbroken in the monster's cave!'”

Monkey straightaway found a rock to use for an ink-stone and broke a plum branch for a brush. He ground mud into ink and stripped bamboo to make paper. Then he wrote out the eulogy. Gathering up his sleeves like a scholar, he swaggered with long strides and loudly recited:

I, Monkey, first disciple of the Great Buddhist Master Hsüan-tsang, who received from the legitimate Emperor of the Great T'ang a hundred-pearled cassock, a five-pearled abbot's staff, and the tide ‘Brother of the Emperor,’
as the Master of Water-curtain Cave, Great Sage Equal of Heaven, Rebel in the Heavenly Palace, and Eminent Guest in the Underworld, Sun Wu-k'ung, do reverently offer as sacrifice clear wine and simple food and write this message to you, spirits of the boys and girls in the spring wind, against whom I bore no grudge and harbored no enmity:

Alas! The willows by the gate have turned to gold; orchids in the courtyard are pregnant with jade. Heaven and Earth are unkind; the green-in-years reach no fruition. Oh, why do their waistbands drift among peach blossoms this third month on the River Hsiang? Why do the white crane's clouds twine with the endless mist to the Ninth Heaven? Ah, Ye spirits, how can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.

And furthermore, where dragons and snakes are coiled around bronze columns, in the great hall busy with silkworms, with her jade lute weeping for the wind and rain, in the tower, crying like a tiger—such was the decorum of the White Girl. Oh, why, when spring clothes are ready and spring grasses green, and when spring days grow longer, are spring lives cut short? Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.

Alas! A hobbyhorse ride of a mile, a firefly bag half-filled—Little Boy Fate had no call for anger. The money for washing has not been given, but little bird shoes have flown to the Western Abyss; a pair of pillars, first decked in red, now don white goosefeather robes and play in the Purple Vale. Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.

And think of Confucius, who, as a lad of seven hid in the bed curtains and chirped like a cricket! And think of Tseng Shen, who when only two feet tall offered lichees from under the stairs! Oh why do you no longer speak of such proprieties? Jade is split in the southern field, a lotus shatters on the eastern lake. The jujubes, floating red, are not gathered; the sap that hangs from the
t'ung
tree is not chewed. Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.

Alas! Not to the South or North or West or East can I write lines to bring back your souls. Are you Chang or Ch'ien or Hsü or Chao? How can I tell from these old gravestones? Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.
¹¹

By the time Monkey finished reading, he had come to the peony tree. He saw the Master asleep, his head drooped on his chest, while Sandy and Pigsy lay sleeping with their heads on a stone. Monkey laughed to himself, “The old monk is usually more vigorous—he's never been so drowsy. My stars are lucky today! I won't have to suffer from the charm.”

Then he picked some grass and flowers, and after rolling them into a ball, stuffed them in Pigsy's ear. He yelled in the other ear, “Wu-neng!
¹²
Don't have upside-down dreams!”

Pigsy mumbled a reply in his dream, “Master, why are you calling me?”

Monkey realized that in his dream Pigsy mistook him for the Master, so he imitated the Master's voice and said, “Disciple, Bodhisattva Kuan-yin passed here and asked me to give you her regards.”

With his eyes closed Pigsy mumbled through the grass, “Has the Bodhisattva said anything behind my back?”

Monkey said, “Oh my, yes! The Bodhisattva just now evaluated me and you three as well. First she said that I couldn't become a buddha and told me not to go to the Western Paradise. She said Wu-k'ung will surely become a buddha, and that he should go on to the Western Paradise alone. Wu-ching
¹³
can be a monk. She said he should go and cultivate himself in a pure temple along the Western road. After making these three comments, the Bodhisattva stared at you and said, ‘Wu-neng likes his sleep. He'll never reach the Western Paradise either. Please tell him that I said he should take a loving and faithful wife.’”

Pigsy said, “I don't want the Western Paradise or a lovely wife! I just want half a day in the dark sweet village of sleep.” And he snored like a bull.

When Monkey saw that he wouldn't wake up, he laughed and said, “Disciple, I'll go on ahead.” Then he went west to beg for food.

1
Mind-Monkey is a metaphor for the incessant activity of the
hsin
(which refers to both mind and heart) and its tendency to turn its attention from one thought to another like a monkey leaping from branch to branch in a tree. The Ch'ing Fish, literally a mackerel, was chosen by the author to stand for the demon desire because of the pun between the Chinese name for this fish and the word for desire.

2
I.e., Monkey.

3
Yang Kuei-fei was the favorite consort of T'ang Hsüan-tsung (r. 712-755). The emperor's infatuation with her was a factor that contributed to the disastrous An Lu-shan rebellion that ended his reign.

4
G
th
is a type of Buddhist poetry composed of four lines of unspecified length. In this case, the first two lines are four characters long, and the second two are five characters long.

5
Ch'an is the Meditation School of Chinese Buddhism (known also by its Japanese pronunciation, Zen), whose tenets place primary emphasis on direct apprehension of the true nature of existence and hold reliance on such verbal means as composing and reciting poems and discussing texts such as sutras and their commentaries to be secondary or supplementary in the effort to attain that goal.

6
The
pi-i
is a fabulous bird that has only one wing and must therefore be always with its mate in order to fly. They are said to be quick-green and crimson.

7
Monkey possesses the enchanted cudgel that was originally used by the sage-emperor Yü in controlling the Great Floods and fixing the depths of the various waterways. Monkey acquired it from the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea in
chapter 3
of
Journey to the West
and used its powers of transmogrification to keep it small enough to be tucked behind his ear or to be enlarged or multiplied as needed for battle.

8
The charm in question is an incantation that causes Monkey's gold-inlaid flowered cap to constrict, causing him unbearable pain. The magic cap was given to the T'ang Priest by Bodhisattva Kuan-yin in
chapter 14
of
Journey to the West
as a check on Monkey's volatile temper.

9
Monkey's surname is Sun.

10
Having soft bones in the ears means that one is not able to resist sweet words, pleas or lies.

11
This seems to be Monkey's attempt at “literary Ch'an.” Clearly, its opaqueness and ineptness is meant to satirize this kind of practice.

12
I.e., Pigsy.

13
I.e., Sandy.

A New T'ang Dynasty Appears on the Western Road; The Glorious Emperor Rests in the Green Jade Palace.

From here on, Wu-k'ung devises a thousand schemes to fool others, but instead only fools himself.

Monkey leaped onto his magic cloud and looked east and west for a place to beg for food. Two hours later he had yet to see a single house and was growing impatient. Just as he was about to lower his cloud and return to the old road, he spied a great city surrounded by a moat ten miles off. He hurried in to take a look, and saw that on the city wall flew a green embroidered banner. In golden seal-style characters the banner announced: “Great T'ang's New Son-of-Heaven, the Restoration Emperor, Thirty-eighth Successor of T'ai-tsung.”
¹

When Monkey spotted the two words “Great T'ang,” he gave a start and broke out in a cold sweat. He thought, “We've been traveling west; how could we have returned to the east? This can't be real. I wonder what monster is doing evil here.” Then he had another thought, “I've heard the earth is round and the sky goes around it. Perhaps we passed the Western Paradise and have come around again. If that's so, we shouldn't worry—we'll just have to go around once more, and we'll reach the Western Paradise. Maybe this is real after all.”

But after reconsideration he rejected that idea, “It's not real. No! If we passed the Western Paradise, why didn't the Compassionate Buddha call out to me? After all, I've seen him several times, and he's not an unfeeling or inhospitable person. This has got to be a hoax.”

Then he recalled, “When I was a demon at Water-curtain Cave,
²
I had a sworn brother who called himself Messenger-in-Blue. He gave me
a book entitled
Apocryphal History of the K'un-lun Mountains
. In one place it said, ‘There was a kingdom called China that wasn't originally called China. Its people envied the name China and consequently adopted it.’ This kingdom must be the place in the West that took the name ‘China.’ So it is real.”

An instant later Monkey blurted out, “False! False! False! False! False! If they were envious of China, they would only have written ‘China.’ Why did they write ‘Great T'ang?’ What's more, my Master often says that the Great T'ang is quite a new empire. How could they already know the name here and change their banner? It can't be real.”

After a long time he still hadn't made up his mind, so he decided to take a closer look and read the rest of the banner. When he read

“New Son of Heaven, the Restoration Emperor, Thirty-eighth Successor of T'ai-tsung,”

he stamped his feet and shouted into the sky, “Nonsense! Nonsense! It hasn't been twenty years since the Master left the realm of the Great T'ang. How could a dynasty already have passed several hundred years? The Master is only flesh and blood. Even though he's been in and out of the caves of spirits and immortals and visited fairy islands, he still passes his days like any ordinary man. How could there be such a difference? It has to be false.”

But he considered again, “You can't tell—if they changed emperors each month, they could go through thirty-eight emperors in less than four years. Maybe it is real.”

The fog of doubt had not been dispersed, and all this reasoning was getting him nowhere. So he lowered his cloud and chanted an incantation to summon the local deity for information. He repeated it ten times, but no deity came. Monkey thought, “Usually when I recite just a little of it, they shield their heads and come running like rats. What's going on today? Well, this is for something urgent, so I won't punish him. I'll call the celestial officials on duty today. They'll know the answer for sure.”

Trying to locate the celestial officials, he shouted toward the sky several hundred times, but couldn't find a trace of them. Monkey was furious. In a twinkling he changed into the form in which he had caused an uproar in Heaven,
³
and brandished his cudgel till it was as big around
as the mouth of a barrel. He sprang into the air, jumping and whirling wildly. He carried on for a long while, but not so much as a lowly deity answered him.

Monkey became even angrier. He rushed headlong to the Palace of Magic Mists to see the Jade Emperor and demand an explanation from him. But when he got there he found the gates of Heaven tightly closed.

Monkey yelled, “Open the door! Open the door!”

Someone inside replied, “Listen to this impetuous slave, will you? Someone has stolen our Palace of Magic Mists. There's no Heaven to be entered.”

He heard someone else laugh and say, “Didn't you know our Palace was stolen, big brother? Five hundred years ago there was a Stable Master Sun
⁴
who caused an uproar in Heaven. He didn't manage to steal the Palace of Magic Mists, but he carried a grudge and formed a gang, and while pretending he was going to get scriptures, he made friends with all the monsters on the Western road. Then one day he summoned those monsters and used several ingenious devices to steal the Palace. That's what's called in military strategy ‘Using others to attack others—an infallible plan.’ That ape is really a schemer! He's quite something!”

When Monkey heard this, he was both amused and annoyed. But being a stubborn and impatient fellow, how could he swallow these false charges? He beat on the gate again with his fists and kicked it, shouting “Open the door!”

The voice inside spoke again. “If you really want to open the gates of Heaven, wait five thousand and forty-six years until the new Palace of Magic Mists is completed. Then we'll open the gates to receive you, honored guest. How's that?”

Monkey had hoped to see the Jade Emperor and get a divinely worded scroll in purple characters that would state clearly whether the Great T'ang he had seen was true or false. Instead he had been greatly humiliated. He could do nothing but lower his cloud and return to the domain of the Great T'ang, saying, “I'll just go on in and see what happens.”

Thereupon he forgot his annoyance and walked through the city gate. The guard at the gate said, “The new Emperor has ordered that anyone who speaks or dresses strangely is to be seized and killed. You, little monk, with no home or family, should watch out for yourself.”

Monkey saluted with his clasped hands and said “Your words, Sir, are most considerate.” He hurried through the gate, then changed himself into a black and white butterfly and flew along like the dance of a beautiful girl or the notes of a lute.

Soon he reached the base of a colorful tower. He fluttered through its jade gate and came to rest in a hall. The jade hinges of the many doors were wound around with mist; the green chambers were wrapped in clouds. Even fairies never see such sights—an immortal's cave hardly compares.

The heavens revolve, the golden breath unites;

The stars move until the Dipper's handle becomes level.

A cloud forms in the Kingfisher Palace;

The sun shines bright in Phoenix City.

                                          —An Old Rhyme

Monkey looked and looked. He noticed on the door-lintel of the hall three large characters which read, “Green Jade Palace.” Beside this was inscribed a line of small characters: “This palace was built on an auspicious day in the second month of the first year of the Romantic Emperor of the New T'ang.” The hall was silent, but on one wall were two lines of calligraphy: “When the T'ang dynasty had held the mandate less than fifty years, that great country was reduced to the size of a peck. Fifty years after the T'ang received the mandate, the mountains and streams flew about, the stars and the moon left their courses. But the new emperor has held the mandate for a hundred million years. People everywhere sing the odes written for King Hsüan of Chou.
⁵
I, the minor official Chang Ch'iu, reverently offer praise.”

When Monkey read this, he laughed to himself and said: “With insignificant officials like this at court, how could the emperor help but be romantic?”

At that moment an imperial concubine entered carrying a green bamboo broom. She chuckled to herself, “Oh-ho! The emperor is asleep, the prime minister is, too. This Green Jade Palace is now a “Sleeping Immortal Pavilion.” Last night our Romantic Emperor warmed the room of Lady Ch'ing-kuo.
⁶
He ordered wine taken to Flying Kingfisher
Palace for a merry night of drinking. Early in the evening he brought out a Kao-t'ang mirror
⁷
and told Lady Ch'ing-kuo to stand on his left and Lady Hsü to stand on his right. As they stood three abreast gazing into the mirror, the emperor said, ‘You two ladies are lovely!' Lady Ch'ing-kuo said, ‘Your Majesty is handsome.’ The emperor turned his head to ask the opinion of us concubines, and all three hundred of us who are intimate with him replied together, ‘Your Majesty is indeed the world's finest.’

“The emperor was delighted. He narrowed his eyes and tossed off a great horn of wine. When he was half-drunk he got up to look at the moon, then opened his mouth and laughed. Pointing at Ch'ang O
⁸
in the moon, he said, ‘That's my Lady Hsu.’ Lady Hsü pointed at the stars of the Spinning Lady and the Cowherd and said, ‘There are Your Majesty and Lady Ch'ing-kuo. Although tonight is only the fifth of the third month, you have in advance the evening of the seventh month.’
⁹
The emperor was greatly pleased and again drank his great horn empty.

“A drunken emperor—face flushed, head nodding, legs staggering, tongue thick; oblivious to the fact that three sevens are twenty-one and two sevens are fourteen—toppled across Lady Hsü's body. Lady Ch'ing-kuo quickly sat down and folded herself into a snowflake mat of flesh to pillow the emperor's heels. At Lady Hsü's side sat a young maid of rather good taste who straightaway plucked a fragrant seatree flower. Giggling, she walked behind Lady Hsü and lightly placed it on the emperor's head, making him a drunken Flower Emperor. Such a happy time! It was really a fairy island on earth.

“Still, when you think of it, past generations had many emperors, and not a few romantic ones. Today their palaces are gone, the lovely ladies are gone, the emperors, all gone. There's really no need to mention Ch'in and Han and the Six Dynasties—even our late emperor in his middle age loved to seek pleasure. He built Pearl-rain Tower—so
elegant! It was trellised with white jade, and on all four sides carved green ornaments hung from the windows. On the north stood a round frost-cave gate where you could watch the sun rise and set in the sea. The stairs below were made of red sandalwood edged with gold. Painted lotus-faces, powdered plum-petal skin, cicada-wing blouses and unicorn belts, flutes of Shu and strings of Wu
¹⁰
—no one saw all this without envy or heard all this without being moved.

“Yesterday the empress told me to go and sweep the grounds of the eastern flower garden. I looked over the short wall to see Pearl-rain Tower, and at first I saw only desolate grass. I looked again. There were clouds and mist, and what had been three thousand interlocking tiles were a million fragments. Beams carved with whirling dragons and timbers carved with flying insects stood like broken trellises.

“But there was something still more absurd. The sun was only halfway up the sky, but several will-o'-the-wisps came from the well by the pines. When I looked closely, there wasn't a single singing-boy or dancing-girl in sight, only two or three cuckoos calling over and over—one high note and one low note in the spring rain.

“When you see this sort of thing, you realize that emperor and commoner all return to nothing; imperial concubine and village girl alike become dust. Last year on the fifteenth of the first month, the Taoist Sung Lo spoke a bit of wisdom. He said, ‘Our Romantic Emperor enjoys seeing people in paintings and loves the scenery in pictures.’ So he presented a painting called ‘A Portrait of Mt. Li.’ The emperor asked, ‘Is Mt. Li still in existence?’ The Taoist said, ‘Mt. Li has had a short life of only two thousand years.’ The emperor laughed and said, ‘Two thousand years is enough.’ The Taoist said, ‘I only regret that it has not been two thousand years in a row. The Mt. Li of earth and wood lasted only two hundred years; people talked about it for four hundred years; it's been depicted in writings, calligraphic works, and paintings for five hundred years, and recorded in history for nine hundred years. Adding up these fragments you get two thousand years.’

“That day I was in attendance, standing right in front of the Taoist. I heard every sentence clearly. That was over a year ago, and just the day before yesterday, I visited a learned imperial concubine and spoke to her of this. She told me that the ‘Portrait of Mt. Li’ really showed the grave
of the First August Emperor of Ch'in, who once used the Mountain-removing Bell.”
¹¹

The girl swept and talked and talked and swept.

When Monkey heard the words, “Mountain-removing Bell,” he thought, “How can a mountain be removed?…Why, if I had that bell, whenever I came to a high mountain where monsters lived, I could just remove it in advance and save myself trouble.” He was about to change himself into a court attendant and go ask the concubine more about the magical bell, when suddenly he heard loud strains of flute and drum music coming from the main palace.

1
Journey to the West
is set in the reign of the second emperor of the T'ang dynasty, T'ai-tsung (r. 627-649).