Monkey (13 page)

Kuan-yin came up to the lotus platform, bowed three times to the Buddha, and said, ‘I don’t know if I can make a
success of it, but I should like to go to the eastern land and find someone to fetch the scriptures.’

‘You’re just the person,’ said Buddha. ‘A venerable Bodhisattva with great sanctity and magic powers – we couldn’t do better.’

‘Have you any particular instructions?’ asked Kuan-yin.

‘I want you,’ said Buddha, ‘to make a thorough study of the air at a fairly low altitude, not up among the stars. Keep an eye on the mountains and rivers, and make careful note of the distances and travelling-stages, so that you may assist the scripture-seeker. But it is going to be a very difficult journey for him, and I have five talismans which I should like you to give him.’ An embroidered cassock and a priest’s staff with nine rings were then fetched, and he said to Kuan-yin, ‘When he feels his courage failing him on the road, let him put on this cassock. If he carries this staff, he will never meet with poison or violence. And here,’ Buddha continued, ‘I have three fillets. They are all alike, but their use is different; each has its separate spell. If on his journey the pilgrim meets with any ogre of superlative powers, you must attempt to convert this ogre and make him the scripture-seeker’s disciple. If he resists, the pilgrim is to put one of these fillets on his head, reciting the spell that belongs to it. Whereupon the ogre’s eyes will swell and his head ache so excruciatingly that he will feel as if his brains were bursting, and he will be only too glad to embrace our Faith.’

Kuan-yin bowed and called upon her disciple Hui-yen to follow her. He carried a great iron cudgel, weighing a thousand pounds, and hovered round the Bodhisattva, acting as her bodyguard. Kuan-yin made the cassock into a bundle and put it on his back. She took the fillets herself and held the nine-ringed staff in her hand. When they came to the Weak Waters, which form the boundary of the River of Sand, Kuan-yin said, ‘My disciple, this place is very difficult going. The scripture-seeker will be a man of common mortal birth. How will he get across ?’

‘Tell me first,’ said Hui-yen, ‘how wide is the River of Sands?’

The Bodhisattva was examining the river, when suddenly
there was a great splash, and out jumped the most hideous monster imaginable. Holding a staff in its hand this creature made straight for the Bodhisattva.

‘Halt!’ cried Hui-yen, fending off the monster with his iron cudgel; and there on the shore of the River of Sands a fearful combat began. Up and down the shore the battle moved, and they had fought twenty or thirty bouts without reaching a decision, when the monster halted with his iron cudgel held up in front of him and said, ‘What priest are you, and where do you come from, that you dare resist me?’

‘I am Prince Moksha, second son of Vaisravana, now called Hui-yen. I am now defending my superior on the journey to China, where we hope to find one who will come and fetch scriptures. What creature are you who dare to bar our path?’

‘Ah,’ said the monster, suddenly remembering, ‘didn’t I use to see you in Kuan-yin’s bamboo-grove, practising austerities ? What have you done with the Bodhisattva ?’

‘You didn’t realize then that it was she on the bank?’ said Hui-yen.

The creature was aghast; he lowered his weapon and allowed himself to be brought to Kuan-yin. ‘Bodhisattva, forgive my crime,’ he cried, bowing profoundly. ‘I am not the monster that I seem, but was a marshal of the hosts of Heaven, charged to wait upon the Jade Emperor when he rode in his Phoenix Chariot. But at a heavenly banquet I had the misfortune to break a crystal dish. By the Emperor’s orders I received 800 lashes, and was banished to the world below, transformed into my present hideous shape. He sends flying swords that stab my breast and sides one day in every seven. I get nothing to eat, and every few days hunger drives me to come out and look for some traveller, on whose flesh I feed. Little did I think today that the traveller whom I was blindly attacking was none other than the Bodhisattva.’

‘It was for sinning in Heaven,’ said Kuan-yin, ‘that you were banished. Yet here you are adding sin to sin, slaying living creatures. I am on my way to China to look for a scripture-seeker. Why don’t you join our sect, reform your ways, become a disciple of the scripture-seeker, and go with
him to India to fetch the scriptures? I’ll see to it that the flying swords stop piercing you. If the expedition is a success, you will have expiated your crime and be allowed to go back to your old employment in Heaven. Doesn’t that idea please you?’

‘I would gladly embrace the Faith,’ said the creature, ‘but there is something I must first confess. I have since I came here devoured countless human beings. Pilgrims have come this way several times, and I ate them all. The heads I threw into the River of Flowing Sands, and they sank to the bottom (such is the nature of this river that not even a goose-feather will float upon it). But there were nine skulls that remained floating on the water and would not sink. Seeing that these skulls behaved so strangely, I moored them with a rope, and in leisure moments drew them in and sported with them. If this is known, it seems likely that future pilgrims will not care to come this way, and my chances of salvation are lost.’

‘Not come this way! Nonsense!’ said the Bodhisattva. ‘You can take the skulls and hang them round your neck. When the scripture-seeker arrives, a good use will be found for them.’ The monster accordingly took his vows and was received into the Faith, receiving the name of Sandy Priest. Having escorted Kuan-yin across the river, he went back and devoted himself to penances and purifications, never again taking life, but watching all the while for the pilgrim who was destined to come.

So the Bodhisattva parted with him and went on with Hui-yen towards China. After a while they came to a high mountain, from which there came an extremely bad smell. They had just decided to ride high over it on their clouds when there came a mad blast of wind, and there suddenly appeared before them a monster of hideous appearance. His lips curled and drooped like withered lotus leaves, his ears flapped like rush-work fans. He had tusks sharp as awls and a snout like the nozzle of a bellows. He rushed straight at Kuan-yin, striking at her with a muck-rake. Hui-yen warded off the blow, crying, ‘Foul fiend, mend your manners, and look out for my cudgel.’

‘This priest,’ cried the monster, ‘little knows what he is up against. Look out for my rake!’

And at the foot of the mountain the two of them had a great fight. Just when it was at its best, Kuan-yin who was watching in the sky above threw down some lotus flowers which fell just between the cudgel and the rake.

‘What sort of a priest are you?’ the monster cried, ‘that you dare play upon me the trick of the “flower in the eye”.’

‘Grovelling, low-born monster,’ said Hui-yen, ‘I am a disciple of the Bodhisattva Kuan-yin, and it was she who threw down these flowers. Didn’t you recognize her ?’

‘You don’t mean it I’ said he. ‘The great Bodhisattva, the one that saves us from the three calamities and eight disasters ?’

‘Whom else should I mean ?’ said Hui-yen.

The monster dropped his rake and bowed low. ‘Old chap,’ he said, ‘where is the Bodhisattva? I wish you’d introduce me.’

Hui-yen looked up and pointed. “There she is all right,’ he said.

The monster kowtowed skyward, crying in a loud voice, ‘Forgive me, Bodhisattva, forgive me.’

Kuan-yin lowered her cloud and came up to him, saying, ‘How dare a filthy old pig-spirit like you attempt to bar my path?’

‘I am not really a pig at all,’ he said. ‘I was a marshal of the hosts of Heaven, but one day I got a bit drunk and misbehaved with the Goddess of the Moon. For this the Jade Emperor had me soundly thrashed and banished me to the world below. When the time came for my next incarnation, I lost my way and got by mistake into the belly of an old mother pig, which accounts for what I look like now. I spend my time eating people, that I own. But I never noticed it was you I had run into. Save me, save me!’

“There is a proverb,’ said the Bodhisattva, ‘which runs: “Works of damnation cannot lead to salvation.” Having been banished from Heaven because you broke its laws, you have not repented, but live on human flesh. Are you not inviting a double punishment for both your crimes ?’

‘Salvation indeed!’ cried the monster. ‘If I followed your
advice, what should I live on? On the wind, I suppose. There’s another proverb which says, “If the Government gets hold of you they’ll flog you to death; if the Buddhists get hold of you they’ll starve you to death.” Go awayl I see I shall get on much better by catching a family of travellers now and then, and eating their daughter if she’s buxom and tasty, no matter whether that’s two crimes, three crimes, or a thousand crimes.’

‘There is a saying,’ the Bodhisattva replied, ‘ “Heaven helps those who mean well.” If you give up your evil ways, you may be sure you won’t lack nourishment. There are five crops in the world; so there is no need to starve. Why should you feed on human flesh ?’

The monster was like one who wakes from a dream. ‘I should like to reform,’ he said, ‘but “Him no prayer can help who has sinned against Heaven.”‘

‘Here’s a chance for you,’ said Kuan-yin. ‘We are on our way to China to look for a seeker of scriptures. If you were to become his disciple and go with him to India, you would wipe out all your old sin.’

‘I will, I will,’ blurted out the creature. All that remained now was to tonsure him and administer the vows, and it was agreed that he should be known in religion as Pigsy. He was told to fast, do penance, and keep all the while on the watch for the destined pilgrim.

Proceeding on their way Kuan-yin and Hui-yen were presently accosted by a dragon. ‘What dragon are you?’ asked the Bodhisattva, ‘and what have you done that you should be cast adrift here?’

‘I am a son of the Dragon King of the Western Ocean,’ the dragon said. ‘I inadvertently set fire to his palace and some of his Pearls of Wisdom were burnt. My father insisted that I had done it on purpose and accused me in the Courts of Heaven of attempted rebellion. The Jade Emperor hung me up here in the sky, had me given 300 cuts of the lash, and in a few days I am to be executed. Can you do anything to help me?’

Kuan-yin promptly went up to Heaven, secured an interview with the Jade Emperor, and begged that the dragon
might be forgiven, on condition that he allowed himself to be ridden upon by the pilgrim who was going to India to bring back the true scriptures. The request was granted, and the Bodhisattva ordered the little dragon to go down into a deep canyon and await the arrival of the pilgrim. It was then to change into a white horse and carry him to India.

Kuan-yin and Hui-yen had not gone far on their way to China when they suddenly saw great shafts of golden light and many wreaths of magic vapour.

‘That is the Mountain of the Five Elements,’ said Hui-yen. ‘I can see the imprint of Buddha’s seal upon it.’

‘Is not that the mountain,’ said Kuan-yin, ‘under which is imprisoned the Sage Equal of Heaven, who upset the Peach Banquet and ran amok in the halls of Heaven ?’

‘Very true,’ said Hui-yen.

They alighted on the mountain and examined the seal, which was the six-syllable spell O
M
M
ANI
P
ADME
H
UM.
Kuan-yin sighed a deep sigh, and recited the following poem:

‘Long ago performed in vain prodigies of valour.

In his blackness of heart he upset the Heavenly Peach Banquet;

In mad rashness he dared to rob the Patriarch of Tao.

A hundred thousand heavenly troops could not overcome him;

He terrorised the realm of Heaven throughout its nine spheres.

At last in Buddha Tathagata Monkey met his match.

Will he ever again be set at large and win back his renown?

‘Who is it,’ a voice came from inside the mountain, ‘who recites verses that tell of my misdoings ?’

Kuan-yin came down towards the place from which the voice seemed to come, and at the foot of a cliff found the guardian deities of the place, who after welcoming the Bodhisattva, led her to where Monkey was imprisoned. He was pent in a kind of stone box, and though he could speak he could not move hand or foot.

‘Monkey,’ cried the Bodhisattva, ‘do you know me or not?’

He peered through a chink with his steely, fiery eyes and cried aloud, ‘How should I not know you? You are she of Potalaka, the Saviour Kuan-yin. To what do I owe this
pleasure? Here where days and years are one to me, no friend or acquaintance has ever come to seek me out. Where, pray, do you come from ?’

‘Buddha sent me,’ said she, ‘to China, to look for one who will come to India and fetch the scriptures, and as this place is on the way, I took the opportunity of calling upon you.’

‘Buddha tricked me,’ said Monkey, ‘and imprisoned me under this mountain five hundred years ago, and here I have been ever since. I entreat you to use your powers to rescue me.’

‘Your sins were very great,’ she said, ‘and I am by no means confident that if you get out you would not at once get into trouble again.’

‘No,’ said Monkey, ‘I have repented, and now want only to embrace the Faith and devote myself to good works.’