Wu Cheng-en - Journey to the West (vol. 1)

That day the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan had received an invitation from the Original Celestial Jade Pure One inviting him to the Miluo Palace in the Heaven of Supreme Purity to hear a lecture on the Product of Undifferentiated Unity. The Immortals who had studied under this great Immortal were too numerous to count, and he now had forty-eight disciples who had all attained to the full truth of the Way. That day, the Great Immortal took forty-six of them with him to hear the lecture in the upper world, leaving the two youngest, Pure Wind and Bright Moon, to look after the temple. Pure Wind was 1,320 years old, and Bright Moon had just turned 1,200.

The Great Immortal gave his instructions to the two boys: “As I must obey the summons of the Original Celestial Jade Pure One and go to the Miluo Palace to hear a lecture, you two will have to look after the temple carefully. An old friend of mine will be coming this way before long, and you must entertain him very well indeed. You can pick two manfruits for him as a token of our old friendship.”

“Who is this old friend of yours, master?” the boys asked. “Please tell us who he is so that we can entertain him properly.”

“He is a priest sent by the Tang Emperor in the East,” the Great Immortal replied, “and he is known as Sanzang. He is the monk going to worship the Buddha and ask for the scriptures in the Western Heaven.”

“Confucius said, 'Don't have anything to do with people of a different way,'“ replied the boys with smiles. “Ours is the esoteric sect of the Great Monad, so why ever are you friends with that Buddhist monk?”

“You are not aware,” the Great Immortal replied, “that he is a reincarnation of the Golden Cicada, the second disciple of the Tathagata Buddha, that ancient sage of the West. I made his acquaintance at an Ullambana assembly where he gave me tea with his own hands. As this disciple of the Buddha paid me such an honour, I regard him as an old friend.”

When the two Immortal boys heard this, they accepted their master's orders. Just as he was on the point of setting out, the Great Immortal gave them some more instructions: “There are a limited number of those manfruits. You must only give two, and not one more.”

“When the garden was opened we all shared two,” said the boys, “and there are twenty-eight now left on the tree. We won't use more than two.”

“Although the Tang Priest is an old friend of mine,” said the Great Immortal, “you must be on your guard against his ruffian followers, and you mustn't let them know about the manfruit.” The Great Immortal then flew up to Heaven with the rest of his disciples.

The Tang Priest and his three followers, meanwhile, were enjoying themselves strolling on the mountain when they noticed some tall buildings rising above a bamboo grove. “What do you think that is?” Sanzang asked Monkey, who replied, “It's either a Taoist temple or a Buddhist one. Let's go over and find out.” It did not take them long to reach the gate, and they saw

A cool pine-covered slope,

A tranquil path through the bamboo.

White cranes brought floating clouds,

Monkeys and apes offered fruit.

Before the gate was a wide pool, and the shadows of the trees were long;

In the cracks of the rocks grew moss.

Many a purple hall was massed together;

A red aura enveloped the lofty towers.

It certainly was a blessed place,

A cloud cave on Penglai.

In its pure emptiness little happened;

Its stillness gave birth to thoughts of the Way.

Green birds often brought letters from the Queen Mother;

Purple pheasants carried the classics of Lord Lao Zi.

There was a majestic air of the Way and its Power-

It was indeed a divine Immortal's home.

Sanzang dismounted and saw that there was a stone tablet outside the gate on which was inscribed in large letters:

BLESSED LAND OF THE MOUNTAIN OF INFINITE LONGEVITY

CAVE HEAVEN OF THE WUZHUANG TEMPLE

“You were right,” said Sanzang, “it is a Taoist temple.”

“Good people must live in this temple,” said Friar Sand, “set as it is in such fresh, light scenery. Let's go in and have a look round. When we go back to the East at the end of our journey, this will be one of the finest sights we'll have seen.”

“Well spoken,” said Monkey, and they all went in. On the next gate was pasted the couplet:

“Residence of Divine Immortals Who Never Grow Old;

Home of Taoists as Ancient as Heaven.”

“This Taoist tries to intimidate people by talking big,” said Monkey with a laugh. “When I wrecked the Heavenly Palace five hundred years ago I never saw anything like that over the gate of the Supreme Lord Lao Zi.”

“Never mind him,” said Pig. “Let's go in. This Taoist may well be quite a decent bloke.”

As they went through the second gate they saw two boys come scurrying out. This is what they looked like:

Pure bones, lively spirits, pretty faces,

And hair tied in childish tufts.

Their Taoist robes naturally wreathed in mist,

The sleeves of their feather clothes were floating in the wind.

Their jade belts were tied with dragon-head knots,

Their grass sandals lightly fastened with silk.

In their elegance they were unlike common mortals-

The Taoist boys Pure Wind and Bright Moon.

The two boys bowed and came out to greet them. “We are sorry we did not welcome you properly, venerable master,” they said. “Please sit down.” Sanzang was delighted, and he accompanied the two boys up to the main hall of the temple, which faced South. There was a patterned lattice window that let through the light on top of the door that the boys pushed open. They asked the Tang Priest to come in, and he saw two huge words executed in many colours hanging on the wall-Heaven and Earth. There was an incense table of red carved lacquer on which stood a pair of golden censers and a supply of incense.

Sanzang went over to the table and put a pinch of incense in the censers with his left hand while performing triple reverences. Then he turned round to the boys and said, “This temple is a home of Immortals in the Western Continent, so why don't you worship the Three Pure Ones, the Four Emperors, and all the ministers of Heaven? Why do you burn incense to the two words 'Heaven' and 'Earth?'”

“To be frank with you, venerable teacher,” the boys replied with smiles, “it's quite right to worship the top word, 'Heaven,' but the bottom one, 'Earth,' gets no incense from us. Our teacher only put them up to ingratiate himself.”

“How does he ingratiate himself?” Sanzang asked.

“The Three Pure Ones and the Four Emperors are our teacher's friends,” the boys replied, “the Nine Bright Shiners are his juniors, and the Constellations are his underlings.”

When Monkey heard this he collapsed with laughter, and Pig asked him, “What are you laughing at?”

“They say that I get up to no good, but these Taoist boys really tell whoppers.”

“Where is your teacher?” Sanzang asked them.

“He had an invitation from the Original Celestial Jade Pure One and has gone to the Palace in the Heaven of Supreme Purity to hear a lecture on the Product of Undifferentiated Unity, so he's not at home.”

At this Monkey could not help roaring, “Stinking Taoist boys, you don't know who you're talking to. You play your dirty tricks in front of our faces and pretend to be oh-so-innocent. What Heavenly Immortal of the Great Monad lives in the Miluo Palace? Who invited your cow's hoof of a master to a lecture?”

Sanzang was worried that now he had lost his temper the boys would answer back and spark off a disastrous fight, so he said, “Don't quarrel with them, Wukong. We'll be going in a minute, so we obviously need have nothing to do with them. Besides, as the saying goes, 'egrets don't eat egret flesh'. Their master isn't here anyway, so there would be no point in wrecking the place. Go and graze the horse outside the gate. Friar Sand, you look after the luggage, and tell Pig to take some rice from our bundles and use their kitchen to make our meal. When we go we shall give them a few coppers for the firewood. All do as I've told you and leave me here to rest. When we have eaten we shall be on our way again.” The three of them went off to do their jobs.