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

Lucid the true nature; the Way explains itself;

With one turn one jumps out of the net.

To learn transformations is very hard indeed;

To become immortal is no common deed.

Pure yields to foul and foul to pure as fate's wheel turns:

Break through the kalpas and travel freely.

Wander at will through countless billion years,

A spot of sacred light ever shining in the void.

This poem is an apt but indirect description of how wonderful the Great Sage's powers were. Now that he had won the demons' treasure and had it tucked into his sleeve he thought with delight, “The damned demon went to such a lot of trouble to capture me, but it was, as they say, like trying to fish the moon out of water. But for me to try to capture you would be like melting ice on a fire.”

Concealing the gourd about him he slipped outside, reverted to his own form, and shouted at the top of his voice, “Open up, you devils.”

“Who do you think you are, shouting like that?” asked the devils who were there.

“Tell your damned demon kings at once that Novice the Sun is here,” he replied.

The demons rushed in to report, “Your Majesties, there's a Novice the Sun or something at the doors.” The Senior King was shocked.

“This is terrible, brother,” he said. “We've stirred up a whole nest of them. Sun the Novice is tied up with the Dazzling Golden Cord, and the Novice Sun is inside the gourd, so how can there be a Novice the Sun as well? They must all be brothers and all have come.”

“Don't worry, brother,” the Junior King replied. “I can put a thousand people into my gourd, and at present I've only got the Novice Sun inside. No need to be afraid of Novice the Sun or whoever. I'm going out to take a look and put him inside too.”

“Do be careful,” said the Senior Demon King.

Watch as the Junior King goes out through the doors with his gourd, as heroic and impressive as the previous time.

“Where are you from?” he shouted at the top of his voice, “and how dare you rant and roar here?”

“Don't you know who I am?” Monkey said.

“My home is on the Mount of Flowers and Fruit;

Long have we lived in Water Curtain Cave.

For making havoc in the Heavenly Palace

For ages did I rest from war and strife.

Since my delivery from woe,

I've left the Way and now I serve a monk.

As a believer I go to Thunder Shrine

To seek the Scriptures and come back to Truth.

Now that I've met with you damned fiends,

All of my magic powers I've had to use.

Give back to us the priest who's come from Tang,

To travel West and visit the Lord Buddha.

The rival sides have fought for long enough:

Let all of us now live in peace together.

Don't make old Monkey lose his fiery temper,

For if he does he'll surely wipe you out”

“Come here,” said the demon. “I won't hit you. I'll just call your name. Will you answer?”

“If you call my name,” said Monkey, “I'll reply. But will you answer if I call your name?”

“If I call you,” said the demon, “I have a miraculous gourd that people can be packed into. But if you call me, what have you got?”

“I've got a gourd too,” Monkey replied.

“If you have, then show me,” said the demon.

Monkey then produced the gourd from his sleeve and said, “Look, damned demon.” He flourished it then put it back in his sleeve in case the demon tried to snatch it.

The sight was a great shock to the demon. “Where did he get his gourd?” he wondered. “Why is it just like mine? Even gourds from the same vine are different sizes and shapes. But that one is identical.” He then shouted angrily at Monkey, “Novice the Sun, where did you get your gourd?”

As Monkey really did not know where it was from he answered with another question: “Where did you get yours?”

Not realizing that this was a trick Monkey had learned from experience, the demon told the true story from the beginning: “When Chaos was first divided and heaven separated from earth there was this Lord Lao Zi who took the name of the Goddess Nuwa to smelt a stone to mend the heavens and save the Continent of Jambu. When he put in the missing part of the Heavenly Palace he noticed a magic vine at the foot of Mount Kunlun on which this gold and red gourd was growing. It has been handed down from Lord Lao Zi to the present day.”

Hearing this, Monkey carried on in the same vein: “That's where my gourd came from too.”

“How can you tell?” the demon king asked.

“When the pure and the coarse were first divided,” the Great Sage replied, “heaven was incomplete in the Northwest corner, and part of the earth was missing to the Southeast. So the Great Taoist Patriarch turned himself into Nuwa to mend the sky. As he passed Mount Kunlun there was a magic vine with two gourds growing on it. The one I've got is the male one, and yours is the female one.”

“Never mind about the sex,” said the demon. “It's only a real treasure if it can hold people inside.”

“Quite right,” said Monkey. “You try to put me inside first.”

The overjoyed demon sprang into mid-air with a bound, held out his gourd, and called, “Novice the Sun.” Without hesitation the Great Sage replied eight or nine times, but he was not sucked inside. The monster came down, stamping his feet, pounding his chest, and exclaiming, “Heavens! Who said that the world never changes? This treasure's scared of its old man! The female one hasn't the nerve to pack the male inside.”

“Put your gourd away now,” said Monkey. “It's my turn to call your name.” With a fast somersault he leapt up, turned his gourd upside-down with its mouth facing the demon, and called, “Great King Silver Horn.” The demon could not keep quiet; he had to answer, and he went whistling into the gourd. Monkey then attached a label reading:

To the Great Lord Lao: to be dealt with urgently in accordance with the Statutes and Ordinances.

“Well, my boy,” he thought with pleasure, “today you've tried something new.”

He landed his cloud, still carrying the gourd. His only thought was to rescue his master as he headed for the Lotus Flower Cave. The mountain path was most uneven, and he was besides bow-legged, so as he lurched along the gourd was shaken, making a continuous sloshing sound. Do you know why this was? The Great Sage's body had been so thoroughly tempered that he could not be putrefied in a hurry. The monster, on the other hand, though able to ride the clouds only had certain magical powers. His body was still essentially that of an ordinary mortal, which putrefied as soon as it went into the gourd.

Not believing that the demon had already turned to pus, Monkey joked, “I don't know whether that's piss or saliva, my lord, but I've played that game too. I won't take the cover off for another seven or eight days, by when you'll have turned to liquid. What's the hurry? What's so urgent? When I think how easily I escaped you deserve to be out of sight for a thousand years.” As he was carrying the gourd and talking like this he was back at the doors of the cave before he realized it. He shook the gourd, and it kept making that noise.

“It's like a fortune-telling tube that you shake a stick out of,” he thought. “I'll do one and see when the Master will be coming out.” Watch him as he shakes and shakes it, repeating over and over again the spell, “King Wen's Book of Changes, Confucius the Sage, Lady of the Peach Blossom, Master Ghostvalley.”

When they saw him the little devils in the cave said, “Disaster, Your Majesty. Novice the Sun has put his Junior Majesty in the gourd and is shaking it.” The news sent all the Senior King's souls flying and turned his bones and sinews soft.