Wu Cheng-en - Journey to the West (vol. 2)

Not daring to delay for a moment, the constellations went out through the gate of Heaven with the Protector and were soon inside the monastery. It was now the second of the night's five watches, and all the demons, senior and junior, had gone to sleep after the feast their king had given them to celebrate the Tang priest's capture. Doing nothing to disturb them, the constellations went to the cymbals and reported, “Great Sage, we're the Twenty-eight Constellations. The Jade Emperor has sent us here to rescue you.” The news made Monkey very happy. “Smash them open with your weapons and get me out of here.”

“We don't dare to,” the constellations replied. “This is pure gold and if we hit it the noise would wake the devils up and it would be impossible to rescue you. We'll have to try to work it open with our weapons. The moment you see a chink of light in there, out you come.”

“Yes,” said Monkey. They used their spears, swords, sabers and battle-axes to try to lever, prise, lift, and force it open, but despite all their efforts the third watch came and still they had failed to make the slightest impression on them. It was as if the cymbals had been cast as a single whole. Not a chink of light could Monkey see from inside, no matter how hard he looked and crawled and rolled all around.

Then the Metal Dragon of the constellation Gullet said, “Don't get impatient, Great Sage. This must be an As-You-Will treasure and I'm sure it can be changed. You feel where the cymbals join from the inside. Once I get my horn between them you can turn yourself into something and get out where I've loosened them.” Monkey followed this suggestion and felt frantically around inside. Meanwhile the constellation made himself so small that his horn was no bigger than the point of a needle. He pushed hard with it where the two cymbals joined, and by exerting tremendous pressure he managed to penetrate inside.

He then gave himself a magic body by saying, “Grow! Grow! Grow!” The horn became as thick as a rice-bowl, but the cymbals were more like creatures of skin and flesh than objects cast from metal: they kept their close bite on the Metal Dragon of Gullet's horn, and not a crack appeared anywhere around.

“It's no use,” said Monkey, feeling the constellation's horn, “it's not at all loose anywhere around it. There's nothing for it: you'll have to bear the pain and pull me out.” The splendid Great Sage then changed his gold-banded cudgel into a steel gimlet, bored a hole in the tip of the horn, made himself the size of a mustard seed, crawled into the hole, squatted there, and shouted, “Pull it out.” Only through stupendous efforts did the constellation manage to pull his horn out, which left him so weak and exhausted that he collapsed.

Monkey then crawled out of the hole in the horn again, resumed his own appearance, raised his cudgel and smashed the cymbals apart with a tremendous noise like a copper mountain collapsing. The Buddhist instruments now lay shattered into thousands of fragments of gold. This gave the Twenty-eight Constellations a terrible fright and made the Protectors' hair stand on end. All the devils woke up, and as the demon king was shocked out of his sleep he jumped up, pulled on his clothes and had the drums beaten to muster all the demons with their weapons. By now it was nearly dawn and they all gathered round the throne. On seeing Monkey and the constellations standing in a ring round the fragments of the golden cymbals the demon king went pale from shock and ordered his underlings to shut the front gates and not let them escape.

As soon as Monkey heard this he led the Twenty-eight Constellations to spring up on their clouds till they were above the ninth heaven, while the demon king had the fragments of gold tidied away and drew his devilish forces up outside the monastery gates.

In his anger the king had no choice but to put on his armor, take his short and flexible wolf's-tooth spiked mace and come out of his camp shouting, “Sun the Novice! A real man doesn't run away from a fight. Come back and fight three rounds with me.” This was more than Monkey could stand, and he landed his cloud at the head of his starry host to see what the evil spirit looked like.

This is what he saw:

Matted hair

Held in place by a thin gold band;

Eyes flashing

Under a pair of frowning yellow brows;

A pear-shaped nose

With flaring nostrils;

A square-cut mouth

With sharp-pointed teeth.

He wore a coat of chain-mail

Tied with a tasseled raw silk sash;

On his feet were a pair of oxhide boots

And he carried a wolf's-tooth mace.

He looked both like a wild beast and at the same time not;

His face was human and yet not human.

“What kind of monster do you think you are?” shouted Monkey as he brandished his cudgel. “How can you have the effrontery to pose as a Buddha, occupy a mountain and create a false Lesser Thunder Monastery?”

“The only reason you've got the nerve to come rampaging around my magic mountain must be that you don't know my name,” the monster said. “This is the Lesser Western Heaven, and Heaven has given me these fine buildings because I have cultivated my conduct and gained the true achievement. I am called the Yellow-browed Buddha, though in their ignorance the people around here call me King Yellow Brow or Lord Yellow Brow. I've known about your journey to the West for a very long time now and I have some magic powers, which was why I could create those illusions to lure your master in so that you and I could have a trial of strength. If you can beat me I'll spare your master and his disciples and allow you to fulfil your true achievement. But if you can't I'll kill the lot of you and go myself to see the Tathagata Buddha, fetch the scriptures and take them to China.”

“You talk too much, evil spirit,” said Monkey with a laugh. “If you want a trial of strength try this from my cudgel.” With great pleasure the demon king parried it and a fine fight ensued:

A pair of cudgels,

Each quite different.

To start with what they looked like,

One was a short and flexible Buddha weapon,

The other was hard from the stores of the sea.

Both of them could be changed at will,

And today they met in a struggle for mastery.

The soft wolf's-tooth mace was adorned with brocade,

The hard gold-banded cudgel had dragon patterns.

They could both be admirably big or small,

Any length you liked and always just right.

Monkey and monster were evenly matched:

This fight between them was the real thing.

The monkey tamed by faith was now the mind-ape;

The evil monster had offended Heaven with deception.

In his anger and loathing neither showed mercy;

Both had their ways of being savagely vicious.

One struck to the head, never easing the pressure;

The other hit at the face and could not be fought off.

The sun went dark behind the clouds they made;

They breathed out mists that hid the towering crags.

Cudgel met cudgel as the rivals fought,

Both forgetting life and death for the Tang priest's sake.

The two of them fought fifty rounds without either emerging as victor. By the monastery gate there was much beating of drums and gongs as the evil spirits shouted their war-cries and waved their flags. Facing them were the heavenly soldiers of the Twenty-eight Constellations and the holy hosts of the Five Protectors, who were all armed and shouting as they surrounded the demon king. The demons outside the monastery gate were too frightened to beat their drums, and their hands were shaking so badly that they could not strike their gongs.

The old demon king was not at all afraid. He held all the enemy troops at bay with his mace in one hand while with the other he undid an old white cotton pouch that was round his waist as a sash; this he threw into the air. With a loud swish it caught the Great Sage Monkey, the Twenty-eight Constellations and the Protectors of the Four Quarters and the Centre; he then slung them over his shoulder and carried them back inside. All the little demons returned in triumph. The demon king told his underlings to fetch forty or fifty hempen ropes, opened the bag, and took his prisoners out one at a time to be tied up, Each of them felt that his bones had turned soft. Their muscles were numb and their skin hung loosely on them. Once tied up they were all carried out to the back and flung on the ground indiscriminately. The demon king then ordered a banquet and the devils drank from dawn till dusk before it broke up and they all went off to sleep.