Wu Cheng-en - Journey to the West (vol. 3)

“Stop talking nonsense, idiot,” Monkey retorted, “and pack the baggage. I expect the master will get anxious and send for us, so we must be ready to go to protect him at court.”

“You're wrong again, brother,” said Pig. “If the master's become the king's son-in-law and gone to take his pleasure with the king's daughter, he won't be climbing any more mountains, or tramping along the road, or running into demons and monsters. So what'll he want you to protect him from? He's old enough to know what happens under the bedcovers. He won't need you to hold him up.”

Monkey grabbed Pig by the ear, swung his fist, and said abusively, “You're as dirty-minded as ever, you cretin! How dare you talk such nonsense!”

While they were in the middle of their quarrel the hostel superintendent came to report, “His Majesty has sent an official here with a request for you three holy monks to present yourselves.”

“What's he really asking us to go for?”

“The senior holy monk had the good fortune to be hit by the princess's golden ball and be taken as her husband,” the superintendent replied, “which is why the official has come with invitations for you.”

“Where is the official?” Monkey asked. “Send him in.”

The official then bowed in greeting to Monkey, after which he did not dare look straight at Monkey as he muttered to himself, “Is it a ghost? a monster? a thunder god? a yaksha?”

“Why are you mumbling instead of saying whatever you have to say, official?” Monkey asked.

Trembling with terror, the official raised the royal edict with both hands as his words came tumbling out in confusion: “Her Royal Highness-invitation-meet her new relations-Her Royal Highness-meet her relations-invitation…”

“We've got no torture equipment here and we're not going to beat you,” Pig said, “so don't be frightened and take your time telling us.”

“Do you think he's scared you're going to beat him?” Monkey said. “What he's scared of is your ugly mug. Get the carrying-pole load packed up at once. We're taking the horse and going to court to see the master and talk things over.” Indeed:

One you meet on a narrow path is hard to avoid;

Determination can turn love to hatred.

If you do not know what was said when they met the king, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

The Four Monks Dine to Music in the Palace Gardens

One Demon Loves in Vain and Longs for Bliss

The story tells how Brother Monkey and the other two disciples went with the official who had brought the invitation to outside the Meridional Gate of the palace, where the eunuch gate officer immediately reported their arrival and brought back a summons for them to enter. The three of them stood in a row, not bowing. “Are you three gentlemen the illustrious disciples of the holy monk? What are your names? Where do you live? Why did you become monks? What scriptures are you going to fetch?” Monkey then came closer, intending to enter the throne hall.

“Don't move,” one of the king's bodyguards shouted. “If you have anything to say, say it standing down there.”

“We monks like to step forward whenever we're given an opening,” Monkey said with a smile, at which Pig and Friar Sand too approached the king. Worried that their rough manners would alarm the king, Sanzang stepped forward and called out, “Disciples, His Majesty has asked you why you have come here. You must submit your reply.”

Seeing his master standing in attendance beside the king, Monkey could not restrain himself from calling aloud, “Your Majesty is treating yourself with respect but others with contempt. If you are taking my master as your son-in-law, why do you make him stand in attendance on you? The normal custom is for a king to call his son-in-law Your Excellency, and an Excellency really ought to be sitting down.”

This gave the king so bad a fright that he turned pale and wished he could leave the throne hall. But as this would have looked very bad he had to summon up his courage and tell his attendants of fetch an embroidered stool on which he invited the Tang Priest to sit. Only then did Brother Monkey submit the following spoken memorial: “My ancestral home is the Water Curtain Cave in the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit in the land of Aolai in the Eastern Continent of Superior Body.

My father was heaven, my mother earth,

And I was born when a rock split open.

1 took as my master a Taoist adept,

And mastered the Great Way.

Then I returned to my land of immortals,

Where I gathered all of us to live in our cave heaven.

In the ocean's depths I subdued the dragons,

Then climbed the mountains to capture wild beasts.

I removed us from the registers of death,

Put us on the rolls of the living,

And was appointed Great Sage Equaling Heaven.

I enjoyed the heavenly palaces,

And roamed around the splendid buildings.

I met the immortals of Heaven

In daily carousals;

Lived in the holy regions,

Happy every day.

But because I disrupted the Peach Banquet,

And raised a rebellion in the palaces of Heaven,

I was captured by the Lord Buddha

And imprisoned under the Five Elements Mountain.

When hungry I was fed on pellets of iron,

When thirsty I drank molten copper:

For five hundred years I tasted no food or tea.

Fortunately my master came from the East

To worship in the West.

Guanyin told him to deliver me from heavenly disaster.

I was rescued from my torment

To be converted to the Yogacarin sect.

My old name was Wukong;

Now I am known as the Novice.”

When the king realized how important Monkey was he quickly came down from his dragon throne and walked over to steady the venerable elder with his hand and say, “Son-in-law, it was divine providence that brought us one such as yourself to be our kinsman through marriage.” Sanzang thanked the king profoundly for his graciousness and urged him to return to his throne. “Which gentleman has the distinction of being the second disciple?” the king asked. Pig thrust his snout out to make himself look more impressive as he replied:

“In previous lives old Pig used to be

Given to pleasure and indolence.

I lived in confusion,

My nature disordered and my heart deluded.

1 did not know how high the sky was or how deep the earth;

I could not tell the ocean's width or the mountains' distance.

Then in the middle of my idleness

I suddenly met a true immortal.

In half a sentence

He undid the net of evil;

With two or three remarks

He smashed the gate to disaster.

Then I became aware,

Took him as my master on the spot,

Diligently studied the arts of the Double Eight,

Respectfully refined the Triple Three's sequence.

When training was complete I was able to fly,

And ascend to the heavenly palace.

The Jade Emperor in his benevolence

Appointed me as Marshal Tian Peng,

To command the marines of the River of Heaven,

And wander at ease within the palace gates.

Then when I was drunk at the Peach Banquet

I misbehaved with the goddess of the moon,

Was stripped of my commission,

And exiled to the mortal world.

Because I came into the wrong womb

1 was born with the likeness of a pig.

Living at the Mount of Blessing

I committed unbounded evil.

When I met the Bodhisattva Guanyin

She showed me the way of goodness.

I came over to the Buddhist faith

To escort the Tang Priest

On his journey to the Western Heaven,

Seeking the marvellous scriptures.

My Dharma name is Wuneng,