The Birth of the Monkey King

B efore there was a before, the universe was a held breath — no up, no down, and no one to see it. Then Pangu split the murk, the clear floated up to become sky and the heavy sank to become earth, and the great clock of the ages began to turn. Count it if you like, a hundred and twenty-nine thousand six hundred years to one turn of the wheel, and the wheel had turned more times than turning before our story finds its one small corner of the world — a mountain standing in the eastern sea, called Flower-Fruit Mountain, the first range under heaven and the root of every living thing. Before chaos divided, heaven and earth were a blur and no one had yet appeared; after Pangu broke open the murk, the clear and the muddy were told apart, the clear rising as heaven and the turbid settling as earth. It is said the whole span of heaven and earth runs a hundred twenty-nine thousand six hundred years to a single cycle. Of the four great continents, in the Eastern Pūrvavideha there was a sea, and in the sea an island, the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, the ancestral range of the ten thousand things.

On the very crown of that mountain sat a stone. Not a large stone, but an old one — old as the mountain, drinking sun and moon and the seed of the sky for so many ages that it quietly came alive. One day it cracked. Out rolled a stone egg round as a ball, the wind touched the egg and worked it into a stone monkey, whole and blinking, every part of him in its place. He found his feet, made his bows to the four directions, and as he did, two beams of gold light shot from his eyes clear up to the star-courts of heaven. In his palace the Jade Emperor felt the glare, looked down, and pronounced it nothing — a creature of the lower world, born of the ordinary essence of earth and sky, not worth a god's notice. A verdict heaven would have cause to revisit. On the topmost peak was an immortal stone. Having taken in the truth of heaven and the grace of earth, the essence of the sun and the bloom of the moon over a long age, it grew quick with spirit. Within it formed an immortal womb, and one day it split and bore a stone egg, round as a ball. Touched by the wind, the egg changed into a stone monkey, complete in eyes, ears, and limbs. He learned at once to crawl and walk, and bowed to the four quarters. From his eyes shot two beams of golden light, reaching the palace of the Pole Star. The Jade Emperor, looking down, said with kind indulgence that it was a thing of the lower world, born of the essence of heaven and earth, and no cause for wonder.

He fell in with the wild monkeys of the mountain and lived the good life — foraging by day, sleeping under stone ledges by night, lord of nothing in particular. One blazing summer afternoon the whole troop went down to bathe in a mountain stream, and someone wondered aloud where all this water came from. Monkeys being monkeys, they went to find out, scrambling up the gorge hand over hand until they came to a waterfall thundering off the cliff like a hung curtain of silver. Whoever can go in there, the troop cried, find where the water is born, and come back out without a scratch — him we will make our king. He joined the monkeys of the mountain, ranging the cliffs, drinking from the streams, gathering flowers and fruit. One hot day the troop went to bathe in a mountain torrent and said to one another, we do not know where this water rises; let us trace it to its source and amuse ourselves. Hand in hand they climbed along the stream to its head, where a great waterfall came pouring down. The monkeys said, whoever has the skill to go in through there, find the source, and come out unhurt, him we shall honor as king.

“He had a kingdom, a cave the rain could never reach, and all the time in the world — which was exactly the trouble, because the world's time runs out.”

Most of the troop only shouted. The stone monkey squeezed his eyes shut, crouched, and sprang straight through the falling water — and found, on the far side, no water at all. He stood on dry ground in a sudden hush. There was an iron bridge, and across it a house of stone, with stone pots and a stone stove, stone bowls and stone benches, and flowers nodding at the door. Cut into the rock above the gate ran a line of words — Blessed Land of Flower-Fruit Mountain, the Water-Curtain Cave, a heaven of its own behind the falls. A home with a roof, behind a door no rain could ever cross. He turned and dove back out through the water. They all shouted three times, and the stone monkey leaped out from the crowd, shut his eyes, crouched, and sprang straight into the waterfall. He opened his eyes, looked, and there was no water and no wave — only an iron bridge, and beyond it a dwelling of stone. There were stone seats and stone beds, stone pots and stone stoves. On a slab in the middle a tablet was carved with the words, Blessed Land of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, Cave-Heaven of the Water Curtain. Delighted, he turned and leaped back out through the fall.

Follow me, he told them, and the whole troop poured through the waterfall at his heels and fell on the cave like an army sacking a city — snatching the bowls, fighting over the beds, dragging the pots about until they had worn themselves out. Then the stone monkey took the high seat and reminded them of their word. A man whose word cannot be trusted, he said, there is no knowing what he is good for. You swore that whoever found this place and came back whole would be your king. I went in, I came out, and I have made you a home. The monkeys could not argue. They lined up by age, bowed low, and hailed him their Great King of a Thousand Years. So the stone monkey took the throne, dropped the word stone from his name, and called himself the Handsome Monkey King. He called them to follow, and the monkeys leaped through the fall behind him into the cave, where they seized the bowls and fought over the stove and the beds, shifting everything about, restless as their nature is, until they were tired. The stone monkey took the seat of honor and said, a man whose word cannot be trusted, there is no knowing what he is good for. You promised that whoever went in and came out unhurt would be made king; now I have come in and come out, and made you a home — why do you not bow? Then the monkeys lined up in order of age and did homage, calling him Great King of a Thousand Years. From this the stone monkey rose to the throne, set aside the word stone, and was called the Handsome Monkey King.

For three hundred years and more the Monkey King lived exactly as he pleased — feasting with his people, ranging the mountain, beholden to no one and afraid of nothing. And then one day, in the middle of a banquet, with the wine poured and the whole troop laughing around him, he set down his cup and began to weep. His startled subjects asked what could possibly be the matter. I have everything, he said, and that is the trouble. We are happy now. But one day I will grow old, and there is a quiet old man called Yama who keeps the books of the dead, and when my name comes up he will close them on me — and all of this, all of us, will have been for nothing. The Monkey King enjoyed this for three or four hundred years. One day, while feasting with his monkeys, he suddenly grew troubled and shed tears. The monkeys, alarmed, asked the reason. He said, though we have no fear today, in years to come our strength will fail and we will grow old; and there is the old King of the Underworld, Yama, who rules in secret. Once the body dies, is it not a waste to have lived in the world at all? At this the monkeys covered their faces and wept, every one of them grieving over how nothing lasts.

From the crowd an old ape stepped forward, one of the long-armed gibbons who had seen more than most. There is a way out, he said. In all the world only three kinds of being slip free of the wheel that turns the dead back into the living, over and over without end. The Buddhas. The immortals. The holy sages. They alone step off the wheel — never born again, never dying, as long-lived as heaven and the mountains themselves. The Monkey King leaned in close. And where, he asked, does a person find these three? From among the ranks an old gibbon-ape leaped forth and cried aloud, if the king is troubled by this, it shows a mind bent on the Way has awakened in him. Among all living things there are but three kinds not held under Yama's rule — the Buddhas, the immortals, and the holy sages. These three escape the wheel of rebirth, are neither born nor die, and endure as long as heaven and earth, the mountains and the rivers. The Monkey King asked, and where do these three kinds dwell?

That was all the Monkey King needed to hear. Tomorrow, he announced, I leave you. I will go down off this mountain and wander to the corners of the sea and the ends of the sky, however far it takes, until I have found one of those three and learned the trick of not dying. The next morning the monkeys threw him a farewell feast heavy with peaches and tears. He felled a dead pine and lashed it into a raft, cut himself a bamboo pole for an oar, and stepped aboard alone. A wind came up off the mountain and carried him out — one small figure on a raft of dead wood, poling away across the open water toward the world of men, after the single thing his kingdom could not give him. Hearing this, the Monkey King said, tomorrow I will take leave of you all and go down the mountain; I will roam the corners of the sea and the far edges of the sky until I find these three and learn the way of undying life, and so escape forever the power of Yama. The next day the monkeys gathered immortal peaches and rare fruit and held a farewell feast. He made a raft of dry pine, took a bamboo pole to push it, and went aboard alone. With a fair wind he drifted out across the sea, bound for the continent of the south, where human beings dwell.