Journey's End

F ourteen years on the road, eighty ordeals survived, and the four of them came at last to the foot of Spirit Mountain, where the air itself seemed to hum. A holy man met them at the gate and would not let them up the slope until they had bathed off the dust of the world, scrubbing away the last of the road's filth so they could stand clean before the Buddha. Then he walked them up through cloud and cassia to the threshold of the place every step had been aimed at — the Thunderclap Monastery on the peak, where the Buddha of the Western Paradise keeps the true scriptures. His merit full, his practice complete, it was fitting that he bathe; the tamed and disciplined true nature now matched the pure original. A thousand hardships, ten thousand toils — only now did they rest; the nine prohibitions and the three refuges began him anew. With the demons all spent he climbed at last to the ground of the Buddha; with calamity gone he came to see the gate of the Way. Washed of dust and cleansed of grime, wholly without stain, returned to the root and back to the source, an undecaying body.

At the top they came to a wide river with no bridge — only a single log laid across the torrent, slick and round, called the Cloud-Crossing. Wukong skipped across it light as a dragonfly to show it could be done. Pigsy took one look at the spinning water below and flatly refused; Sandy hung back; even Sanzang lost his nerve. Then a boat came poling toward them, and Wukong's fiery eyes saw at once what it was — a boat with no bottom to it at all, steered by the Conductor Buddha himself, come down in the shape of a ferryman to carry them the last little distance over. The boat drew very close, and it turned out to be a boat with no bottom. Wukong, with his fiery eyes and golden pupils, knew at once that it was the Conductor Buddha, also called the Buddha Ratnadhvaja, Light-King. He said nothing of it to the others. The single-log bridge of the Cloud-Crossing lay slick over the water, and the master would not set foot on it; so the bottomless boat came to bear them across.

They stepped aboard the bottomless boat and it held them. As the Conductor poled them out into the current, a corpse came floating down from upstream — a whole drowned body, turning slowly in the water. Sanzang flinched and stared. Wukong only laughed. Do not be frightened, Master, he said. That one is you. Pigsy and Sandy clapped and agreed — that was you, that was you. The boatman gave a little push of approval, and the dead thing drifted on past and away, and Sanzang understood that he had just watched his own mortal body float off downriver, the flesh he had worn shed like an old coat. He had crossed over while still alive. The Conductor pushed off gently, and there came drifting down from upstream a dead body. The elder saw it and was greatly startled. Wukong laughed and said, Master, do not be afraid — that one was originally you. Pigsy too said, it is you, it is you. Sandy clapped his hands and said, it is you, it is you. The boatman, giving a call, also said, that is you — my congratulations. So the three of them joined in congratulating him. Casting off the womb-born body of flesh and bone, the kindred true spirit was all that remained.

“He had clawed at the gates of heaven and been pinned under a mountain for it. Now he walked in through the front door, and the door did not even need a key.”

On the far shore they climbed to the Buddha's hall, where the Buddha sat in glory and heard out the whole long errand — the Tang emperor's commission, the fourteen years, the road. He granted the scriptures gladly and sent his two chief attendants, Ananda and Kasyapa, to take the pilgrims to the treasure loft and hand over the scrolls. But at the door of the loft the two clerks stopped them. Have you brought us anything, they asked. Some little gift, a present? Out with it, quick, and we will give you the scriptures. The pilgrims had walked across half the world with nothing in their bags. They had no gift. So the two attendants, smirking, handed them their scrolls anyway, and the pilgrims loaded them up and set off for home, grateful and none the wiser. The Buddha commanded Ananda and Kasyapa to lead the four to the foot of the precious tower, to feast them and then open the treasure loft and hand over the scriptures. The two honored ones, conducting the Tang monk, looked over the scrolls one by one and then said to him, holy monk, what manner of gift have you brought from the east to give us? Bring it out quickly, and we will hand the scriptures over to you. Sanzang said he had, in his long journey, prepared no such thing. The two laughed and said, well, well — hand the scriptures over empty-handed, and the generations to come will starve. So they passed the scrolls across.

The trick did not hold long. Up on the treasure loft sat the ancient Buddha Dipankara, who had heard the whole transaction and knew exactly what the clerks had done. He could not let the pilgrims carry that load all the way home and only then find out, so he sent down a guardian named White-Heroic. The guardian rode a screaming wind down onto the road, swooped, and tore the scripture-bundle open, scattering the scrolls across the dirt. The pilgrims scrambled after the flying pages — and found that every single scroll was blank. Not a character on any of them. They had been handed a whole canon of empty paper. Now on the precious tower there sat an ancient Buddha, Dipankara, who had been listening in secret to the matter of the scripture-giving, and well understood that Ananda and Kasyapa had passed over wordless texts. He smiled and said, the foolish monks of the east will not know these scrolls are blank; the holy monk will have made his bitter journey for nothing. He charged the honored one White-Heroic to rouse his divine power, fly like a shooting star to catch the Tang monk, and seize the wordless scriptures away — to make him come back and beg for the true, written texts. White-Heroic rode a fierce wind, tore the scripture-bundle apart, and flung it down into the dust.

They marched the blank scrolls straight back up the mountain and complained to the Buddha's face. He was unmoved, and laughing. I knew all about the gift, he said. Those scrolls are not a swindle — wordless scriptures are the true scriptures, and they are better, frankly, than the ones with words. It is only that the people back east are too thick to read what has no words on it, so for their sake you will need the written kind. As for the fee — he shrugged it off. Scriptures should not go out the door too cheap. I once let some monks recite the sutras for a household and they came back with three pecks of gold, and I told them they had sold the holy word far too low, and left their grandchildren with nothing to live on. The Buddha laughed and said, you need not shout. As for the matter of the two of them asking you for a gift — I already knew of it. Only, the scriptures may not be passed on lightly, nor taken away for nothing. In time past, some of my monks went down the mountain and recited these scriptures for the house of one Elder Zhao, that the living might have peace and the dead release; they got but three pecks and three pints of gold for it. I told them they had sold far too cheap, and left their descendants no money to spend. You come now empty-handed to fetch them, and so they handed you the blank texts. The blank texts are the wordless true scriptures — and those are good. But since the living souls of your east are too benighted to be enlightened by them, there is nothing for it but to give you the ones with words.

So back to the treasure loft, and back to Ananda and Kasyapa, who put out their hands again for a gift before they would lift a finger. This time Sanzang had Wukong fetch the one thing of worth they carried — the purple-gold begging bowl the Tang emperor had pressed on him with his own hands at the start of the road — and he gave it over. Ananda took it and smiled a small smile. And every loafer in heaven's loft saw him do it — the strongmen who guarded the treasure, the cooks from the incense kitchen, the lesser arhats minding the doors — and they pinched his cheek and poked his back and snapped their fingers at him, jeering, shameless, shameless, taking a bribe off the men who came for scriptures. Ananda only set his face and held on to the bowl. Then they brought out the true scrolls, the ones with words, and counted them over — five thousand and forty-eight, one whole canon. They came again before Ananda and Kasyapa, who once more asked for a gift. Having nothing else, Sanzang bade Sandy bring out the purple-gold begging bowl, and with both hands he offered it up, saying, the disciple is poor and has made a long road, and prepared no gift; this bowl was given me by the Tang emperor with his own hand, that I might beg my food along the way. Accept it now as a small token. Ananda took it but only smiled faintly — whereon the strongmen who keep the treasure tower, the cooks of the incense kitchen, and the honored ones who watch the loft wiped at his face and slapped at his back, snapping their fingers and curling their lips, every one of them laughing, for shame, for shame, demanding a gift from the men who came to fetch the scriptures. They transmitted five thousand and forty-eight scrolls — the number of one whole canon.

They turned for home with the scriptures loaded, and the Eight Vajra-guardians caught them up on a cloud to carry them east in a single rush. Meanwhile, back in the western halls, Guanyin had taken out the register where every trial of the journey was tallied, and she ran her finger down the count. Eighty. The pilgrims had passed through eighty ordeals on the road. But the fated number, the number the holy way demanded, was eighty-one — nine times nine, the full count. They were one short. One trial shy of complete. So she sent word to the guardians on their cloud, and the guardians did the only thing the arithmetic allowed. The Bodhisattva looked over from the start the register of the ordeals the Tang monk had undergone, and said, in our gate of Buddhism, nine times nine is the number by which one returns to the truth. The holy monk has suffered eighty ordeals. Eighty is short of the count by one; the nine-nine is not yet complete. She quickly gave an order to a Vajra-guardian, saying, catch up with the Vajras bearing them, and tell them to bring one more ordeal to pass.

The guardians simply let go. The cloud dropped out from under the pilgrims and they fell, scriptures and all, down to the bank of the Tongtian River — the wide water they had crossed years before, going west. And up out of the river came the one who had ferried them then — a vast old white turtle, ancient as the river itself, who had carried them on his shell across to the far side once and asked them a single favor in return. When you reach the Buddha, he had said, ask him for me how many more years until I can shed this shell and take a human shape. They climbed onto his back and he bore them out into the current, and partway across he lifted his head and asked — did you ask the Buddha my question? The Vajras drew in their wind and let the four fall to the earth. It was the bank of the Tongtian River. The old white turtle, seeing it was the Tang monk come back, came churning up to the shore and said, old master, you are returned. He took them onto his back and bore them out upon the water. Midway across he asked, old master — in years past I begged you, when you reached the west and saw my Buddha Tathagata, to ask on my behalf about my own destiny, how many more years of life I had, and when I might be released from this shell and take a human body. Did you ask it or not?

Sanzang said nothing. The truth was he had clean forgotten — never asked, never thought of it again once the road took him. The silence told the turtle everything. With one heave of his back he dove, shrugging the whole company off into the river — master, disciples, horse, and the priceless scriptures all tipped into the water. They thrashed to the near bank and hauled the soaked scrolls out, and the dragon-horse and Wukong fished the rest from the shallows. Wet to the last page, but saved. That was the eighty-first ordeal, the one the ledger wanted, and it had cost them not a demon's claw but the price of a forgotten promise. The elder, having truly not asked it, dared not answer, and for a long while said nothing. The turtle, knowing he had never put the question, gave his body one twisting heave and dove down into the water, dropping the four of them, the horse, and the scriptures all into the river. Luckily they were already near the eastern shore, and standing on the bottom they made their way up. The Tang monk's robes and the scriptures were all soaked through. They had only just landed when a sudden storm of wind and dark cloud rolled up, thunder cracking, the ground throwing dust — they held the scriptures fast against it until the wind died and the rain stopped.

They spread the wet scriptures on a flat rock under the sun to dry, and when they peeled them up, the last few pages of one scroll stuck to the stone and tore, the writing pulling away with the rock. Wukong fretted over it, but the matter was past mending. So, the story says, that is why — to this very day — that one sutra comes down to us with its ending missing. Even heaven's own perfect canon arrived in the world with a torn page, because nothing under heaven and earth, not even the truth, comes through whole. They gathered the scrolls and went on. They laid the scriptures out to dry on the rocks, and to this day there are rocks there where the scriptures were dried. But it happened that a few scrolls of the Sutra of the Buddha's Deeds stuck fast to the stone, and the ends of them were torn away. This is why the Sutra of the Buddha's Deeds is incomplete even now, and why there are traces of writing left upon the drying-rocks. Sanzang was distressed at the damage, but Wukong said, it is no fault of ours — heaven and earth themselves are not perfect and whole, and this scripture was perfect; its sticking and tearing is the secret working of that imperfection, not a thing human strength could have kept from happening.

The guardians caught them up again and bore them the rest of the way home, and they came down in Chang'an, where the Tang emperor Taizong had built a terrace and waited years for his pilgrim to return. He came out to the road himself to greet Sanzang and the scriptures, and there was a great rejoicing in the capital, and the monk began to read the holy word aloud to the court. But before he had finished, the Eight Vajra-guardians called him back up to the clouds — the errand was not yet paid in full. They swept up all five of them, master and three disciples and the horse, and carried them west once more, back to Spirit Mountain, to stand before the Buddha and be told at last what they had become. The Eight Vajras brought them on the wind to the land of the east, to Chang'an. The Tang emperor Taizong, who for years had built and waited at the Terrace of Looking-for-the-Scriptures, came out from the city to receive them, and there was great rejoicing, and the holy monk began to expound the scriptures. But the Vajras raised their voices and called from the sky, scripture-chanters, set down the scrolls and follow us back. With a whoosh they bore the four pilgrims and the horse up into the air again and away to Spirit Mountain, to receive their reward before the Buddha.

The Buddha named them one by one. Tang Sanzang, he said — you were in a former life my own second disciple, called Golden Cicada, and I cast you down to be reborn in the east because you would not listen when I taught. Now you have carried the scriptures home and your merit is full. He raised him to the rank of the Buddha of Sandalwood Merit. To Wukong he said — you made your great havoc in heaven once, and I pinned you under the mountain for it; but on the road you put down your wickedness and raised up the good, you subdued the demons the whole way through, you finished what you began. And he made the monkey the Buddha Victorious in Strife. Sandy he raised to a Golden-Body Arhat. And the white horse, who had carried the master every mile without complaint, he sent down to the dragon-transforming pool below the mountain, where the beast plunged in and rose up a dragon again and coiled itself, gleaming, around the great sky-pillar at the monastery gate. The Buddha said, Sanzang — in your former life you were my second disciple, named Golden Cicada; because you would not heed my teaching and slighted my great doctrine, I demoted your true spirit to be reborn in the east. Now, gladly returned to the faith and having fetched the true scriptures, your merit is great; I raise you to high office and true fruit — you are the Buddha of Sandalwood Merit. Sun Wukong — for your great havoc in heaven I pressed you beneath the Five Phases Mountain; but you turned from evil to good, and on the road you refined away the demons and subdued the monsters, whole from start to finish; I raise you to true fruit — you are the Buddha Victorious in Strife. Sha Wujing — you are made the Golden-Body Arhat. The horse was led to the dragon-transforming pool at the back cliff below Spirit Mountain and pushed in; it shed its hide, grew horns, and flew up out of the pool to coil about the sky-upholding pillar within the monastery gate.

That left Pigsy. He waited for his Buddha-title, and what he got was Altar-Cleanser. He protested loudly, on the spot — they are all made Buddhas, why am I only an altar-cleaner. The Buddha answered him dead level. Because, he said, your mouth is greedy and your body is lazy and your belly is enormous. Across all the world's four continents there are a great many who revere my teaching, and at every Buddhist rite there are offerings left over — and you, you get to clean the altars. Which means you get to eat all of it. It is a post with very real perks. And Pigsy, who had carried his appetite intact across ten thousand miles and reformed exactly nothing, thought that over and decided it would do nicely. Zhu Wuneng — you escorted the holy monk on the road; for this I make you the Altar-Cleanser. Bajie cried out, they are all made Buddhas — how is it that I am only made an Altar-Cleanser? The Buddha said, because your mouth is strong and your body lazy, and your stomach is vast and wide. In all the four great continents under heaven, the many who revere my teaching make countless offerings at every Buddhist rite, and you shall be set to clean the altars — it is a rank with good eating in it. Bajie, hearing that, was satisfied.

The titles given, the court of buddhas began to disperse, and Wukong turned to Sanzang with one last request — the only thing he still wanted. Master, he said, recite the tightening spell, just once, and get this gold band off my head, before you are a Buddha and forget how. For five hundred years the fillet had been his leash; one word from the master and it had crushed his skull to bring him to heel. Sanzang said, there is no spell needed now. You were bound by it only while your mind was wild — and your mind is no longer wild. Touch your head and see. Wukong put a hand up to his brow, and felt nothing there at all. The band was gone. It had slipped away on its own the moment he became a Buddha, because a Buddha needs no leash, and there was no longer anything in him that needed holding down. The stone monkey who wept, at the very beginning, that even a king must die, had won the deathlessness he set out for — not by storming heaven's gate and stealing it, but by walking the whole long road to its end. Wukong said to Sanzang, master, now that I am made a Buddha, the same as you, surely I need not still wear this gold fillet — and you need not keep reciting that Tightening Spell to torment me. Recite the Loosening Spell quickly, take it off, and I will smash it to bits, so that this Bodhisattva can never put it on anyone again. Sanzang said, in earlier days, because you were hard to control, this method was used to keep you in hand; now that you are made a Buddha, it is naturally gone. How could it still be on your head? Try and feel for it. Wukong raised his hand and felt — and truly it was gone.

取得 The original Chinese · honored as an artifact

功滿行完宜沐浴，煉馴本性合天真。千辛萬苦今方息，九戒三皈始自新。魔盡果然登佛地，災消故得見沙門。洗塵滌垢全無染，反本還原不壞身。

Opening lines, classical Chinese · Journey to the West 西遊記 · Wu Cheng'en (attrib.)