The Pilgrimage Begins

W hile the Monkey King counted out his five hundred years under the mountain, the world of men went on without him, and the trouble that would dig him out began in the Tang capital of Chang'an. The Emperor, Tang Taizong, had been to the underworld and come back, and he had seen what waits there for the unransomed dead — the lonely, orphaned souls with no one to pray them up out of the dark. So he did the largest thing an emperor can do. He proclaimed a Grand Mass of the Dead, forty-nine days of rites to lift those souls toward heaven, and he chose for its master a young monk of spotless reputation, Chen Xuanzang, and dressed him in an embroidered cassock and put a nine-ring staff in his hand. Now while the Great Sage lay pinned beneath the mountain, in the land of the Great Tang the Emperor Taizong, having returned from the underworld, resolved to hold a Grand Mass of Land and Water to deliver the orphaned souls of the dead. After much examination the assembly chose a virtuous monk to preside — Chen Xuanzang, a man of pure conduct from birth — and the Emperor bestowed on him an embroidered cassock and a staff of nine rings, and bade him open the great rite at the Temple of Transformation.

The rite was magnificent and, as far as the dead were concerned, useless — and a scabby beggar-monk in the temple crowd knew it. He was no beggar. He was Guanyin, the bodhisattva of mercy herself, come down in a leper's rags to find heaven's scripture-seeker, and she had a brocade cassock over her arm that threw off light like water. She let the chancellor bring her before the throne, and then she said the thing the whole grand ceremony was built to never hear. These little teachings of his, she told the Emperor, cannot raise the dead a single inch. They are good for the living and the comfortable, and nothing more. At that time the Bodhisattva Guanyin, sent by the Buddha to seek out the one who would fetch the scriptures, had taken the form of a scabbed and ragged monk, barefoot and bald, holding up a cassock that shone with a brilliant light. Brought before the Emperor by the chancellor Xiao Yu, she heard Xuanzang expound, and declared aloud, your Little Vehicle teachings cannot deliver the dead to rise and transcend; they can only muddle along with the common world, and no more.

And where, the Emperor demanded, does one find teachings that can. In the west, she said — the Western Paradise, the home of the Buddha, a hundred and eight thousand li away, where the true Great Vehicle scriptures wait in three great baskets that can loose the trapped dead and shield the living from harm. Then, with the whole court watching, she stopped pretending to be a beggar. She rose on a cloud into the high air and showed her true form, the willow branch and the vial of sweet dew, the merciful face the people knew from a thousand shrines, and she let a slip of writing flutter down naming herself before she was gone into the sky. The Emperor asked where such Great Vehicle teachings might be. The Bodhisattva said, in the Western Heaven, in the country of the Buddha, are the Tripitaka of the Great Vehicle — a road of a hundred and eight thousand li distant — which can unbind the lost souls and deliver them from calamity. Then she took her disciple Mu Cha and rose into the air, stepping on auspicious cloud up to the ninth heaven, and revealed her true form as the deliverer from suffering, holding the pure vial and the willow, before she departed.

“The mountain that no army could lift came up at the touch of one timid monk peeling a slip of paper — and out sprang the monkey heaven could not kill, now somebody's disciple.”

The Emperor wanted those scriptures, but he could not march an army across the roof of the world to get them; he needed one willing man. He asked the assembly who would go, and Xuanzang stepped forward and offered to go and not come back until the scriptures were in his hands, though it cost him his life. Taizong was overjoyed. He raised the monk up, named him on the spot his own sworn younger brother — his Imperial Brother — and gave him a religious name out of the bodhisattva's own words, Sanzang, after the three baskets of scripture he was sworn to fetch. From that day Chen Xuanzang was Tang Sanzang, the monk Tripitaka, and the most dangerous journey under heaven was his. The Emperor asked, who among you will accept our commission, go to the Western Heaven, and seek the Buddha and the scriptures? Before he had finished, the Master Xuanzang came forward, bowed, and said, though I have no talent, I am willing to spend myself like a horse and a hound, and fetch the true scriptures for Your Majesty, to make the empire forever secure. The Emperor, greatly pleased, raised him with his own hands, vowed brotherhood with him, and called him Imperial Brother and Holy Monk. Recalling the bodhisattva's words, that in the west were the scriptures in three baskets, he gave him the title Sanzang.

At the gate of the city the Emperor saw him off himself, and at the last moment he did a small strange thing. He bent, took up a pinch of dust from the road with his fingers, and dropped it into Sanzang's parting cup of wine. The monk did not understand. Better to cherish one pinch of your own home's soil, the Emperor told him, than to love ten thousand taels of another land's gold. Sanzang drank the dust down with the wine, and walked out the western gate with two attendants and a horse, west into country no Tang man had ever come back from. When they came to the gate, the Emperor and his officials saw him off. The Emperor stooped, took up a pinch of earth with his fingers, and flicked it into the wine cup. Sanzang did not grasp his meaning. The Emperor smiled and said, how long will this journey be, and when will you return? Sanzang said, in some three years I should come back with the scriptures. The Emperor said, the years are long and the mountains far — drink this cup of wine, and remember, better to love one pinch of the soil of home than to love ten thousand taels of foreign gold. Then Sanzang understood the meaning of the earth, drank the wine to the bottom, took his leave, and went out through the gate to the west.

The west took its first cut early. Sanzang and his two men set out before dawn and lost the road in the mountains, and the ground gave way under them, and they fell into a pit that was the lair of monsters — a tiger-spirit who styled himself a general, with a bear-spirit and a bull-spirit for guests. The monk they would not touch; his nature was too pure to spoil their feast, they said. His two attendants they killed and ate. Sanzang lay bound through the night, half dead with fright, and at dawn an old man came and brushed the ropes off him with a wave of his hand and set him on the road, and was gone — the Great White Planet, sent down once more to keep heaven's chosen monk alive. Sanzang and his two followers set out, but rising too early they lost their way in the mountains and tumbled into a pit. There a monster, the General Yin, seized them, and two others came as guests, a mountain-lord bear and a hermit bull. They spared the monk, for his true nature was undefiled, but the two attendants they cut open, took out their hearts, and chopped their bodies to pieces, and divided the flesh among them. Sanzang lay half dead with fright until dawn, when an old man came, waved his hand so the ropes fell away, and led him out, then revealed himself as the Great White Planet of the west, sent to deliver him from harm, and vanished into the sky.

Alone and useless against the wild, Sanzang would have died on that mountain but for a hunter. A great striped tiger came at him and a man came out of the brush and killed it where it stood — Liu Boqin, a mountain hunter the local people called the Guardian of the Range. He took the shaking monk home, where his old mother fed Sanzang a meal with no meat in it out of respect for his vows, and Sanzang in thanks chanted the rites for the hunter's dead father, and the soul, freed, came to them in a dream that night to say he had been lifted out of the dark and would be reborn. Then Liu Boqin walked the monk on toward the edge of the Tang world, as far as a mortal could go. As tigers and serpents closed on him, a hunter appeared, Liu Boqin, whom they called the Guardian of the Mountain. He struck down a tiger with his trident and took the monk to his home, where his mother set out a meal of plain food, refusing meat for the monk's sake. In gratitude Sanzang recited scriptures for the hunter's late father, and that night the dead man's soul appeared in a dream to say the chanting had delivered him and he would be reborn in a good house. The household marveled, and Liu Boqin agreed to escort the monk onward to the border of the realm.

They climbed to a long ridge called the Mountain of Two Frontiers, the last line of the Tang empire, and there Liu Boqin stopped. I cannot cross this, he told Sanzang; past here is not my country and not my law. They were saying their farewells when a voice came roaring up out of the very rock under their feet, huge and glad — my master has come, my master is here at last. The hunter was not afraid. There is a creature pinned under this mountain, he said. Old as anything. The grandmothers say heaven put him here five hundred years ago, and he eats iron and drinks copper and has been waiting all this while for one particular person to walk by. Sanzang, against all his good sense, climbed up to look. At last they came to the Mountain of Two Frontiers, the boundary of the Great Tang, and Liu Boqin said, I am a man of Tang and cannot cross beyond the border; you must go on alone. As they parted in tears, a voice thundered from beneath the mountain, crying, my master has come, my master has come. The hunter said, this is no demon to fear. Beneath this mountain is pressed an old divine monkey, set here by heaven five hundred years ago, who neither hungers nor dies, but eats iron pellets and drinks molten copper, kept alive to await the one who would come for him. Hearing this, Sanzang climbed the mountain to see.

At the summit, pinned and patient, was the monkey heaven could not kill — and the first thing he did was beg. Get me out, master, get me out, he called up, and I will guard you all the way to the Buddha and be your disciple, I swear it. Guanyin set me here and told me to wait for the pilgrim going west, and that is you. Sanzang saw, pasted on a slab at the peak, a slip of gold paper with six syllables on it in writing not of this world — the Buddha's own seal, holding the mountain shut. The monkey told him what to do. Peel it off, master, and the mountain will let me go. Sanzang knelt, prayed toward the west, and peeled the slip away clean, and a wind took it out of his fingers and up into the sky. There at the top was a monkey's head thrust out, who called, master, why have you come so late — welcome, welcome. Free me, and I will protect you to the Western Heaven and be your disciple. The Bodhisattva Guanyin charged me to wait for the one who fetches the scriptures, and to atone by serving him. Sanzang saw on the summit a square slip of paper sealed with six golden characters, oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ. At the monkey's word he prayed toward the west and peeled the seal from the rock; a fragrant wind lifted it from his hand into the air, where voices declared they returned it to the Buddha, the Great Sage's term being fulfilled.

Stand well back, the monkey called — and Sanzang ran a good half-mile down the slope before he heard it, a crack and a roar as the earth split and the whole mountain came apart and rose, and out of it sprang the Great Sage, free for the first time in five hundred years, kneeling at the monk's feet in a blink. He bowed his thanks and asked his master's name, and gave his own — Sun Wukong, the name a patriarch had given him an age ago. Sanzang looked at this small fierce stone-eyed creature kneeling in the road and decided he needed a plainer name to call him by, a traveling name. I will call you Pilgrim, the monk said. And Pilgrim Sun, the first disciple, picked up the luggage and they walked west. The monkey called, master, go far off, that I may come out without alarming you. Sanzang withdrew, and at once there came a great crash, the earth split and the mountain crumbled, and the Great Sage leaped free, kneeling before the horse to say, master, I am out. He bowed and asked the monk's name, then told his own, Sun Wukong. Sanzang, pleased, said, I will give you besides a common name to call you by, a Pilgrim's name. Wukong said, good, good, and so was called the Pilgrim. He took up the baggage and saddled the horse, and master and disciple went on together toward the west.

It did not stay peaceful. Six robbers jumped them on the road, swords out, demanding the monk's goods — and they had odd names. One was Eye-That-Sees-and-Delights, and the others were Ear-That-Hears-and-Rages, Nose-That-Smells-and-Craves, Tongue-That-Tastes-and-Frets, Mind-That-Conceives-and-Wants, and Body-That-Bears-and-Worries. Wukong was delighted; five hundred years cramped under a rock and here was something to hit. He let them strike him a while for the comedy of it, the swords bouncing off his iron skull, then took out the rod and killed all six in a breath and stripped them of their goods. He turned to his master grinning, expecting praise. As they went, six robbers sprang out with swords and spears, crying, monk, leave your horse and your bundle and we will spare your life. Sanzang fell from the horse in terror, but Wukong was unmoved. He asked their names, and they said, one is called Eye that sees and delights, one Ear that hears and is angered, one Nose that smells and loves, one Tongue that tastes and ponders, one Mind that perceives and desires, one Body that bears and grieves. Wukong laughed that they were only six hairs of a thief, and when they struck at his head and it rang without a wound, he drew out his rod and beat all six to death, stripped off their valuables, and came back laughing to his master.

Sanzang was horrified. They were men, he cried, whatever their names, and you killed all six without a flicker — that is no way for one who follows the Buddha, and how could such a savage thing escort a monk. He scolded and scolded. Wukong, who had just saved the man's life and could not for the life of him see the problem, took it for about as long as a proud immortal takes anything, which is not long. Fine, he said. If I am too rough for your road, I will go where I am wanted. And he leapt onto his cloud and was gone east over the horizon in a single bound, leaving the monk alone on the mountain road with a horse and a bundle and no protector at all, exactly as before. But Sanzang was greatly distressed and said, how could you, a man who has left the world, kill six people so lightly without the least mercy? You have no compassion in you; how can you be a monk? On and on he reproached him. Wukong, who could never bear to be scolded, flared up and said, if you say I cannot escort you, then I will go. And with a single bound of his somersault cloud he vanished without a trace toward the Eastern Sea, leaving Sanzang to grieve alone upon the road, with no choice but to take up his bundle and lead his horse on by himself.

He went, of all places, to the Eastern Sea, to the Dragon King's palace to cool off over a cup of tea — and the Dragon King, no fool, fed him a story with it. On the wall hung a painting, an old man at a bridge and a young one bowing to him. That is Zhang Liang, the Dragon King said, who once met an old sage on a bridge and the old man kicked his shoe into the river and ordered the young man to fetch it and put it back on his foot, three times, and Zhang Liang did it three times without a word of complaint — and for that patience the old man taught him the arts that made him the right hand of an emperor. The point landed where it was aimed. If you throw off your master now, the Dragon King said, you will only ever be a clever monkey. You will never be anything more. Wukong went off to the Eastern Sea, where the Dragon King received him with tea. On the wall hung a picture, and the Dragon King said, this is Zhang Liang at the Yi Bridge presenting the shoe. The old man Huangshi Gong dropped his shoe beneath the bridge and bade Zhang Liang fetch it and put it on him, three times over, and Zhang Liang served him humbly each time; so the old man gave him a holy book, and he became the teacher of the founder of Han. Now if you will not protect Tang Sanzang and bear his discipline, you will remain in the end only a demon-immortal, and never win the true fruit. Wukong fell silent and pondered.

Shamed, Wukong somersaulted back — to find his master sitting glum by the road exactly where he had left him, and a kindly old woman handing the monk a brocade cap and an embroidered coat, gifts for the disciple who would come back. The old woman was Guanyin again, of course, and the cap was a trap. Hidden in its band was a thin gold fillet, and Guanyin had taught Sanzang a short spell to go with it. Wukong, who liked anything that made him look fine, put the cap on at once. The fillet slid down onto his brow, took root in his skull, and would not come off — no pulling, no prying, grown into the bone. Then Sanzang, fumbling, said the spell, and the band bit down. Wukong went over backward, rolling and clawing at his own head, the cap shredding under his nails, face scarlet, eyes bulging, in pain past anything heaven had ever managed to do to him. Wukong returned, ashamed, and found his master by the road, where a woman had given Sanzang a brocade cap and a flowered coat for his disciple. She was the Bodhisattva in disguise, and had also taught Sanzang the Tight-Fillet Spell. Wukong, liking the cap, put it on, and at once it could not be taken off, for a golden fillet within had grown roots into his head. When Sanzang recited the spell, Wukong fell rolling on the ground in agony, doing handsprings, his ears red and his face flushed, his eyes bulging and his body numb, and he clawed the gold-flowered cap to shreds, but the fillet would not move.

Stop it, he gasped — and Sanzang stopped, and the pain stopped with it, and Wukong understood exactly what had been done to him. He grabbed at the rod to brain the monk on the spot, and Sanzang only had to move his lips toward the spell and Wukong dropped the rod and crumpled, clutching his head. So that was the shape of the rest of his life. The strongest creature alive, who had eaten heaven's peaches and broken heaven's furnace and could not be killed by sabre or fire or thunder, was now answerable to a frightened monk who could not lift a sword, because of a thin gold ring he could never take off. He bowed. I will protect you, he said, and no more turning back. And so the band of four that was still only two set off west together, bound by a headband — the leash that made the whole journey possible. Wukong cried, stop, stop, I have a headache. As soon as Sanzang ceased the spell, the pain ceased also, and Wukong knew it was the cap that did it. He snatched up his rod to strike his master, but Sanzang made to recite again, and Wukong fell down and dropped the rod, crying, master, stop, I will obey. Then he knew he could not escape, and bowed, saying, I will protect you, and have no more thought of turning back. So master and disciple were of one mind at last, fed the horse, gathered the baggage, and set out together toward the west.

唐僧 The original Chinese · honored as an artifact

你那小乘教法，度不得亡者超昇，只可渾俗和光而已。

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