Monkey (15 page)

‘If you indeed wish to seek your true parents,’ said the abbot, ‘follow me to my cell.’ Hsiian Tsang followed him,
and from a hiding-place above the beam the abbot took down a small box, opened it and took a letter written in blood, and a woman’s shirt, which he gave to Hsiian Tsang, who read the letter and knew at last the names of his parents and the wrong that had been done to them.

‘ “He who fails to avenge the wrongs done to a parent is unworthy of the name of man,”’ said Hsiian Tsang. ‘Let me go and find my mother, and I swear that afterwards with an incense bowl upon my head I will rebuild this temple, to repay your Reverence for all you have done for me.’

‘If you are determined to go,’ said the abbot, ‘take this letter and shirt with you. Travel in the guise of a mendicant priest, and when you get to Chiang-chou go straight to the chancellery and demand to see your mother.’

It happened that when Hsiian Tsang arrived Liu was again absent on business, for Heaven wished mother and child to meet. Hsiian Tsang went straight to the door and begged for alms. Now it also happened that his mother had dreamt that night of a waning moon becoming full again. She thought to herself, ‘Of my mother I have no news, my husband was slain, and my child I threw into the river. If by chance he was rescued and cared for, he must by now be seventeen. Perhaps today Heaven will cause us to be reunited. Who can tell?’ Suddenly she heard someone at the gate reciting the scriptures and begging for alms. She went out and asked him where he came from. When he said he came from the Golden Mountain, she bade him come in and gave him some rice.

‘Do you know, you’re very like my husband,’ she said, looking at him closely. Then, dismissing her maids, she asked, ‘Little priest, were you admitted to the order in childhood or when you grew up? What is your name, and who were your parents ?’

‘To tell the truth,’ said Hsiian Tsang, ‘I have a wrong to avenge great as Heaven, an enmity deep as the sea. My father, the abbot Fa-ming, told me to come here and find my mother.’

‘What is your mother’s surname ?’ she asked.

‘It is Yin,’ he said, ‘and her name is Wen-ch’iao. My
father’s surname is Ch’6n. I am called River Float, and my name in religion is Hsiian Tsang.’

‘I am WSn-ch’iao,’ she said. ‘But have you any proof of what you are?’

At this he flung himself upon his knees and said sobbing, ‘Mother, if you do not believe me, here is a letter written in blood, and a shirt as proof.’

She recognized them at once, and they embraced, weeping. Suddenly she cried, ‘Leave me, leave me.’

‘What, after being parted for seventeen years, must we separate again so soon ?’

‘Go quick as lightning,’ she said. ‘If Liu comes back and finds you here, he will strike you dead on the spot. Tomorrow I will pretend that I am unwell and that I once made a vow to give a hundred pairs of slippers as alms. I will come to your temple to fulfil the vow. Then we can talk.’

Next day she lay on her bed, refusing food and drink. When Liu questioned her, she said, ‘I once made a vow to give a hundred pairs of shoes as alms. Five nights ago I dreamed that a priest, holding a sword in his hand, came to claim the shoes. Since then I have felt ill.’

‘That can easily be settled,’ he said. ‘I wish you had told me before.’

He went to his stewards and told them to get a hundred peasant families of the neighbourhood each to plait a pair of straw shoes and send them in within five days. When this had been done, and the shoes duly received, she asked Liu what temples there were in the neighbourhood, where she could fulfil her vow.

‘The Golden Mountain Temple and the Burnt Mountain Temple,’ he said.’ Either would do.’

‘I have often heard that the Golden Mountain Temple is well worth a visit,’ she said. ‘I think I will go there.’

Liu ordered his servants to make ready a boat, and with some confidential maids she went on board and was brought to the Golden Mountain.

When the maids came up to the temple and announced that their lady had come to fulfil a vow, all the priests came out to welcome the visitor. After paying her respects to the image
of the Bodhisattva and distributing small alms, she told her maids to put the shoes in a basket and bring them to the hall, while she burned heart-incense and prayed. Then she asked the abbot to tell all the priests to withdraw, and kneeling in front of Hsiian Tsang she drew the shoe and sock from his left foot. Sure enough, the top joint of his little toe was missing. Mother and son then embraced again, and she thanked the abbot for all his kindness to her child.

‘Now that you have met,’ said the abbot, ‘the safest thing for you, Madam, would be to go home at once, so as not to arouse the suspicions of your captor.’

Wen-ch’iao agreed, and gave an incense-ring to Hsiian Tsang, telling him to take it to the Inn of the Hundred Thousand Blossoms, where his grandmother had been left behind. ‘I will give you a letter,’ she said, ‘which you will take to the king’s capital, to the house of the minister Yin K’ai-shan, which is just to the left of the Golden Hall. Give the letter to my father and tell him to ask the Emperor to send horses and men to Chiang-chou, that the impostor may be taken and executed, your father avenged, and I myself rescued from his clutches. For the present, I dare not stay any longer or he will be wondering why I have been away so long.’

When Hsiian Tsang reached the Inn of Ten Thousand Blossoms he asked the landlord what had become of the lady who had been left there some time ago by a traveller called Ch’en. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘she was here for a long time. But she went blind, and for several years wasn’t able to pay for her room. In the end she went to live in a derelict potter’s kiln near the Southern Gate, and she picks up a living by begging in the streets. It’s a very strange thing that the gentleman who left her should have disappeared like this for years on end without a word of news.’

Hsiian Tsang succeeded in finding the old lady.

‘Your voice,’ she said, ‘is very like that of my son Ch’en O.’

‘I am not Ch’en O, but I am his son, and Wen-ch’iao is my mother.’

‘Why did your father and mother not come too ?’ she asked.

‘My father,’ he said, ‘was killed by a bandit who forced my
mother to be his wife. I have a letter of hers here, and an incense-ring.’

‘Alas,’ cried the old woman, ‘that I should ever have thought my son had cruelly abandoned me! Little did I think that he had been done to death. Heaven, however, has taken pity on me and continued our line, so that at last a grandson has come to seek me out.’

He took her back to the inn, paid what was owing and hired her a room. Then, promising to be back in a few weeks, he set off for the Capital, and soon found the minister Yin’s house.

‘I am a relation of your master’s,’ he said to the porter, ‘and I should like to see him.’

‘We have no kinsman who is a priest,’ said the minister, but his wife interposed,’ Last night I dreamed of my daughter Wen-ch’iao. Perhaps he has a message from her.’

So Hsiian Tsang was shown in, and when he saw the minister and his wife he fell weeping to his knees and bowed to them, taking from the folds of his dress a letter. When the minister had read it through, he uttered a piercing cry.

‘What is it ?’ his wife asked.

‘Wife,’ he said, ‘this is our grandchild. Our son-in-law Ch’en O was killed by robbers, and my daughter was forced to live with the murderer as his wife. But do not despair. At tomorrow’s Court I will tell the Emperor of this and he will send soldiers to avenge the death of our son-in-law.’

When the King of T’ang heard the story, he fell into a great rage, and put sixty thousand soldiers at the minister’s disposal. They hurried to Chiang-chou by forced marches and pitched camp on the north bank of the river. Then he sent a message to the two Imperial Assessors of Chiang-chou, telling them the whole story and asking for their assistance. Before dawn Liu’s house was surrounded. He was woken by the sound of cannons and drums, and before he could collect his wits, he was in his enemies’ hands. Minister Yin ordered him to be bound and taken to the place of execution, while the army camped outside the walls of the city. When Yin had taken his seat in the governor’s residence, he at once sent for
Wen-ch’iao. At first she was ashamed to be seen, remembering that she had yielded herself to a stranger. But she was at last persuaded that she had acted under compulsion and had nothing to be ashamed of. Then father and child embraced weeping, and Hsiian Tsang still wept bitterly.

‘You two have no need to worry any more,’ said Yin. ‘The culprit has been bound, and it only remains to dispose of him.’

It so happened that the other bandit Li, who had been left in charge of the boat, had recently been arrested. He was first cut to pieces and his head exposed on a stake. But Liu was brought to the exact spot where he had done Ch’en to death, and in the presence of Yin, Wen-ch’iao, and Hsiian Tsang, he was ripped open and his heart and liver offered to the soul of Ch’en O, a written dedication being solemnly burnt.

A yaksha who was patrolling the waters brought the dedication, in its spirit form, to the Dragon King. The dragon at once sent a turtle officer to Ch’en saying, ‘Best congratulations ! Your wife, child, and father-in-law are all on the bank, sacrificing to you. I will now restore your soul to you and let you go.’ He told a yaksha to escort Ch’ên’s body to the surface of the water, and there to give him back his soul. After the sacrifice Wen-ch’iao tried hard to fling herself into the river and was only with difficulty restrained by her son. While the struggle was in progress, a corpse suddenly appeared floating on the water, and finally rested on the river bank. Craning forward to peer at it, Wen-ch’iao recognized the body as that of her husband, whereupon she burst once more into loud wailing. Everyone pressed forward to look and in a moment they saw the hands unclasp and the legs stretch. The whole body began gradually to stir, and Ch’en clambered up on to the bank and sat down, to the intense astonishment of everyone present. Blinking and opening his eyes, Ch’en saw his wife, father-in-law, and a young priest gathered about him, weeping.’ What are you all doing here ?’ he asked.

‘After you were killed, I bore this son,’ said Wen-ch’iao, ‘who fortunately found a patron in the abbot of the Golden Mountain Temple.’

Then she told him the whole story, adding, ‘But how did you get back your soul ?’

‘It all came of my buying that golden carp and setting it free,’ he said. ‘For the carp turned out to be a dragon king. Afterwards, when the brigand threw me into the river, I came to no harm thanks to his protection, and he has just given me back my soul.’

When the officials of the place heard the story, they all came to congratulate Ch’en. The Minister Yin then ordered a grand banquet to fete them, and next day he and his troops set out on their homeward march. When they reached the Inn of Ten Thousand Blossoms, Yin called a halt, and Ch’en and his son went to look for the old lady. The night before she had dreamt that a plank of wood blossomed and that magpies were clamouring behind the house. She thought to herself, ‘Perhaps it means that my grandson is coming.’ She was just thinking this when Ch’en and Hsiian Tsang arrived. After mother and son had embraced and the bill had been paid, they all started off for the capital. At the next Court the Minister Yin stepped forward, reported to the Emperor what had happened, and recommended that Ch’en O should be used in some important capacity, commensurate with his great talents. He was accordingly made sub-chancellor of the Grand Secretariat, and assisted the government in the framing of its policies. Hsiian Tsang devoted himself to meditation and religious austerities in the Hung-Fu Temple.

If you do not know how things went on after this, you must listen to what is told in the next chapter.

O
N
the banks of the river Ching there lived two worthies, a fisherman named Chang Hsiao and a woodman named Ii Ting. Neither of them had passed any of the official examinations; they were what is known as lettered countrymen. One day, when they had been to the Capital, Li with his load of firewood, Chang with his basket of carp, they went into a wineshop and had a few drinks. Then, somewhat tipsy, they set off for home, rambling jug in hand along the banks of the Ching. Reciting song-words and linking verses as they went, they reached the place where their ways parted, and stood bowing ceremoniously to each other.

‘Look after yourself, brother Li,’ said Chang. ‘If a tiger comes along, I may, as the saying goes, “have one friend less in the street”.’

‘That’s not the way to talk to a friend,’ said Li. ‘It’s unlucky to speak of such things – and anyway you’re just as likely to capsi2e in your boat and get drowned.’

‘So you say,’ said Chang, ‘but as a matter of fact I should know if anything was going to happen to me. In West Gate Street there is a fortune-teller. Every day I bring him a carp and he consults the little sticks. He has not been wrong once in a hundred times. Today he told me to set my nets to the east of the big bend of the Ching river and to cast my line from the western bank. I shall certainly get a good catch, which I shall sell in the City, and with the money I get we’ll pay for another drink and finish our talk.’

But there is a proverb: ‘What is said on the road is heard in the grass.’ A yaksha patrolling the river overheard this conversation and reported it to the Dragon King. ‘If he’s never once wrong in a hundred times,’ said the yaksha, ‘work it out for yourself – it won’t be long before our whole watery tribe is extinct.’ The Dragon King was for seizing his sword and rushing off at once to slay the soothsayer. But his
dragon children and grandchildren and all his fish ministers and fish generals restrained him, saying, ‘Your Majesty had better find out first if it is true. If you rush off like this, the clouds will follow you and the rains go at your side. Great damage will be done to the people of Ch’ang-an, who will complain of you in their prayers, and Heaven will intervene. Why don’t you make use of your magic powers ? Disguise yourself as a scholar, and make an investigation on the spot. If anything of this kind is really going on, destroy the fellow at once. If the story is untrue, it would be a pity to slay an innocent man.’