Monkey (27 page)

‘The first is Pigsy,’ said Hui-yen, ‘and the second is Monkey. They are both Tripitaka’s disciples and both were converted by the Bodhisattva. You have nothing to fear from them. I myself will introduce you to the Master.’

Sandy put away his staff, tidied himself and scrambled up the bank. When they reached Tripitaka, Sandy knelt before him, exclaiming, ‘How can I have been so blind as not to recognize you ? Forgive me for all my rudeness!’

‘You brazen creature,’ said Pigsy, ‘why did you insist on having a row with us, instead of joining our party from the start?’

‘Brother,’ laughed Monkey, ‘don’t scold him. It is we who are to blame, for never having told him that we were going to get scriptures.’

‘Is it indeed your earnest desire to dedicate yourself to our religion ?’ asked Tripitaka.

Sandy bowed his assent, and Tripitaka told Monkey to take a knife and shave his head. He then once more did homage to Tripitaka, and in a less degree to Monkey and Pigsy. Tripitaka thought that Sandy shaped very well as a priest, and was thoroughly satisfied with him.

‘You had better be quick and get on with your boatbuilding,’ said Hui-yen.

Sandy obediently took the skulls from his neck, and tying them in the pattern of the Magic Square he put the Bodhisat-tva’s gourd in the middle, and called to Tripitaka to come down to the water. Tripitaka then ascended the holy ship, which he found as secure as any light craft. Pigsy supported him on the left, Sandy on the right, while Monkey in the stern held the halter of the white horse, which followed as best it could. Hui-yen floated just above them. They soon arrived in perfect safety at the other side.

And if you do not know how long it was before they got Illumination you must listen to what is told in the next chapter.

T
RIPITAKA
sat in the Zen Hall of the Treasure Wood Temple, under the lamp; he recited the Water Litany of the Liang Emperor and read through the True Scripture of the Peacock. It was now the third watch (12 p.m.), and he put his books back into their bag, and was just going to get up and go to bed when he heard a great banging outside the gate and felt a dank blast of ghostly wind. Fearing the lamp would be blown out, he hastened to screen it with his sleeve. But the lamp continued to flicker in the strangest way, and Tripitaka began to tremble. He was, however, very tired, and presently he ky down across the reading-desk and dozed. Although his eyes were closed, he still knew what was going on about him, and in his ears still sounded the dank wind that moaned outside the window. And when the wind had passed by, he heard a voice outside the Zen Hall whispering:’ Master!’

Tripitaka raised his head, and in his dream he saw a man standing there, dripping from head to foot, with tears in his eyes, and continually murmuring, ‘Master, Master.’ Tripitaka sat up and said, ‘What can you be but a hobgoblin, evil spirit, monster or foul bogey, that you should come to this place and molest me in the middle of the night ? But I must tell you that I am no common scrambler in the greedy world of man. I am a great and illustrious priest who at the bidding of the Emperor of T’ang am going to the west to worship the Buddha and seek scriptures. And I have three disciples, each of whom is adept in quelling dragons and subduing tigers, removing monsters and making away with bogeys. If these disciples were to see you, they would grind you to powder. I tell you this for your own good, in kindness and compassion. You had best hide at once, and not set foot in this place of Meditation.’

But the man drew nearer to the room and said, ‘Master, I am no hobgoblin, evil spirit, monster, nor foul bogey either.’

‘If you are none of these things,’ said Tripitaka, ‘what are you doing here at depth of night ?’

‘Master,’ said the man, ‘rest your eyes upon me and look at me well.’

Then Tripitaka looked at him with a fixed gaze and saw that there was a crown upon his head and a sceptre at his waist, and that he was dressed and shod as only a king can be.

When Tripitaka saw this he was much startled and amazed. At once he bowed down and cried out with a loud voice: ‘Of what court is your majesty the king? I beg of you, be seated.’ But the hand he stretched to help the king to his seat plunged through empty space. Yet when he was back in his seat and looked up, the man was still there.

‘Tell me, your majesty,’ he cried, ‘of what are you emperor, of where are you king ? Doubtless there were troubles in your land, wicked ministers rebelled against you and at midnight you fled for your life. What is your tale ? Tell it for me to hear.’

‘Master,’ he said, ‘my home is due west of here, only forty leagues away. At that place, there is a city moated and walled, and this city is where my kingdom was founded.’

‘And what is its name ?’ asked Tripitaka.

‘I will not deceive you,’ he said. ‘When my dynasty was set up there, a new name was given to it, and it was called Crow-cock.’

‘But tell me,’ said Tripitaka, ‘what brings you here in such consternation ?’

‘Master,’ he said, ‘five years ago there was a great drought. The grass did not grow and my people were all dying of hunger. It was pitiful indeed!’

Tripitaka nodded. ‘Your majesty,’ he said, ‘there is an ancient saying, “Heaven favours, where virture rules.” I fear you have no compassion for your people; for now that they are in trouble, you leave your city. Go back and open your store-houses, sustain your people, repent your misdeeds, and do present good twofold to make recompense. Release from captivity any whom you have unjustly condemned, and Heaven will see to it that rain comes and the winds are tempered.’

‘All the granaries in my kingdom were empty,’ he said, ‘I had neither cash nor grain. My officers civil and military were unpaid, and even at my own board no relish could be served. I have shared sweet and bitter with my people no less than Yii the Great when he quelled the floods; I have bathed and done penance; morning and night I have burnt incense and prayed. For three years it was like this, till the rivers were all empty, the wells dry.

‘Suddenly, when things were at their worst, there came a magician from the Chung-nan mountains who could call the winds and summon the rain, and make stones into gold. First he obtained audience with my many officers, civil and military, and then with me. At once I begged him to mount the altar and pray for rain. He did so, and was answered; no sooner did his magic tablet resound than floods of rain fell. I told him three feet would be ample. But he said after so long a drought, it took a lot to soak the ground, and he brought down another two inches. And I, seeing him to be of such great powers, prostrated myself before him and treated him henceforth as my elder brother.’

‘This was a great piece of luck,’ said Tripitaka.

‘Whence should my luck come ?’ asked he.

‘Why,’ said Tripitaka, ‘if your magician could make rain when you wanted it, and gold whenever you needed it, what did you lack that you must needs leave your kingdom and come to me here ?’

‘For two years,’ he said, ‘he was my fellow at board and bed. Then at spring time when all the fruit trees were in blossom and young men and girls from every house, gallants from every quarter, went out to enjoy the sights of spring, there came a time when my officers had all returned to their desks and the ladies of the court to their bowers. I with that magician went slowly stepping hand in hand, till we came to the flower-garden and to the eight-cornered crystal well. Here he threw down something, I do not know what, and at once there was a great golden light. He led me to the well-side, wondering what treasure was in the well. Then he conceived an evil intent, and with a great shove pushed me into the well; then took a paving-stone and covered the
well-top and sealed it with clay, and planted a banana-plant on top of it… Pity me! I have been dead three years; I am the phantom unavenged of one that perished at the bottom of a well.’

When the man said that he was a ghost, Tripitaka was terrified; his legs grew flabby beneath him, and his hair stood on end. Controlling himself at last, he asked him saying ‘Your Majesty’s story is hard to reconcile with reason. You say you have been dead for three years. How is it that in all this time none of your officers civil and military, nor of your queens and concubines and chamberlains ever came to look for you?’

‘I have told you already,’ the man said, ‘of the magician’s powers. There can be few others like him in all the world. He had but to give himself a shake, and there and then, in the flower-garden, he changed himself into the exact image of me. And now he holds my rivers and hills, and has stolen away my kingdom. All my officers, the four hundred gentlemen of my court, my queens and concubines – all, all are his.’

‘Your Majesty is easily daunted,’ said Tripitaka.

‘Easily daunted ?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Tripitaka, ‘that magician may have strange powers, turn himself into your image, steal your lands, your officers knowing nothing, and your ladies unaware. But you that were dead at least knew that you were dead. Why did you not go to Yama, King of Death, and put in a complaint?’

‘The magician’s power,’ he said, ‘is very great, and he is on close terms with the clerks and officers of Death. The Spirit of Wall and Moat is forever drinking with him; all the Dragon Kings of the Sea are his kinsmen. The God of the Eastern Peak is his good friend; the ten kings of Judgement are his cousins. I should be barred in every effort to lay my plaint before the King of Death.’

‘If your Majesty,’ said Tripitaka, ‘is unable to lay your case before the Courts of the Dead, what makes you come to the world of the living with any hope of redress ?’

‘Master,’ he said, ‘how should a wronged ghost dare
approach your door? The Spirit that Wanders at Night caught me in a gust of magic wind and blew me along. He said my three years’ water-misery was ended and that I was to present myself before you; for at your service, he said, there was a great disciple, the Monkey Sage, most able to conquer demons and subdue impostors. I beg of you to come to my kingdom, lay hands on the magician and make clear the false from the true. Then, Master, I would repay you with all that will be mine to give.’

‘So then,’ said Tripitaka, ‘you have come to ask that my disciple should drive out the false magician ?’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ he said.

‘My disciple’ said Tripitaka, ‘in other ways is not all that he should be. But subduing monsters and evil spirits just suits his powers. I fear however that the circumstances make it hard for him to deal with this evil power.’

‘Why so ?’ asked the king.

‘Because,’ said Tripitaka, ‘the magician has used his magic powers to change himself into the image of you. All the officers of your court have gone over to him, and all your ladies have accepted him. My disciple could no doubt deal with them; but he would hesitate to do violence to them. For should he do so, would not he and I be held guilty of conspiring to destroy your kingdom? And what would this be but to paint the tiger and carve the swan ? ‘
^*

‘There is still someone of mine at Court,’ he said.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ said Tripitaka. ‘No doubt it is some personal attendant, who is guarding some fastness for you.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘It is my own heir apparent.’

‘But surely,’ said Tripitaka, ‘the false magician has driven him away.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘He is in the Palace of Golden Bells, in the Tower of the Five Phoenixes, studying with his tutor, or on the steps of the magician’s throne. But all these three years he has forbidden the prince to go into the inner chambers of the Palace, and he can never see his mother.’

‘Why is that ?’ asked Tripitaka.

‘It is the magician’s scheme,’ he said. ‘He fears that if they were to meet, the queen might in the course of conversation let drop some word that would arouse the prince’s suspicions. So these two never meet, and he all this long time has lived secure.’

‘The disaster that has befallen you, no doubt at Heaven’s behest, is much like my own misfortune. My own father was killed by brigands, who seized my mother and after three months she gave birth to me. I at length escaped from their hands and by good chance met with kindness from a priest of the Golden Mountain Temple, who brought me up. Remembering my own unhappy state, without father or mother, I can sympathize with your prince, who has lost both his parents. But tell me, granted that this prince is still at Court, how can I manage to see him ?’

‘What difficulty in that ?’ he said.

‘Because he is kept under strict control,’ said Tripitaka, ‘and is not even allowed to see the mother who bore him. How will a stray monk get to him ?’

‘Tomorrow,’ the king said, ‘he leaves the Court at daybreak.’

‘For what purpose ?’

‘Tomorrow, early in the morning, with three thousand followers and falcons and dogs, he will go hunting outside the city, and it will certainly be easy for you to see him. You must then tell him what I have told you, and he cannot fail to believe you.’

‘He is only a common mortal,’ said Tripitaka, ‘utterly deceived by the false magician in the palace, and at every turn calling him father and king. Why should he believe what I tell him?’

‘If that is what worries you,’ the king said, ‘I will give you a token to show to him.’

‘And what can you give me ?’

In his hand the king carried a tablet of white jade, bordered with gold. This he laid before Tripitaka saying, ‘Here is my token.’