The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2 (100 page)

5
. This lyric is written to the tune of “Moon Over West River,” but it is a rare tour de force because it is one of double stanzas governed, in the original Chinese, by a single rhyme scheme.

6
. Empty-self: the stalk of the plant is hollow, and thus its very nature (
tixing
) is made a symbol of emptiness or vacuity (
kong
).

CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE

1
. Tiered towers: for the meaning of this term and those that follow in the text, see JW 1, chapter 22, n. 6, and chapter 19, nn. 6–9.

2
. Form’s emptiness: “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” are the famous opening words of the
Heart Sūtra
. See JW 1, chapter 19 for the full text.

3
. Sovereign state:
shangguo
or
shangbang
, sovereign or superior state has been used traditionally as a euphemistic term for China, particularly in relation to the surrounding states beyond the borders. On occasion, however, the term could also be used to refer to one’s own state, in periods when there was more than one contending state in China.

4
. Li Shimin:
, the name of emperor Taizong. As noted in our introduction, the historical Xuanzang left China in defiance of imperial proscription against traveling abroad because the empire had not been fully united or secure in the very beginning of the emperor’s reign. The novelistic author, whether by deliberate invention or unquestioning compliance with the one emerging from the Tripitaka legend in antecedent tale or drama, continues to narrate a different chronology and state of affairs between ruler and the pilgrim prior to and during the scripture journey.

5
. Mendicant worker:
xingtong daoren
. The term from the last two Chinese graphs may look exactly the same as the term for a Daoist, but in Buddhist orders, a worker has been named a
daoren
since antiquity. My translation follows the proper meaning that seems to obtain in context, thereby sacrificing the nice pun in the last two lines of Wukong’s subsequent verse deposition.

6
. Wutai Mountain:
[alternately,
]
. A famous mountain near the northeastern border of Shansi province, the patron saint of which is Mañjuśrī.

CHAPTER FORTY

1
. Omitting only four short lines at the very beginning and with minor alterations in diction and syntax, this long descriptive poem repeats almost verbatim the one found in JW 1, chapter 20.

2
. Human carriage: the Chinese word is
jiao
, which is a homophone to
jiao
. The Tang Monk’s question on “what human person is calling (
ren jiao
)” thus was regarded by his disciple as a pun.

3
. Wood Mother: the text of XYJ here has the phrase,
benmu
, meaning “original mother,” which makes little sense. My translation thus follows the texts of the
Xiyou zhenquan, Xiyou yuanzhi,
and
Xinshuo Xiyouji
(the major Qing editions), and construes the correct term to be
mumu
. It is one metaphor that is consistently used on Eight Rules throughout the novel.