Oral Tales of Mongol Bards

Pages 1-31:The story begins with a song, including formulaic phrases such as “Where do the clouds come from? / From the edge of the high sky / Where does the story originate from? / From the land of the Tang dynasty of the Middle Kingdom“(song: pp. 1-2). Then we learn that at Emperor Taizong’s command the Tang Monk, the Dharma Master, set out on a distant journey for the sake of the motherland and the six classes of sentient beings. The bard at this point introduces the characters of the story to the listeners as follows. The Tang Monk, is eight feet tall and has a white face. On his head he has a cap with eight buttons, and wears a red monastic robe tied with a yellow silk belt at his waist. His first disciple is Sun Wukong, called Master Monkey: Bečin baɣsi in Mongolian. He is also known as “The Great Sage Equal to Heaven”. Monkey is seven feet tall with a mouth and nose like those of a Thunder God. He holds a gold-banded cudgel. The second disciple is Zhu Bajie, called Master Pig: Γaqai baɣsi in Mongolian. He is nine feet tall and wears a black monastic robe tied with a red silk belt at his waist. He holds a nine-toothed rake. He has a huge belly and long ears. The third disciple is Sha Wuneng, called Master Sand: Siroi baɣsi in Mongolian. He is over seven feet tall. His hair and beard are rough. He holds a golden spade. The Tang Monk mounts the White Dragon Horse, Sand leads the horse by the bridle, Pig carries the luggage, and Monkey leads the way. Then the Tang Monk and his three disciples head towards the Western Heaven, climbing mountains and fording rivers.

It has been two or three months since the Tang Monk left the city of Chang’an, the capital of the Empire. One day, master and disciples reach a desolate mountain whose top soars into the clouds. On the mountain there is a forest of dark trees, ravens sing their songs on rocks, tigers and wolves move in packs. The Tang Monk sees the mountain and is worried. It is now getting late, and Pig says that there is a pine tree on the slope of the mountain. He persuades the master to sit under the tree. The master tells Monkey to go and find out if there is a house nearby. Monkey somersaults into the air on a cloud and looks all around, but no house is in sight. Again Monkey is asked to go and find a house where he can beg for food. He rises into the air and travels thousands of miles. While they wait for Monkey, the master sits on a stone and recites the scriptures. Sand sits to the left side of the master, while Pig takes a nap to his right. A hurricane suddenly springs up, and dust rises and fog spreads. The Tang Monk disappears.

Leading the horse, Pig and Sand go in search of their master, but he is nowhere to be seen. Pig tells Sand that, since the master is lost and Monkey has not come back he should take the horse and return to Shali Fu, while he will walk back to Gao Village. The two of them are disputing over this when Monkey comes down from the air. On hearing that the master has disappeared, Monkey begins to wail, recalling how, when he lived in the Water Curtain Cave in the Flowers and Fruit Mountain in the East Ocean, he was crushed by thirty-five mountains for five hundred years, how he found the path of enlightenment, and how he became a disciple of the Tang Monk.

Monkey goes in search of his master, worried that a demon might have eaten him. Monkey recites a spell, stretches the palm of his right hand, and the loud noise of a thunder can be heard. The local deities of the land come before him, and Monkey asks them what has become of his master, who is that carried him off, and what demons are in that place. When local the deities of the land say that there are no demons in that place, Monkey grabs them and beats them. Then the deities admit that in fact there are demons in that place. Pointing in the direction of a high mountain shrouded in mist, they say that that mountain is called Huixiao Mountain, and that the demon king of Huixiao lives in Huixiao Cave. It was this demon who carried away the Tang Monk, they say. Monkey somersaults into the air on a cloud and goes straight to Huixiao Mountain.

The story returns to the Tang Monk, who was carried off by the wind. He somersaulted and suddenly he soared into the air. When the wind calms down Pig and Sand also disappear. They go through a crevice between two mountains, without knowing where they are. They see a stone tablet over which these words are engraved: Huixiao Mountain. Huixiao Cave. In the back there is a demon whose hands are like claws. The demon seizes them by the neck and takes them inside. Pig and Sand, squeezed and heads bent, are unable to move forwards or backwards. A dark-faced demon drags them inside the cave. In it a lamp shines, making the cave as bright as day. There are also demon beings with all sorts of motley faces and all kinds of heads. They are all asleep. Now the demon king has come back with food for his midday meal. The Tang Monk has been tied up and is hanging from a high place in the cave, and from there he sees the demon king taking his seat on a stone throne. He is about eleven feet tall, and his face is entirely black. From the upper edge of the ears his red hair looks as if is catching fire. His wide open mouth touches his ears. His upper lip is four fingers thick. His lower lip is four fingers thick. The demons around him rejoice at the king who has captured the Tang Monk. They begin to quarrel over how they are going to cook and eat the Tang Monk.

In the meantime, the senior and junior demons at the gate hear a voice. It is Sun Wukong the Sage Equal to Heaven from Water Curtain Cave in Flowers and Fruit Mountain in the Eastern Ocean, who has come to command the demon king to bring back his master. If not, he shouts, he will put the mountain to the torch, smash the cave, and extinguish the king’s lineage. All the demons in pairs rush inside and report to the king that something awful has happened: there is Monkey at the gate shouting that he wants his master back at once. On hearing this, the demon king calls for his armour and weapons. Holding a golden trident in his hand, he comes out of the cave and threatens Monkey that the time to meet his doom has come. The song that follows has Monkey insulting the demon king with these words: “Thief, you who sought wrong views/ Thief, you who interfered with a disciple of the Buddha / Thief, you who became an evil demon”/ Today I will finish you off”. The song goes on to describe how the two of them carry on their fight. Monkey’s gold-banded cudgel comes rumbling down and the king demon strikes his rival with the golden trident. The two rivals battle back and forth, spreading mist, causing the rocks to fly up, and shaking trees to their roots (song: pp. 15-16). When the two of them have fought each other more than twenty times, Monkey realises that he can no longer sustain the battle. The demon king recites a magic spell and when he lifts up a blue spotted kerchief a rainbow of nine colours appears in the sky. Monkey sees a beam of blue light pressing down from there and wonders what is happening. He leaps on a cloud and flees into the air. Monkey covers thousands of miles and demon king runs after him, but is unable to overtake Monkey. The demon king collects his weapons, and beating a gong and rolling a drum goes back into his cave.

Monkey now wonders what he is going to do now that the master has been captured and that Pig and Sand are also in the cave of the demon king. He resolves to go up to the palace of the heavenly God Qormusta and to report all this to him. He recites a spell, rises up into the air, and goes straight to the southern gate of Heaven. A song describes how Monkey travels to the palace of the God Qormusta, saying to himself that when five hundred years ago he wreaked havoc in Heaven he did not meet with a disaster like this, and if he finds out the origins of the demon king, he will easily be able to catch him (song: pp. 17-18).

Monkey reaches the southern gate of Heaven and tells the gate gods that Sun Wukong, who fifty hundred years ago wreaked havoc in Heaven, has arrived. He asks them to go inside and inform the God Qormusta that he has converted to Buddhism and become a disciple of the Tang Monk, and that the master was has been captured on Huixiao Mountain. This place, he says, is located on the border between the country where “Cows are led”, in the west, and the country where “Tigers are led”, in the east. Monkey also tells the gate deities that he has come to discover the origins of the king demon. At the command of the God Qormusta the heavenly files are looked through, but there is no mention of such a demon in them. Inspection is made of the thirty-three heavenly gods, and in the palace of the western heavenly gods. The twenty-eight constellations are also inspected, but everyone is in its place. No one has left the heavens and descended to earth. Monkey, at this point, has no choice but to ask the God Qormusta for the help of heavenly warriors in his fight with the demon king. The God Khormusta agrees to help him, and the celestial warriors, with the Thunder God and the Lord of Fire in the lead come out of the palace. A song describes how the celestial army comes down from the sky, causing a gentle wind to blow and a light rain to fall (pp. 20-21). On reaching Huixiao Mountain, Monkey tells the celestial warriors to stand on the four sides of the mountain while he goes to the cave of the demon king. At his arrival Monkey threatens the demon king as he did before, and shouts that they should give back his master at once. On hearing this, the demon king flies into a rage.

A song contains the description of how the demon king prepares for battle, and how he fights with Monkey: “Saying, fetch my armour and weapon! / He dons armour as before. / He fastens the armour’s belt tightly. / On his back he puts / A gold trident / And takes this into battle”. When the two enemies fight: “It is as if a white lion / Played on Mount Sumeru. / It is as if a sea monster and a dragon / Played in the depths of the Milk Ocean. / If the sky and the earth, the two, collided, / It would be like this / If mountains of steel crumbled, / It would be like this / If the four oceans splashed out, / It would be like this, etc.(song: pp. 22-26). When the two enemies have fought each other more than twenty times, four celestial warriors join in the battle. The demon king, who is fighting alone against five enemies, realises that he cannot conquer them. He is unable to withstand the celestial warriors, and his fighting skills are exhausted. He throws his gold trident, a rainbow appears in the sky, and he rises up into the air.

At this point, the Black Dog of the Sky runs after the demon king, quickly grabbing the right sleeve of his robe, and the demon king falls down. The moment when Monkey raises his gold-banded cudgel to hit the demon with it, he suddenly looks up and sees a Daoist Master descending from the sky. The descent of the Daoist Master from the sky is described in song (pp. 26-27). This is the Daoist Master Wenjin of Gold Phoenix Mountain, who when he arrives tells Monkey that he must not kill the demon king, because the demon is a magic hare that has escaped from his flower garden. The Daoist Master produces a white vase from his right sleeve and turns it upside down. A white beam of light shines, and he captures the hare and puts it into the vase. A song follows which describe how Daoist Master, the celestial warriors, and the local deities of the land go back to their respective places (song: p. 28).

A song relates how Monkey goes into the cave and kills all the demons left there (song: p. 29). Monkey kills hundreds of them, frees the Tang Monk and carries him on his back. The Tang Monk tells Monkey how a hurricane sprang up, and how he was carried off by the wind. In an instant they come to the place where they were staying before. Monkey goes in search of Pig and Sand, finds them, and master and disciples continue on their journey. The Tang Monk mounts the White Dragon Horse, Pig carries the luggage, Sands leads the horse by the bridle, and Monkey leads the way. The four of them head for the Western Heaven.

Pages 31-89:The story of the journey of Tang Monk and his disciples goes on with a song, including these verses: The dangerous demon king / Went back to his homeland. / The gentle Tang Monk / Set out, heading for a distant country. / Crossing remote mountains, / Traversing wide plains, / Travelling every day, / Resting every night(song: p. 31). A song also narrates how at Emperor Taizong’s command the Tang Monk heads for the Thunder-Voiced Monastery for the sake of the six classes of sentient beings (song: p. 32). Master and disciples have been travelling for more than a month, pushing ahead peacefully, when a high mountain with ragged cliffs appears before them. The Tang Monk feels uneasy about the strange place to which they have come. The further they go, the greater the obstacles along their way. No one knows how many cliffs, rocks, forests, and precipices there are. A song also describes the four travellers going through the steep and rugged terrain of the mountain, and how they see tigers, wolves and foxes moving in packs, and rare animals inhabiting dark forests, etc. (song: pp. 33-34). The four travellers are pressing ahead when suddenly, a hurricane blows up, and the Tang Monk worries that this is no ordinary wind. To soothe his master’s anxiety, Monkey tells him that there are winds in all four seasons. He says: In spring / There are hurricanes. / In summer / At the first rainfall there are fierce winds. / In autumn / There are pleasant cool winds. / In winter / There are chilly winds.

Now the sun is setting and master and disciples are tired. They find some level ground where to sit and rest. Monkey goes to survey the mountain. He recites a spell and leaps up on a cloud. He looks around below him and sees that black vapours are rising high, clouds and mist cover the mountain, and peaks are joined together. The mountain extends at least seven hundred miles, and to cross it is very hard. At the sight of the mountain, Monkey thinks about the hardships they have to endure, crossing hundreds of mountains and fording thousands of rivers to go in search of Buddhist scriptures. Now a bluish fog can be seen along the southern slopes of the mountain. From a high cliff Monkey notices a demon walking inside the forest in the distance. He is seven or eight feet tall. A tiger skin is tied around his waist. He has protruding cheeks and bulging eyes. He has the head of a dried bird. He has a blue spotted face. He wears Sandals of straw. He is saying something to himself as he walks. Monkey turns into a fly and lands on the demon’s head to listen. The words the demon is saying to himself are given in song: “At the King’s command / I am patrolling the mountain. / I am carrying out the orders of the King, / Who said: Keep good watch over the land! / If I eat the flesh of the Tang Monk, / I will live ten thousand years”. The song goes on to recount how the King told the patroller to be on the alert for Monkey, who has the magic power to transform himself (song: pp. 37-38).

Monkey fears that the patroller might know him, and is on the point of killing him, but desists, thinking that if he kills the patroller he will not obtain any information from him. Monkey changes into a demon with a black face and asks the patroller if he knows him. He has never seen him before, the other says. Monkey tells him that he is in the service of the King, who sent him off to patrol the land because Monkey, who has the power to transform himself, might have come there. The patroller becomes suspicious and asks Monkey if he has a pass. Monkey asks him to show his own. When he does this, Monkey notices that his pass is a wooden board the size of the palm of a hand on which the words “Mountain Patroller Junior Wind” are written. Monkey plucks a hair from his beard and says “change!”, producing a wooden board on which these words are written in gold: “Mountain Patroller Chief Wind”. When the junior patroller reveals that there also twenty-four demons with him, Monkey has them gathered. He turns back into himself and strikes all of them with his gold-banded cudgel, reducing them to a lump of meat.

Monkey transforms himself into the junior patroller, takes his pass and goes through the gate of Shituo Cave in Shituo Mountain. There are many demons, and the junior patroller (Monkey) asks them what the mountain is called. The demons assume that the junior patroller is drunk and has forgotten the name of the mountain. Monkey is taken to a cave where a myriad of demons are practising their fighting skills. A thousand of them wear white clothes and brandish spears. A thousand of them wear black clothes and brandish swords. Monkey turns back into himself and asks the demons how many kings are there in Shituo Cave. There are three kings, they say. Their names are King Lion, King Elephant, and King Falcon, they also say. After hearing this, Monkey hacks the demons to pieces with his cudgel.

Monkey changes into the junior patroller and goes into Shituo Cave. Inside it is as bright as day. There are three high thrones. The demon who sits on the throne in the middle has a black spotted face. His two eyes are similar to wells, and his nose sticks up. His mouth touches his ears. His hair at the temples hangs down on his shoulders. He looks as if he has no neck. To his right sits a demon whose body is five feet tall. He has yellow speckled eyes and a yellow spotted face. Behind him stands a demon holding a spear. To his left sits a demon whose body is seven feet tall. He has a green face and a bird’s beak. He has feathers and wings on his back. Behind him stands a demon holding a sword. When King Lion asks the junior patroller (Monkey) if he happened to see Monkey, the junior patroller answers that the Tang Monk and his disciples are approaching. When the king asks what Monkey looks like, the other says that Monkey’s body is as large as a mountain and his huge cudgel can smash a mountain with a single blow. At these words, the king who sits in the middle says that they should not start trouble with Monkey, who five hundred years ago wreaked havoc in Heaven, who was put into a furnace for forty-nine days, and who was pressed under Mount Wutai for five hundred years. Yet he did not die. They could never defeat him, he concludes. King Falcon disagrees with him. He says that they should not underestimate their own abilities, and since now the Tang Monk is crossing the mountain they should use this chance to kill him, eat his flesh and live forever as a result. If they do not do this, he adds, they will regret it for the rest of their lives. While the three kings are speaking to each other, Monkey suddenly laughs. In doing so he reveals his true mouth and nose. King Falcon notices it and gets up from his seat. A song relates how King Falcon picks up his sword to attack Monkey with it, how Monkey dodges the blade, how he turns into a red beam of light and flees the cave (song: pp. 46-47).

A song also narrates how King Lion comes out of the cave gate holding a golden club in his right hand and grasping a ring in his left hand, and how he fights with Monkey more than twenty rounds (song: pp. 47-49). Afterwards, King Lion abandons the fight and squats over a rock cave in the back. On seeing him sitting like this, Monkey mocks him, and, at this moment, King Lion opens his enormous mouth and spews out black vapour from it. He swallows Monkey, goes back into the cave and tells the two kings that he has Monkey in his stomach, and, since he knows that alcohol does not agree with Monkey, he asks for strong liquor to be brought. He drinks four cups of it and Monkey gets drunk. Monkey begins to kick him and roll about in his stomach. When King Lion, in agony, breaks into a hot sweat, Monkey asks him if he is going to eat him and kill his master. King Lion assures Monkey that he will not to do it, and begs him to come out. Monkey refuses to come out, saying that he would instead spend the winter in his stomach, eating his liver and heart when hungry, and sucking his aorta when thirsty. When King Lion asks Monkey what he should do to persuade him to come out of his stomach, Monkey says that he will come out on condition that eighteen demons carry the Tang Monk and his disciples over the mountain on palanquins. King Lion promises Monkey that he will comply with his request.

In the meantime, the other two kings are holding weapons in their hands ready to kill Monkey as soon as he comes out. Feeling that something might go wrong, Monkey pulls out from his neck a golden hair which the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara had given him. He recites a spell and causes the golden hair to change into a rope. He fastens one end of the rope around the heart of King Lion, and holds the other end in his hand. A song narrates how Monkey jumps out of King Lion’s stomach, how King Falcon charges at him with his sword, how Monkey soars into the air with King Lion after him (song: p. 53). King Lion’s heart is tied up with a rope and cannot run after Monkey. He falls down to the ground. Faced with this disaster, the three kings and all the other demons have no choice but to kneel down and to promise Monkey that they will carry the master and his disciples across the mountain. After Monkey leaves the cave, the three kings say to each other that they will do as they have promised Monkey, but as soon as they reach Shituo City they will find ways to deal with them. Now the story leaves the three kings there.

The story returns to Monkey, who after reuniting with his master and his companions, tells them that three demon kings and other demons are practising their fighting skills in order to capture them, and that the next day eighteen demons will come to carry them across the mountain. Pig does not believe that. He says that the demons tell lies and Monkey has been cheated by them. He wants to go there and give the demons a fright, he also says. Monkey lets Pig go so that he can be frightened by the demons. Pig tucks up the four hems of his robe, grabs his nine-toothed rake and rises up into the air.

When Pig comes down at Shituo Cave, the demons are practising their fighting skills there. Pig shouts at the top of his voice, announcing himself as Zhu Bajie, who once lived in Gao Village. He threatens to destroy the demons, if they lied about carrying them across the mountain. When the three kings hear Pig insulting them, King Elephant goes out to fight him. The duel between King Elephant and Monkey is described in song (pp. 56-58). The two of them fight five rounds or so, and again a song describes how Pig is defeated by the other (song: p. 58). Pig gives up the fight and flees eastwards. King Elephant goes after him shouting, “Do not run away!”. He captures Pig with his magic trunk. Pig is brought into the cave with his arms and feet tied. When King Elephant announces that he has captured Pig, the other two kings say that Pig is useless. It is Monkey that they must catch if they want to attain their goal, they say. Pig is put into a cauldron and a fire is lit under it.

The story returns to Monkey, who after waiting for Pig a long time, assumes that he has been captured. When the Tang Monk blames Monkey for letting Pig go to the demons and for causing harm to him, Monkey goes to rescue Pig. He soars up to the edge of the sky, changes into a fly and enters through the cave gate. When Monkey discovers that Pig has been put into a cauldron, he climbs to the top of a mountain, calls the deities Liu Jin and Liu Jian and tells them to summon the Lord of Fire and the Lord of Water to come to him. When they come Monkey gives them the task of going into Shituo Cave secretly and causing the flames of fire under the cauldron to go downwards in order to prevent the water from boiling boil, so that Pig will not be harmed.

Monkey turns into a fly once again. He enters the cave, sits on the cauldron, and when he calls Pig by the name Zhu Wuneng, Pig wonders who could call him Zhu Wuneng, since this name was given to him by his master and by the Bodhisattva Qomsim (Avalokiteśvara), and nobody knows it. To give Pig a fright Monkey says to him that a bull-headed demon is calling him, waiting to take his soul, since he will soon be dead. In alarm, Pig begs him to let him live for two hours more. When Monkey bursts into laughter, Pig, recognises Monkey and begins to hurl insults at him. After promising Pig that he will save him, Monkey changes into a tiny insect and flies out of the cave.

A song follows which describes Monkey yelling at the demons to give Pig back. It also narrates the following events. The demons at the gate rush inside to inform the three kings of Monkey’s arrival. King Elephant dons armour, comes to the gate waving his sword, and after clashing with Monkey twenty times, he abandons the fight and flees with Monkey following after him (song: pp. 63-66). At the moment when King Elephant opens his nostrils wide, Monkey seizes the chance to stick his gold-banded cudgel into his right nostril. Because of this, the demon stands fixed on the spot, unable to move. When they are informed of this, King Lion and King Falcon rush out of the cave and see what has happened to King Elephant. The trunk of King Elephant can become short or long by magic, and now its magic is lost. Confronted with such a disaster, King Lion and King Falcon have no choice but to promise Monkey that they will comply with his request, blaming themselves for their wrongdoings. Monkey asks them to give back Pig. Pig is pulled out of the cauldron and his clothes and weapon are returned to him. Once out of the cave Pig tells Monkey that he must not set free King Elephant, but Monkey sets him free, because, he says, the three demons are going to be needed to escort them across the mountain.

Monkey and Pig go back to their master and tell him that the next morning the demons will come to escort them across the mountain. Master and disciples spend the night there, and the next morning at dawn they wait for the demons to come. They come, and the three demon kings take the lead in traversing Shituo Mountain which extends for eight hundred miles. A relay station is prepared so they can halt for a meal after thirty miles’ march. A relay station is prepared for them to stop for the night after sixty miles’ march. Palanquins are carried on poles by eight demons. A song relates how the Tang Monk and his three disciples take their seat on palanquins of different colours. The Tang Monk sits inside a yellow palanquin, and eight demons dressed in yellow robes carry the poles. Monkey sits inside a red palanquin, and eight demons dressed in red robes carry the poles. Pig sits inside a black sedan chair, Sand sits inside a blue palanquin, and eight demons dressed in black and blue, respectively, carry the poles. Stage by stage, they travel westwards for five days (song: pp. 68-69).

They reach Shituo City, west of the mountain, and a song describes Shituo City as an old abandoned city, the glory of which has faded away. It is shrouded in black mist and inhabited by demons. No human would dare to come to this place (song: pp. 69-70). Monkey, at this point, explains that five hundred years ago there were people in Shituo City, but demons ate them all and took over the city. Master and disciples, the four of them, are taken to the old “golden cold palace”. Now it is the third watch of night. After taking a rest in the palace, they stealthily make their escape, with Pig leading the horse by the bridle. They reach a city gate and find it locked. Monkey recites a spell, points to the lock with his gold-banded cudgel, and the lock falls to the ground. They reach the third city gate and see that on the other side of the gate stand demons holding spears in their hands. When they see that the city wall on the back is unguarded, they resolve to jump over it. When the disciples are helping their master to jump over the wall the rolling of drums can be heard. A song narrates how at dead of night the four of them are making their escape when an army of demons emerges, shouting at them not to escape. King Elephant and Monkey leap up into the air and fight one another, stirring up a whirlwind and spreading fog. As the battle progresses, Monkey, Pig and Sand fight against the three demon kings. They fight on walls, on top of houses and towers. They fight here and there (song: pp. 71-72).

They have hardly fought three rounds when King Falcon grabs Pig by the neck, drops him from above and catches him. King Elephant captures Sand in the same way. Of the three disciples only Monkey is left to carry on the battle with the three kings. This event is narrated in song (p. 73). When Monkey has fought five rounds, he realises that he can no longer hold his own against the three kings. He somersaults and runs away. He travels twenty-eight thouSand miles, and King Falcon catches up with him. He grabs hold of Monkey and ties him with a magic rope. We are told at this point that the Tang Monk and the White Dragon Horse too have been captured by the three demons. All the demons rejoice at having found meat for their midday meal, and make a feast.

Pig and Sand are tied to iron poles, Monkey to a brass pole, and the Tang Monk to a golden pole. Because all of them have been captured, the Tang Priest in his distress sheds tears of sorrow, thinking that this is their end. A song recalls how a lone Tang Monk left the Tang Empire, how he wandered about the earth, and how he acquired three disciples. It also expresses a feeling of sadness for the Tang Monk who fell into the mouth of the demons (song: p. 75). Now Monkey makes his body become small and slips from the rope. He pulls out a hair, makes it turn into another Monkey, and leaves him in his place. Monkey flies up, determined to discover the origins of the three kings. Then he hesitates about going, for fear that the demons might cook and eat the others after he has gone.

Monkey comes down onto the city wall, and from there he shouts that Monkey’s elder brothers have come demanding that the Tang Monk and his two disciples be given back at once. A song narrates how at this moment King Falcon spreads his wings and comes out with his magic sword raised. A duel ensues (song: p. 58). The demon captures Monkey, takes him inside and ties him to an iron pole. Once again Monkey makes a hair turn into his own double and flies up. He comes down onto the city wall and shouts that Monkey’s younger brothers have come and demands that the Tang Monk and his two disciples be brought back at once. A short passage in song tells us how King Falcon fights with Monkey (song: p. 78). When King Falcon captures Monkey, the latter becomes suspicious about this demon.

Again, Monkey recites a spell and makes his body to become small. When he rises into the air he says to himself that now he must go to the Buddha and find out about the origins of the green-faced King Falcon, because there is something unusual about him. He somersaults into a cloud and goes straight to Thunder-Voiced Monastery. A song narrates how Monkey rides on a cloud, and how within an hour he comes to the gate of Thunder-Voiced Monastery (song: p. 79). When the Four Guardian Gods at the gate ask Monkey why he has come, Monkey says that there is a matter he wants to report to the Buddha. Monkey goes into the Buddha’s presence, kneels down before him and tells the Buddha how he sent the Tang Monk to fetch the scriptures, how he caused him to protect the master on his journey, and how they went through countless dangers and disasters on their way. All this, he adds, despite the fact that he could have fetched the scriptures in less than a day or an hour. Finally, Monkey tells the Buddha that the Tang Monk was captured in Shituo City, that there are three demon kings on Shituo Mountain, and that the green-faced King Falcon is an especially fierce and valiant demon. When Monkey tells the Buddha that he has come to discover the origins of King Falcon in order to conquer him, the Buddha says that, unfortunately, Monkey cannot conquer him on his own.

The Buddha begins to recount how in the year when he was sitting in meditation, cultivating his golden body, on the top of the snowy white mountain a vulture came and swallowed him. The vulture laid its eggs and when the eggs hatched he came out of the eggs together with the vulture. The vulture became a demon, continues the Buddha, and he has not heard his religious teachings in the past five hundred years. At these words, Monkey says to the Buddha that the Buddha and King Falcon are brothers to each other, since they were born from the same mother. The Buddha tells Monkey to stop talking and calls his disciples Ānanda and Kāśyapa to him. He sends one to Wutai Mountain to call the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. He sends the other one to Jiuling Mountain to call the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, because, the Buddha says, if the two deities go to Shituo Mountain, they will triumph over the demons. The Buddha also gives his two disciples eighteen pills. A song describes how the two disciples of the Buddha come out of the Thunder-Voiced Monastery, how they rise up to the edge of the sky, and how they ride on clouds heading towards Shituo Mountain (song: p. 83). The two disciples of the Buddha bring with them the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī and Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, and the four of them stand at Shituo City gate.

A song narrates the following. Monkey tells Mañjuśrī, Samantabhadra and the two disciples of the Buddha that he is going to lure the demons out, and after this they will have to take action themselves. Monkey yells at the numerous senior and junior demons at the gate that Sun Wukong the Sage Equal to Heaven of Water Curtain Cave in Flower and Fruit Mountain in the Eastern Ocean has arrived, and they should pay heed to him: he has discovered the origins of the three kings and the time for their ruin and death has come. Monkey orders the three kings to come out. When the demons go to tell the three kings that Monkey has come back and that he has discovered their origins and is insulting them, the three kings emerge to fight against Monkey (song: p. 84). A song also describes Monkey fighting alone against the three demon kings, piercing and thrusting left and right (song: p. 85). Before they have fought five rounds, suddenly thunders rumbles from the four directions, a ray of yellow light shines and blue clouds gather high above. The two disciples of the Buddha emerge from the clouds, and when they scatter down the eighteen pills, it as if rain is falling. Monkey gets away from there in time, but the three kings cannot do the same. Pills several zhang long fall down in great numbers similar to snow, with the result that the three kings remain fixed to the spot as if their feet have become stuck in the mud.

Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra suddenly emerges from the clouds in the south-west, and when they come Lion King, and Elephant King fall face up at their sight. As for King Lion and King Elephant, King Elephant is the blue lion, the mount of Mañjuśrī, while King Elephant is the white elephant, the mount of Samantabhadra. The latter, during the Shan dynasty, took the white elephant from among the ten thousand elephant deities. Originally, Lion King and Elephant King were deities. After this, Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra go away, leading their mounts. Now the two disciples of the Buddha warn King Vulture that his time is over, and blame him for descending to earth and for eating human flesh and spreading misery, stating that in so doing, he acted against the Buddha’s doctrine. As soon as the two disciples of the Buddha put King Vulture into a basket, King Vulture reverts to his true appearance as a vulture.

Monkey rescues Pig and Sand in Shituo City. A song follows which narrates how the three of them kill all the remaining demons, reducing them to a handful of dust (pp. 87-88). Shituo City is left empty. Monkey goes to beg food for his master, and the next day in the morning the Tang Monk mounts the White Dragon Horse. Sand leads the horse by the bridle, Pig carries the luggage, and Monkey leads the way. The four of them set out on their journey, heading for the Western Heaven.