Myths and Legends of China, E. Werner [best english novels for beginners TXT] 📗

gods and goddesses. Accusations poured in upon Page 331Yü Huang, and he ordered the Four Gods of the Heavens and their chief generals to bring Sun to him. The armies laid siege to Hua-kuo Shan, a net was spread in the heavens, fantastic battles took place, but the resistance of the enemy was as strenuous and obstinate as before.

Lao Chün and Êrh-lang, nephew of Yü Huang, then appeared on the scene. Sun’s warriors resisted gallantly, but the forces of Heaven were too much for them, and at length they were overcome. At this juncture Sun changed his form, and in spite of the net in the sky managed to find a way out. In vain search was made everywhere, until Li T’ien-wang, by the help of his devil-finding mirror, detected the quarry and informed Êrh-lang, who rushed off in pursuit. Lao Chün hurled his magic ring on to the head of the fugitive, who stumbled and fell. Quick as lightning, the celestial dog, T’ien Kou, who was in Êrh-lang’s service, threw himself on him, bit him in the calf, and caused him to stumble afresh. This was the end of the fight. Sun, surrounded on all sides, was seized and chained. The battle was won.

Sun escapes from Lao Chün’s Furnace

The celestial armies now raised the siege, and returned to their quarters. But a new and unexpected difficulty arose. Yü Huang condemned the criminal to death, but when they went to carry out the sentence the executioners learned that he was invulnerable; swords, iron, fire, even lightning, could make no impression on his skin. Yü Huang, alarmed, asked Lao Chün the reason of this. The latter replied that there was nothing surprising about it, seeing that the knave had eaten the peaches of life in the garden of Heaven and the pills of immortality Page 332which he had composed. “Hand him over to me,” he added. “I will distil him in my furnace of the Eight Trigrams, and extract from his composition the elements which render him immortal.”

Yü Huang ordered that the prisoner be handed over, and in the sight of all he was shut up in Lao Chün’s alchemical furnace, which for forty-nine days was heated white-hot. But at an unguarded moment Sun lifted the lid, emerged in a rage, seized his magic staff, and threatened to destroy Heaven and exterminate its inhabitants. Yü Huang, at the end of his resources, summoned Buddha, who came and addressed Sun as follows: “Why do you wish to possess yourself of the Kingdom of the Heavens?”

“Have I not power enough to be the God of Heaven?” was the arrogant reply.

“What qualifications have you?” asked Buddha. “Enumerate them.”

“My qualifications are innumerable,” replied Sun. “I am invulnerable, I am immortal, I can change myself into seventy-two different forms, I can ride on the clouds of Heaven and pass through the air at will, with one leap I can traverse a hundred and eight thousand li.”

“Well,” replied Buddha, “have a match with me; I wager that in one leap you cannot even jump out of the palm of my hand. If you succeed I will bestow upon you the sovereignty of Heaven.”

Broad-jump Competition

Sun rose into space, flew like lightning in the great vastness, and reached the confines of Heaven, opposite the five great red pillars which are the boundaries of Page 333the created universe. On one of them he wrote his name, as irrefutable evidence that he could reach this extreme limit; this done, he returned triumphant to demand of Buddha the coveted inheritance.

“But, wretch,” said Buddha, “you never went out of my hand!”

“How is that?” rejoined Sun. “I went as far as the pillars of Heaven, and even took the precaution of writing my name on one of them as proof in case of need.”

“Look then at the words you have written,” said Buddha, lifting a finger on which Sun read with stupefaction his name as he had inscribed it.

Buddha then seized Sun, transported him out of Heaven, and changed his five fingers into the five elements, metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, which instantly formed five high mountains contiguous to each other. The mountains were called Wu Hsing Shan, and Buddha shut Sun up in them.

Conditions of Release

Thus subdued, Sun would not have been able to get out of his stone prison but for the intercession of Kuan Yin P’u-sa, who obtained his release on his solemn promise that he would serve as guide, philosopher, and friend to Hsüan Chuang, the priest who was to undertake the difficult journey of 108,000 li to the Western Heaven. This promise, on the whole, he fulfilled in the service of Hsüan Chuang during the fourteen years of the long journey. Now faithful, now restive and undisciplined, he was always the one to triumph in the end over the eighty-one fantastical tribulations which beset them as they journeyed. Page 334

Sha Ho-shang

One of the principal of Sun’s fellow-servants of the Master was Sha Ho-shang.

He is depicted wearing a necklace of skulls, the heads of the nine Chinese deputies sent in former centuries to find the Buddhist canon, but whom Sha Ho-shang had devoured on the banks of Liu-sha River when they had attempted to cross it.

He is also known by the name of Sha Wu-ching, and was originally Grand Superintendent of the Manufactory of Stores for Yü Huang’s palace. During a great banquet given on the Peach Festival to all the gods and Immortals of the Chinese Olympus he let fall a crystal bowl, which was smashed to atoms. Yü Huang caused him to be beaten with eight hundred blows, drove him out of Heaven, and exiled him to earth. He lived on the banks of the Liu-sha Ho, where every seventh day a mysterious sword appeared and wounded him in the neck. Having no other means of subsistence, he used to devour the passers-by.

Sha Ho-shang becomes Baggage-coolie

When Kuan Yin passed through that region on her way to China to find the priest who