The Buddha's disciple comes back to his original vow;
The Venerable Golden Cicada is dressed in sandalwood.
When the Bodhisattva reached the foot of the mountain the Gold-headed Immortal of the Jade Truth Temple stopped her at the temple gate and invited her to take some tea. But she dared not stop for long, and so she said, “I have been given a sacred command by the Tathagata to go to the East and find a man who will come to fetch the scriptures.”
“When will he arrive?” the Immortal asked.
“It is not definite,” the Bodhisattva replied, “but he will probably reach here in two or three years' time.” She took her leave of the Immortal and as she traveled amid cloud and mist she estimated the distances. There are some verses to prove it:
She cared nothing of the journey of ten thousand miles to find him,
But worried about finding the right man.
Looking for the man seemed to be very chancy,
But how can it be a mere coincidence?
One who teaches the Way for the wrong motives will distort it;
He who explains it without faith will preach in vain.
Whoever will try and know it with his whole being,
Is bound to have a future ahead of him.
As the teacher and her disciple were on their journey they suddenly noticed a thousand miles of weak water, which was the River of Flowing Sands.
“Disciple,” said the Bodhisattva, “this will be hard to cross for the man who will come to fetch the scriptures, as he will be of impure bone and mortal flesh. How will he do it?”
“Teacher, how wide does the river look to you?” asked Huian. The Bodhisattva stopped her cloud to investigate. She saw:
Joining up with the deserts to the East,
Reaching the foreign kingdoms in the West,
Wuge in the South
The Tatars in the North.
It was about three hundred miles across,
And three million miles long.
As the waters flowed it was like the earth turning over,
The waves were like rearing mountains.
Broad and boundless,
Vast and mighty:
From three miles' distance the mighty flood is heard.
Immortals' rafts do not reach here,
Lotus leaves cannot float on it.
The sun slants through withered plants and bathes the crooked shore;
Brown clouds block its light and darken the long bank.
How could merchants pass this way?
Has a fisherman ever moored here?
No geese alight on the sandbanks,
But apes cry on the distant shore.
Its color comes from bountiful red smartweed,
While delicate white duckweed drifts together.
As the Bodhisattva was surveying the scene she heard a splash and saw a hideous ogre leap out of the waves. He was
Not really blue,
Not really black,
With an evil face;
Neither tall,
Nor short,
Bare legs and a muscular body.
His eyes flashed
Like a pair of tortoise-shell lanterns;
The comers of his mouth were as sinister
As a butcher's cauldron.
Protruding fangs like swords,
Red hair, matted and unkempt.
He roared like a clap of thunder,
And ran across the waves with the speed of wind.
This ogre climbed up the bank with a pole in his hands to catch the Bodhisattva, but was stopped by Huian's staff.
“Don't run away,” Huian shouted as the ogre advanced towards him. The battle that ensued between them was quite terrifying:
Moksa with his iron club,
Using his divine powers to protect the Bodhisattva;
The ogre with his demon-quelling pole
Displaying his valour for all be was worth.
A pair of silver dragons dancing by the river;
Two holy monks in battle on the bank.
The one used his skill to control the River of Flowing Sands
The other had distinguished himself in protecting Guanyin.
The one could make the waves leap and roll,
The other could breathe out fogs and gales.
When the waves leapt and rolled, Heaven and Earth were darkened;
In the fogs and gales, sun and moon were dimmed.
The demon-quelling pole
Was like a white tiger coming down from the mountain;
The iron club
Was like a crouching yellow dragon.
When one goes into action
It beats the undergrowth to start the snakes;
When the other lashes out,
It parts the pines to flush the sparrowhawks.
They fight till the sky goes dark
And the stars twinkle.
Then the mist rises,
And earth and sky are dim.
The one has long been unrivalled in the Weak Waters;
The other has always been the hero of Vulture Peak.
When the pair of them had fought several dozen rounds inconclusively the ogre blocked his opponent's iron staff and asked, “Where are you from, monk, that you dare to take me on?”
“I am Prince Moksa, the second son of the Pagoda-bearing Heavenly King Li,” the other replied. “I am also Huian the Novice. I am now protecting my teacher on her journey to the East to find the man who will fetch the scriptures. Which monster are you? How dare you stand in our way?” The ogre then realized who he was.
“I remember,” he said, “you used to cultivate your conduct with Guanyin of the Southern Sea in the Purple Bamboo Grove. Why have you come here?”
“Can't you see my teacher standing there on the bank?”
When the ogre heard this he chanted “na-a-aw” several times to show his respect, withdrew his pole and let Moksa seize it. Then he bowed to Guanyin and said, “Forgive me, Bodhisattva, and listen to what I have to tell you. I am not a demon, but the Curtain Raising General who used to stand in attendance by the imperial chariot in the Hall of Miraculous Mist. Just because I accidentally smashed a crystal dish at a Peach Banquet the Jade Emperor had me given eight hundred strokes of the rod, exiled me to the lower world, and made me look like this. And on top of it all every seven days he sends a flying sword here to stab my chest over a hundred times before it goes back again. It's agony. I get so unbearably cold and hungry that I have to emerge from the waves every two or three days to devour a traveler. I never thought that in my ignorance I would insult the merciful Bodhisattva today.”
“You were exiled here for a crime against Heaven, but now you are deepening your guilt by harming living beings. I am now going to the East on the Buddha's orders to find the man who will fetch the scriptures. Why don't you become one of us and ensure yourself good retribution in future by accompanying the pilgrim as a disciple and ascending to the Western Heaven to pay homage to the Buddha and seek the scriptures? I will see to it that the flying sword stops coming to pierce you, and when you are successful you will be forgiven your crimes and your old job will be given back to you. What do you think of that?”
“I am willing to return to the truth,” the ogre replied, then went closer as he continued, “Bodhisattva, I have lost count of the number of people I have eaten here, and I have even devoured some pilgrims who were trying to fetch scriptures. I throw the heads of all my victims into the river, and they all sink to the bottom as not even goose-down will float on this water. But the skeletons of those nine pilgrims floated and would not sink. I was so impressed by this that I threaded them together with rope and play with them in my spare time. But I am afraid that the man who is to fetch the scriptures may not get this far, which would wreck my future.”
“Of course he'll get here,” the Bodhisattva replied. “You should hang those skeletons from your head and wait for him. They will come in useful.”
“In that case,” the ogre said, “I shall await your instructions.” The Bodhisattva then laid her hands on his head and administered the monastic rules to him, chose for him the surname Sha (“Sand") and gave him the Buddhist name of Wujing (“Awakened to Purity"). Then he entered monkish life and took the Bodhisattva across the river. He washed his heart, cleansed his thoughts, and stopped killing living creatures. All he did now was to wait for the pilgrim who would come to fetch the scriptures.