“Sun Wukong,” came a shrill shout from the throne, “why don't you kowtow when you see the Buddha?” Nobody realized that Monkey had spotted as he took a careful look around that this was all false.
Letting go of the horse and putting down the luggage he shouted as he brandished his cudgel, “Evil beasts! What a nerve! How dare you try to ruin the Buddha's good name by pretending to be him! Stay where you are!” He raised his cudgel in both hands and was just about to strike when a pair of bronze cymbals came out of the sky to join together with a mighty crash, enclosing him completely from head to toe. Pig and Friar Sand grabbed desperately for their rake and staff, only to be so closely surrounded by the arhats, protectors, holy monks and lay brothers that they could not move. They and Sanzang too were all captured and roped up tightly.
Now the Buddha on the lotus throne was a demon king and all the arhats and others his little devils. They now put off their Buddha disguises, so that they looked once more like the evil creatures they really were, and carried the three of them round to the back to be kept under guard while Monkey was sealed inside the cymbals, never to be released. The cymbals were then set on a pedestal, and here he was to be turned to pus and blood within three days and nights, after which the other three were to be steamed in an iron steamer and eaten. Indeed:
The green-eyed macaque saw that it was false;
The dhyana monk worshipped the appearance of the Buddha.
The yellow-wife blindly joined in the prostration,
While the mother of wood foolishly agreed.
The monsters used force to oppress the true nature;
Evilly the demon king mistreated the holy man.
The demon king was greater than the narrow Way;
By taking the wrong course they threw away their lives.
Having locked the Tang Priest and his two disciples away and tied the horse up at the back they put Sanzang's cassock and mitre back into the luggage and stored that away too. They then put everything under a close guard.
Inside the cymbals Monkey found it pitch black and so hot that he was soon pouring with sweat. Push and shove though he might, there was no way he could get out, and when in desperation he hit out wildly all around with his iron cudgel he could not move the cymbals by even a fraction of an inch. Then he made a hand-spell that made him ten thousand feet tall; the cymbals grew with him. There was not a crack anywhere through which a chink of light could get in. He made another hand-spell to make himself smaller and shrank till he was as tiny as a mustard-seed. The cymbals shrank with him, and still there was no hole.
He blew a magic breath on the iron cudgel, said, “Change!” and made it into a flagpole with which to prop the cymbals up. Then he pulled two of the longer hairs from the back of his head, blew on them, said, “Change!” and turned them into a five-part drill with a plum-blossom shaped bit which he turned a thousand times or more. There was a rasping noise but the drill made no impression.
By now he was feeling desperate, so he made another handspell and recited the words, “Om ram peaceful dharma world; eternal keen purity of the heavenly unity.”
This compelled the Five Protectors, the Six Dings, the Six Jias and the Eighteen Guardians of the Faith to gather round the cymbals and say, “Great Sage, we are all protecting your master and keeping the demons from harming him, so why do you call us here?”
“If he dies it serves him right for ignoring my advice,” Monkey replied. “You lot had better find some magic to get these cymbals open at once and have me out of here so I can decide what to do. It's completely dark in here, I'm feeling very hot, and it's so stuffy it'll kill me.” The gods all tried to lift the cymbals, but as before it was impossible to move them by even a fraction of an inch.
“Great Sage,” said the Gold-headed Protector, “goodness only knows what kind of treasure this is, but they're all of a piece from top to bottom. We gods aren't strong enough to move them.”
“And I've lost count of the number of my magic powers I've used here without being able to move them either,” said Monkey. When the Protector heard this he told the Six Dings to look after Monkey and the Six Jias to watch over the cymbals while the guardians kept their eyes on what was happening all around.
He then set off on his beam of auspicious light and a moment later shot in through the Southern Gate of Heaven, where he did not wait to be summoned but rushed straight to the steps of the Hall of Miraculous Brightness to prostrate himself before the Jade Emperor and report, “My sovereign, I am one of the Protectors of the Four Quarters and the Centre. The Great Sage Equaling Heaven who is escorting the Tang Priest on the journey to fetch the scriptures has now reached a mountain with a monastery called the Lesser Thunder Monastery on it. The Tang Priest went in to worship under the illusion that he had reached Vulture Peak, but it turned out that the whole thing was a decoy to trap them. The Great Sage is caught inside a pair of cymbals and can't go anywhere. He's gradually dying. That is what I have come to report.” At once the Jade Emperor ordered that the Twenty-eight Constellations be sent to rescue them and defeat the demons.
Not daring to delay for a moment, the constellations went out through the gate of Heaven with the Protector and were soon inside the monastery. It was now the second of the night's five watches, and all the demons, senior and junior, had gone to sleep after the feast their king had given them to celebrate the Tang priest's capture. Doing nothing to disturb them, the constellations went to the cymbals and reported, “Great Sage, we're the Twenty-eight Constellations. The Jade Emperor has sent us here to rescue you.” The news made Monkey very happy. “Smash them open with your weapons and get me out of here.”
“We don't dare to,” the constellations replied. “This is pure gold and if we hit it the noise would wake the devils up and it would be impossible to rescue you. We'll have to try to work it open with our weapons. The moment you see a chink of light in there, out you come.”
“Yes,” said Monkey. They used their spears, swords, sabers and battle-axes to try to lever, prise, lift, and force it open, but despite all their efforts the third watch came and still they had failed to make the slightest impression on them. It was as if the cymbals had been cast as a single whole. Not a chink of light could Monkey see from inside, no matter how hard he looked and crawled and rolled all around.
Then the Metal Dragon of the constellation Gullet said, “Don't get impatient, Great Sage. This must be an As-You-Will treasure and I'm sure it can be changed. You feel where the cymbals join from the inside. Once I get my horn between them you can turn yourself into something and get out where I've loosened them.” Monkey followed this suggestion and felt frantically around inside. Meanwhile the constellation made himself so small that his horn was no bigger than the point of a needle. He pushed hard with it where the two cymbals joined, and by exerting tremendous pressure he managed to penetrate inside.