Six-Eared Macaque

The Six-Eared Macaque appeared while Sun Wukong was under dismissal. Tang Sanzang, passing through wooded hills, had been waylaid by bandits, and Wukong had killed them with his iron staff; frightened by it, and with Bajie adding words at his side, Tang Sanzang in a fury wrote out a letter of dismissal and drove him from his gate.

Wukong took the dismissal, bowed to Tang Sanzang and rode the somersault cloud back towards Mount Huaguo. Halfway there he saw another pilgrim-monkey standing on a cloud, in appearance and dress exactly like himself, watching Tang Sanzang’s party. Suspecting something, Wukong went up and challenged him; the other did not answer and turned and vanished.

Wukong reached the Water Curtain Cave on Mount Huaguo, gathered his old followers, set his household in order and passed his days. Meanwhile the false pilgrim had already gone ahead to Tang Sanzang’s horse, struck him senseless with a blow of the staff while he was off his guard, taken the luggage and the travel documents, and gone.

Sha Seng came up at the news, found his master hurt and the luggage taken, suspected that Wukong’s anger had not cooled, and went to Mount Huaguo to have it out with him.

At Mount Huaguo, Sha Seng did indeed find a Wukong seated in the cave with the monkeys ranked before him and the luggage and documents on the table; the pilgrim declared that he had set up on his own, had gathered a band of monkeys, and would find another Tang Sanzang and fetch the scriptures himself, and would hear nothing.

Sha Seng drew his weapon in anger and the pilgrim met him with the staff; the two fought into the air without a decision. Being alone, Sha Seng feared some mishap, broke off, and went south to Mount Putuo to report to Guanyin what he had seen at Mount Huaguo.

Wukong had reached the southern sea before him to complain, saying that he had set up nothing of his own and had done his master no harm. Guanyin sent Wukong back to Mount Huaguo with Sha Seng to face the other. The other Wukong came out of the cave, and the two stood face to face, identical in shape and voice, each accusing the other of impersonation.

The two monkeys fought from Mount Huaguo to the southern sea, and Guanyin quietly recited the band-tightening spell to test them; both clutched their heads and cried out, and both were unharmed when it ended, and still they could not be told apart. With nothing else to try, Guanyin let the two go and settle it themselves.

The two fought their way up to heaven, where the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li Jing took out the demon-revealing mirror and had them stand together before it; the images in the mirror were the same to a hair, and the heavenly officers looked a long while and could not decide, and had to let them go.

The two fought on down into the underworld. Before the Hall of Judgement the beast Diting lay down and listened closely and could already tell which was which, but since the Six-Eared Macaque’s powers matched Wukong’s and naming him aloud might provoke havoc in the underworld and harm Ksitigarbha and the judges, it said only that the underworld was too dark to tell, and advised the two to go west and settle it before the Buddha.

The two fought their way to the Thunder Sound Temple on Vulture Peak. With the arhats seated before the Buddha, Rulai stopped their fighting from his golden lotus seat and told the assembly of the four singular apes of the world — the numinous stone monkey, the red-buttocked horse monkey, the long-armed gibbon and the six-eared macaque — and said that this six-eared macaque, which could hear anything and know what came before and after, and whose powers matched Wukong’s, was the true form of the false Wukong before them.

Hearing his origin named, the Six-Eared Macaque knew he could not hide, turned into a bee and flew for the door. Rulai threw down the golden almsbowl and covered the bee; when it was lifted, the Six-Eared Macaque lay beneath it in his own shape and could not move.

Seeing him revealed, Wukong, angry at the days of impersonation, the injury to his master and the theft, raised his iron staff and killed him on the spot, and the body was left below the steps of Vulture Peak. Rulai said the blow had been too heavy but did not punish him, and told him to return with Guanyin to Tang Sanzang.

Guanyin brought Wukong back to where Tang Sanzang had stopped and set out how the false Wukong had died and how the luggage and documents had been recovered. Hearing it all, Tang Sanzang withdrew the letter of dismissal, took Wukong back as his disciple, and the four packed their things and went on west.