Puti Zushi

Puti Zushi lived in the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars on the Mountain of Numinous Terrace and Square Inch in the western continent, where he kept a preaching seat and took in disciples freely; his followers were many and a constant traffic of seekers came and went.

The stone monkey crossed the sea in search of an immortal, passed through the southern and western continents, asked his way many times, and at last found the Mountain of Numinous Terrace and Square Inch. A woodcutter pointed the way, and he came to the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars and knocked to ask admittance.

A boy carried word inside, and Puti Zushi took his high seat, called the stone monkey forward, and asked where he came from. The stone monkey said he had no parents and had been born when an immortal stone on the mountain split open.

Seeing that he looked like a macaque, the master took the surname Sun from the character for macaque, and by the generation order of the school took the word wu, giving him the religious name Wukong; from then the stone monkey was called Sun Wukong.

The master had Wukong join the others in the school and first taught him to sweep and answer, to advance and withdraw with the proper courtesy, and the daily forms of speech; Wukong kept to them carefully and did not slacken.

Wukong heard the Dao expounded with the rest, and in his spare hours cut firewood, drew water, planted flowers, hoed the garden, kept the fire and swept. Several years went by like that, and no essential method was passed to him.

One day the master took his seat and asked Wukong what road he wished to learn, naming in turn the gates of technique, of the schools, of stillness and of movement. Wukong asked about each of them in detail, learned that none led to long life, and would not learn them.

Seeing Wukong reject one answer after another, the master pretended anger, struck him three times on the head with a ruler, put his hands behind his back, walked into the inner room and shut the middle door, leaving the assembly outside.

The other disciples blamed Wukong for offending the master, but Wukong had already understood the hidden sign, did not argue with them, and simply waited for the depth of the night.

At the third watch that night Wukong went round from the front door, which had been left ajar, to the back, found it half open, slipped quietly in, and knelt before the master’s couch to wait.

The master woke, saw Wukong kneeling by the bed, and asked why he was there. Wukong explained that he had come by the riddle of the third watch, and the master, delighted that he had understood, sent the attendants away and passed him the formula of long life in a low voice.

Wukong memorised the essentials of the formula and cultivated in the cave with all his mind from then on, and his face gradually ceased to age.

Three years later, seeing that Wukong’s foundation was firm, and fearing that he would not escape the three calamities of thunder, fire and wind, the master taught him the seventy-two earthly transformations.

The master also passed him the formula for riding cloud and had him practise the somersault cloud, until he grew so skilled in the air that a single leap carried him a hundred and eight thousand li.

One day the master and his disciples were sitting under the pine before the cave when Wukong, carried away, showed off before them all and turned himself into a pine tree, and the others clapped and cheered.

The master came out at the noise, saw what was happening, and his face darkened. He rebuked Wukong for pride in his skill, said the root of trouble was already planted, and ordered him to pack and leave the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars at once.

The master further warned him gravely that whatever trouble he made outside he must answer for himself, and that he must never say a word about who had taught him: if he broke this, Wukong would be cut to pieces and his true spirit banished elsewhere, never to rise again.

Wukong knelt, took the reproof, rose weeping to take his leave, and rode the somersault cloud away. Puti Zushi never appeared again along the pilgrimage road, and nobody ever knew of this connection between him and Sun Wukong. Later Honghuang web fiction takes another line and attaches Puti Zushi to Zhunti Daoren, to Rulai or to some other figure as an avatar; such claims are arguments about identity and settle nothing.