Tang Sanzang

Tang Sanzang was the Golden Cicada, a disciple beneath Rulai on Vulture Peak, who grew careless while hearing the Buddha preach and was banished from Vulture Peak to be reborn in the eastern land through ten lives of trial, and could return to the west only through hardship.

Before his reborn body was born, his father Chen Guangrui was murdered on the way to take up his post by the river bandit Liu Hong, who threw his body into the river, took his name and office, and forced his wife Yin Wenjiao to live with him.

Yin Wenjiao was already with child. To save the infant she wrapped the newborn Tang Sanzang in a board, bit her finger and wrote a letter in blood, and set him on the river to drift where he would, and bore her situation in silence for years.

The child drifted down the river to the bank by the Jinshan Temple, where the monk Faming found and raised him under the name Jiangliu, “River Float”. He chanted the sutras and learned his characters in the temple from childhood, studied the dharma under Faming, and grew up there.

Grown, Jiangliu learned his origins from Faming, took the letter of blood and sought out his maternal grandfather Yin Kaishan, who established the truth, petitioned the authorities to arrest Liu Hong, and avenged his father.

With the wrong righted, Jiangliu formally took the tonsure and the precepts at the Jinshan Temple under the name Xuanzang, gave himself wholly to the Buddha, studied the canon, and his understanding deepened until his name grew in the temple.

When Emperor Taizong of Tang sought an eminent monk for the great land-and-water assembly, Xuanzang came to preside over it. Taizong, seeing his learning and conduct, thought highly of him, took him as an imperial younger brother and gave him the title Sanzang.

Guanyin, charged by Rulai to find a pilgrim, passed through Chang’an, saw Xuanzang’s sincerity and depth, and by a manifestation moved both the emperor and Xuanzang, so bringing about the journey west.

On the day Xuanzang set out under the imperial charge, Taizong led his officials out of the city to see him off, gave a farewell feast at the pavilion, took a pinch of dust and put it into the wine, and urged him to drink it, saying he should love a pinch of earth from his own country more than ten thousand taels of gold abroad.

As he left, Guanyin also gave him the brocade cassock and the nine-ringed staff, and slipped him a flowered cap with the band-tightening spell, to carry with him against the taking of an unruly disciple later.

Xuanzang travelled west to the Mountain of Two Frontiers and, by Guanyin’s earlier agreement, peeled the seal from the summit, so that Sun Wukong, pinned there five hundred years, came free, entered his gate and went west with him as his disciple.

At Eagle Grief Stream on Coiled Snake Mountain, Tang Sanzang’s horse was swallowed by the third prince of the Western Sea dragon king. Guanyin came and explained what had gone before, and turned the little white dragon into a white horse to carry Tang Sanzang on.

The party then came to Gao Village, where Zhu Ganglie, married into the Gao household, had shown his monstrous shape. Wukong subdued him, and Zhu Ganglie explained how the Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds had entered a sow’s womb by mistake; Tang Sanzang took him as a disciple under the name Wuneng that Guanyin had given him, also called Bajie.

They came next to the bank of the Flowing Sand River, where Wukong and Bajie fought the river monster several times. Moksa came and explained that the monster had long since been awakened by Guanyin and had been the Curtain-Lifting General, and Tang Sanzang took him as a disciple under the name Sha Wujing. With that the party was complete.

At White Tiger Ridge the White Bone Demon took the shapes of a village girl, an old woman and an old man in turn to do him harm. The first two times Wukong struck only her borrowed bodies and her spirit escaped; the third time he killed her.

Tang Sanzang, with the eyes of a mortal, saw only human shapes falling under the staff and did not know the truth. Believing Bajie’s insinuations, he denounced Wukong for taking three lives, would hear no defence, wrote a letter of dismissal, and drove him back to Mount Huaguo.

At the Women’s Country of Western Liang the queen wished to marry Tang Sanzang. Wukong and Tang Sanzang agreed to accept in pretence in order to get the travel papers stamped; when the procession had brought them outside the city, Tang Sanzang took his leave of the queen and went on west with his disciples.

On the road the Six-Eared Macaque, in Wukong’s exact likeness, took his name, struck Tang Sanzang down and stole the travel documents and the luggage. The two monkeys fought without end through heaven and the underworld, and no god could tell them apart until Rulai named the false one and the impostor was destroyed.

After crossing a thousand hills and rivers the pilgrims reached the foot of Vulture Peak and did reverence to Rulai. Ananda and Kasyapa, getting no gift, handed over wordless scrolls at first; when this was exposed, Tang Sanzang gave them the purple-gold almsbowl and so exchanged it for the true scriptures with words.

Guanyin, checking the register of ordeals, found the pilgrims one ordeal short. The eight vajra guardians therefore set them down by the Heaven-Reaching River, and the old turtle, because Tang Sanzang had forgotten his question about its lifespan, threw them and the scriptures into the water; and when the scrolls were dried, a page stuck to the rock and was torn on lifting. With that the eighty-one ordeals were complete.

The pilgrims returned to Chang’an and handed the true scriptures to the great Tang. Taizong, delighted, had them copied, translated and spread abroad, and Rulai then sent the eight vajra guardians to bring the four back to Vulture Peak and return the documents they carried.

Their work complete, the pilgrims came back to Vulture Peak, and Rulai judged their merits. Because Tang Sanzang had worshipped devoutly all the way and had not changed his purpose through every hardship, he was invested as the Buddha of Sandalwood Merit, and the ten lives of the Golden Cicada were fulfilled.