The story of Ao Guang

Ao Guang lived in the crystal palace of the Eastern Sea, its halls built of coral, pearl and shell, with shrimp soldiers and crab generals ranged before them. He governed the water peoples of the Eastern Sea and the business of cloud and rain in the four seas, and had always been the eldest of the four dragon kings.

Deep in his treasury stood the divine iron left behind by Yu the Great when he ordered the waters — a length of black iron with gold bound at each end, weighing more than ten thousand catties — set in the middle of the treasury, its light showing and fading so that the whole palace was bright with it.

When the stone monkey of Mount Huaguo came home from his studies he went straight into the Eastern Sea palace and demanded a weapon that would suit him from Ao Guang. Ao Guang had the shrimp and crab soldiers carry out a great sabre, a nine-pronged fork and other pieces in turn, and the stone monkey tried each of them and found them all too light and useless in his hand.

With nothing else to offer, Ao Guang led him to the depths of the treasury to look at the sea-stilling divine iron. The stone monkey lifted it, and it shrank at once at his touch, the gold bands at its ends catching the light, growing and shrinking at his will; he carried it away, and it became the Ruyi Jingu Bang he bore ever after.

The stone monkey then demanded armour as well, and Ao Guang, fearing he could not manage alone, sent messengers to the Southern, Western and Northern Seas asking the three dragon kings to come to the crystal palace and confer. The four seas together produced a suit of chain-linked golden mail, a phoenix-winged purple-gold cap and cloud-treading shoes of lotus fibre, which they handed over.

When the stone monkey had gone with weapon and armour, Ao Guang and the three kings of the Southern, Western and Northern Seas submitted a joint memorial setting out how the divine iron had been taken and the armour lost, and sent it to heaven asking the Jade Emperor for judgement.

The Jade Emperor read the memorial, together with a complaint from the underworld about the register of souls; Taibai Jinxing came forward and asked for an amnesty, and the Jade Emperor approved, so that no troops came to the Eastern Sea. Ao Guang had to restrain his water peoples and wait for heaven’s next word.

Afterwards the stone monkey made havoc in heaven and was pinned under Five Elements Mountain, and the Eastern Sea palace remained under Ao Guang. Its records were registered, what was left in the treasury was counted again, the water peoples returned to their places, and the patrol of the tides went on as before.

When Tang Sanzang came west to the country of Mount Hao and Red Boy sent out the samadhi fire from his five-element cart, Wukong went up to heaven to ask for the dragon kings of the four seas; Ao Guang came with the kings of the Southern, Western and Northern Seas and poured rain in torrents, sweet water falling all round the fire, and still could not put out the heart of the samadhi flame.

In the kingdom of Chechi, when three Daoists set up an altar to pray for rain and contended with Sun Wukong on the spot, Wukong quietly ordered the four dragon kings to raise cloud and rain at the proper times; Ao Guang came at his order to the cloud above the altar and did as he was told, so that Wukong won the contest.

Where water monsters held the Heaven-Reaching River, the Black Water River and other places, and whenever a case involved a water creature of uncertain origin, the Eastern Sea palace checked its lineage registers and seals as a matter of course; Ao Guang had his officers register them one by one to keep the rolls of the water peoples in order and prevent outsiders from usurping.

When the journey west was done, Ao Guang still governed the water peoples of the Eastern Sea from his crystal palace. The sea-stilling divine iron was no longer in the treasury, but the old rule of the four seas’ armour was kept as before, and the tides and the making of rain went on unchanged.