弥勒佛當來下生 · 19
Leaf 19 of the pilgrimage · 東來佛祖 The Buddha Who Comes From the East
Maitreya 弥勒佛
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a heaven-sent power who ends the fight · nicknamed 東來佛祖 “The Buddha Who Comes From the East”
The future Buddha, whose bell-ringer sat in his seat for five hundred years and called himself Little Western Heaven.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 65
A False Western Heaven
假雷音A temple styled Little Western Heaven, a Buddha on the dais and a ring of conjured arhats; the bell the monk bows to is a real bell in a fake temple.
- ch. 66
Picking Melons, Owner of the Bag
問罪Wukong comes looking for the owner of the bag and finds the heir-apparent of the dharma harvesting melons in a field, on purpose.
- ch. 66
The Ripe Melon Bait
熟瓜計He is asked to become the ripe melon; the demon eats him, and Wukong works inside him until the gold bell is surrendered.
結局 The ending
He folds the boy back into the bag and carries him off, then complains to Wukong about the melons ruined. The novel does not make this a joke about the future Buddha, but it lets him sound like a man whose garden has been vandalised.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials