车迟国三仙車遲國師 · 33
Leaf 33 of the pilgrimage · 車遲國三仙 The Three Immortals of Chechi
Three Immortals of Chechi 车迟国三仙
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a demon on the road west · nicknamed 車遲國三仙 “The Three Immortals of Chechi”
Three drought-year weather men who ran a kingdom for twenty years and lost it in one afternoon of contests they kept agreeing to.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 44
Honoring Tao to Ruin the Monks
敬道滅僧They came down during a twenty-year drought when every household was burning incense for rain, called the water, and were made the king's three preceptors; the Buddhist gates came down and five hundred monks were put to hauling carts.
- ch. 45
Holy Water in Three Vessels
三清換像Wukong, Bajie and Sha tumble the three images of the Pure Ones into the latrine, sit in their places themselves, and pour out 'holy water' into a great jar, a sand basin and a flower vase for the priests to taste and suspect.
- ch. 45
Betting Rain on the Altar
壇上賭雨Tiger Strength mounts the rain altar and works his five-thunder memorial; Wukong quietly instructs the wind, the clouds and the dragon officers to answer a second set of orders, and the kingdom's weather stops being for sale.
- ch. 46
The Cloud Ladder Wager
雲梯顯聖The sitting-meditation wager on a hundred stacked tables, climbed on a cloud and never by hand: the monk rides a five-coloured cloud up and stays, and wins after Wukong, small and winged, removes the biting thing Deer Strength had flicked at the monk's head.
- ch. 46
Guessing Objects Through a Board
隔板猜枚Three readings through a board: the queen's '山河社稷襖' comes out a cracked bell, the emperor's peach comes back a picked-clean stone, and the little Taoist locked in the cabinet walks out chanting Buddhist sutras.
- ch. 46
The Axe, the Stake, the Cauldron
三賭誅身Beheading, evisceration and the cauldron, in that order: the axe lays a headless yellow tiger in the dust, the empty carcass of a white-haired horned deer is dragged off the stake, and the third never shows a beast's shape at all.
結局 The ending
The king weeps, then signs the pilgrims' papers and frees the monks he had enslaved. Only one death is reported with its animal: the goat immortal had boiled his oil with a cold dragon he trained himself, the North Sea's dragon fishes that out from under the pan, and what is left of him is described only as '煠化'. Their one real gift, the text allows, was the rain; the rest was a side door.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials