“Friar Sand,” said Pig, “why didn't you grab the luggage off the fake Pig when you saw him carrying it at the Water Curtain Cave?”
“The evil spirits surrounded me when I killed my double with the demon-quelling staff,” Friar Sand replied. “They were going to get me, so I had to flee for my life. After I'd been to see the Bodhisattva and gone back to the cave entrance again with Monkey I overturned all their stone benches and scattered the little demons, but I couldn't see any entrance to the cave, only a waterfall. I came back empty-handed as I couldn't find the luggage.”
“Let me tell you something,” said Pig. “When I went there a few years ago to ask him to come back we met outside the cave. After I'd persuaded him to come he jumped down and went into the cave to change. I saw him go straight through the water: the waterfall is the entrance. I bet that's where that devil has put our luggage.”
“As you know the way into the cave I think you'd better go and fetch our baggage from there while the demon's away,” said Sanzang. “Even if Wukong does come back I still won't have him.”
“I'm off then,” said Pig.
“There are thousands and thousands of little monkeys in front of the cave,” said Friar Sand. “It'd be terrible if they were too much for you by yourself.”
“I'm not worried,” said Pig, who rushed outside and headed off to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit to fetch the luggage.
The two Monkeys fought their way round to the back of the Dark Mountain of the Underworld, where all the demons shivered and shook with terror as they hid themselves. The ones who managed to run away first rushed straight to the Underworld government offices and reported to the Senluo Palace, “Your Majesties, two Great Sages Equaling Heaven have come to the Dark Mountain and are fighting their way here.”
The Ring of Qinguang in the First Palace reported this with alarm to the King of Chujiang in the Second Palace. The news was passed on in turn to King Songdi in the Third Palace, the King of Biancheng in the Fourth Palace, King Yama in the Fifth Palace, King Impartial in the Sixth Palace, the King of Taishan in the Seventh Palace, the Metropolitan King in the Eighth Palace, King Wuguan in the Ninth Palace, and King Everturning Wheel in the Tenth Palace. In an instant the Ten Kings all gathered together and sent an urgent message to King Ksitigarbha. Meanwhile the Underworld forces were mustered in the Senluo Palace ready to capture the true and the false Monkey. Just then there was the roar of a mighty wind as dreary mists filled the air and the two Monkeys came tumbling and rolling to the Senluo Palace.
The Lords of the Underworld stepped forward to block their way and say, “Great Sages, why are you making such disorder in our Underworld?”
To this the real Great Sage replied, “I was escorting the Tang Priest on his journey to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven when bandits tried to rob him on a mountain in the land of Western Liang. He got angry with me when I killed a few of them and sent me away. I went to tell my troubles to the Bodhisattva in the Southern Ocean. I never imagined that this demon would have the effrontery to turn himself into my double, attack my master on the road, and steal our baggage. When my fellow-disciple Friar Sand went back to my mountain to fetch the baggage he found that the demon had created an imitation of the master to take to the Western Heaven and fetch the scriptures, so he rushed to the Southern Ocean to see the Bodhisattva Guanyin and found me there at her side. After he'd told his story the Bodhisattva sent me back to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit with him to see what was going on. I found that this bastard had stolen my cave. We argued all the way to the Bodhisattva Guanyin's place, but she couldn't tell which of us was the real me. Then I fought with him up to Heaven, where none of the gods knew which of us was which, and after that went to see the master. When the master recited the Band-tightening Spell my double was in just as much pain as I was. That's why I've brought this chaos to the Underworld in the hope that Your Majesties will look up the Registers of Life and Death for me to find out about the False Sun the Novice's background so that I can catch his soul and end this confusion of there being two minds.” The demon then said the same thing.
The Lords of the Underworld called on the judges in charge of the records to go through them carefully from beginning to end. There was nobody under the name of False Sun the Novice. They checked through the registers of hairy beasts again, and found that under item 130 in the monkey section there was a record of how the Great Sage Sun had achieved the Way in his youth, made havoc in the Underworld and removed his name from the registers of death, so that from then on none of the monkeys were listed. When the judges had made their inspection they reported back to the palace.
Holding their tablets of office, the Lords of the Underworld said to Monkey, “Great Sage, there are no names in the records that can be checked. You will have to go back to the world of the living to be told apart.”
As they were saying this they heard the Bodhisattva King Ksitigarbha shout, “Wait, wait! I'll send Examiner to tell you apart.” Now Examiner was the name of an animal who lay under the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha's sutra table. Just by lying there he could tell good from evil and wise from stupid among any of the snails, fish, hairy creatures, feathered creatures, insects, heavenly immortals, earthly immortals, divine immortals, human immortals and devil immortals in all the mountains, rivers and countries of the four great continents, in all cave heavens and in all blessed places. The animal lay on the ground in the courtyard of the Senluo Palace as Ksitigarbha instructed it.
A little later it raised its head and said to Ksitigarbha, “I've found the name of the demon, but I cannot say it to his face, nor can I help catch him.”
“What would happen if you identified him to his face?” Ksitigarbha asked.
“If I did,” Examiner replied, “I am afraid that the evil spirit would turn nasty, make disorder in the palace and destroy the peace of the Underworld.”
“Why won't you help capture him?” Ksitigarbha went on to ask, and Examiner replied, “The evil spirit's magic powers are no less than those of Sun Wukong. No matter how much dharma power the gods of the Underworld have, they would never be able to catch him.”
“In that case, how is the evil spirit to be got rid of?”
“Boundless is the Buddha's Dharma,” Examiner replied. Ksitigarbha was now enlightened. “As you two look the same and have the same magic powers,” he said to both Monkeys, “if you want to be told apart you will have to go to Sakyamuni Buddha in Thunder Monastery.”
“You're right,” they both replied together, “you've right. You and I'll go to the Western Heaven to be told apart by the Lord Buddha.” They then took their leave of Ksitigarbha and were seen out by the Ten Kings of the Underworld as they went up to the Turquoise Cloud Palace, after which devils were sent to close the entrance to the Underworld.
Watch the two Monkeys as they fly by cloud and mist to the Western Heaven. There is a poem about it that goes,
Troubles arise if one has two minds;
Doubts cloud everything from sea to sky.
One desires fine horses and the highest rank,
Craving for eminence at the royal court.
Fighting North and South without respite,
They parry to East and West with never a pause.
In dhyana the secret of mindlessness must be learned;
Nourish the babe in silence and form the holy foetus.
The two of them fought as they flew through the air, grabbing, tugging, pulling and snatching at each other, all the way to the outside of the Thunder Monastery on Vulture Peak in the Western Heaven. Even before they arrived the four Bodhisattvas, the eight vajrapanis, the five hundred arhats, the three thousand protectors, the nuns, monks, lay people and all the holy hosts were standing beneath the seven-precious lotus throne listening to the Tathagata expounding the Dharma. This is what he was explaining: