WHETHER THE STORY about Chen Guangrui 
, the father of Tripitaka, belongs to the "original" version of the Xiyouji 
(chap. 9 in most modern editions of the novel, cited here-after as XYJ) is a problem that has occupied the attention of scholars and editors for at least two and a half centuries. If we accept the conclusions of Glen Dudbridge, who has done in English the most intensive and impressive examination of the novel’s textual history,1 it would appear that the best textual support is lacking for this segment of the Xiyouji to be considered authentic, as it is not found in what is generally regarded as the earliest known version of the hundred-chapter novel: the edition published by Shidetang 
, of Jinling 
, in 1592 (hereafter cited as SDT). The numerous clashes of details between this version and later ones, most notably the glaring inconsistency found in the later editions that put Chen Guangrui’s assumption of his public career in the thirteenth year of the reign of the Tang emperor Taizong, the same year when Chen’s son, Xuanzang 
, was to have been commissioned to begin his westward journey, further evidence editorial changes and faulty rearrangements. In the judgment of Dudbridge, chapter 9 of the novel may well have been introduced by the late Ming compiler from Canton Zhu Dingchen 
.
On the other hand, whether this portion of the novel is, as Dudbridge claims, “alien to the novel in terms both of structure and of dramatic force” seems still a debatable question.2 Huang Suqiu 
, a Chinese critic, had presented some formidable pieces of evidence in an earlier essay,3 and Dudbridge’s dismissal of them seems a bit too intent to be wholly convincing. It is my intention here to look more closely at the issues involved, to point out certain minor albeit significant details not mentioned by Huang, and to explore the structural significance of this episode. For this exercise in both textual and literary criticism, I use the standard edition published by Zuojia chubanshe (Peking, 1954), and, where necessary, I refer to the SDT version.
I
Of the nine places in the novel identified by Huang that make reference to the Chen Guangrui episode, the first is, of course, the rhymed verse 
that introduces Tripitaka, after he has been selected officially as the chief celebrant of the Grand Mass of Land and Water given by the Tang emperor in chapter 12 (chap. 11 in the SDT). This poem reads as follows:
Gold Cicada was his former name divine.
As heedless he was of the Buddha’s talk,
He had to suffer in this world of dust,
To fall in the Net by being born a man.
He met misfortune as he came to earth,
And evildoers even before his birth.
His father: Chen, a zhuangyuan, from Haizhou.
His mother’s sire: chief of this dynasty’s Court.
Fated to fall in the streams by his natal star,
He followed tide and current, chased by mighty waves.
At Gold Mountain, the island, he had great luck;
For the abbot, Qian’an, raised him up.
He met his true mother at age eighteen
And called on her father at the Capital.
A great army was sent by Chief Kaishan
To stamp out at Hongzhou its vicious crew.
The zhuangyuan, Guangrui, escaped his doom:
Son united with sire, how worthy of praise!
They saw the King his favor to receive—
Their fame resounded in Lingyan Tower.
Declining office, he wished to be a monk,
To seek at Hongfu Temple the Way of Truth.
A former child of Buddha, nicknamed River Float—
His religious name was Chen Xuanzang.
Like some other scholars, Dudbridge is not inclined to attach too great importance to such narrative verse, but it should be remembered that these verses, particularly as they are designed to relate the personal histories of the central characters in the novel, are seldom gratuitously set forth either by the characters themselves or by the narrator. If one were to scrutinize carefully the verses that rehearse the origins of Sun Wukong (XYJ, chap. 17; see also chaps. 52, 63, and 71), of Zhu Bajie (chap. 19), and Sha Wujing (chap. 22), and I do so briefly at the close of this essay, one may indeed discover added details, but the basic pattern of incidents is firmly established by previous narration. It is important, therefore, to note that this passage in chapter 12, which introduces Tripitaka to the reader, has, with the exception of one major discrepancy (i.e., the name of the monk who took in the river-borne orphan),4 all the crucial elements constitutive of the Chen Guangrui story: the zhuangyuan from Haizhou; the maternal grandfather 
, Kaishan 
by name, who was a prominent court official; the abandonment of the child to the river upon his birth; the rescue by the abbot of Gold Mountain 
; the monk nicknamed River Float; the reunion with the real mother at age eighteen; and the final captivity of the bandits by imperial troops. Even the identification of Xuanzang as the preexistent Gold Cicada 
, with which the poem begins, is not quite so “unaccounted for in the formal narrative”5 as Dudbridge seems to think. For it is not the final tally of hardships foreordained supposedly for the pilgrim and the allusions to them in chapter 99 that provide the only source of explanation for this title. As early as chapter 8, when the bodhisattva Guanyin volunteered to go to the East in quest of a scripture-pilgrim, the narrator has prepared us explicitly for the climactic result of her journey by the statement:
Lo, this one journey will result in
A son of Buddha returning to fulfil his former vow.
The Gold Cicada Elder will clasp the Candana.
(SDT, JUAN 2, P. 28B, COLS. 2–3)
When Xuanzang gave his public exposition of the faith during the mass in chapter 12, he was specifically named Jinchan (Gold Cicada) by the narrator’s testimonial poem (By grace decreed to meet at this temple grand, / Gold Cicada cast his shell, changed by the bountiful West. / He spread wide the good works to save the damned, / And held fast his faith to preach the Three Modes of Life), then by Guanyin, then by the narrator in one lüshi poem of chapter 15 (XYJ, p. 170) and again in another of chapter 16 (XYJ, p. 189), by the Zhenyuan Great Immortal in chapter 24 (XYJ, p. 271), by the Cadaver Monster in chapter 27 (XYJ, p. 305), and he was so referred to again in chapter 81 (XYJ, p. 923) by Wukong when he explained to Bajie why their master was afflicted by an illness lasting three days.
In addition to the introductory poem of chapter 11 in the SDT (chapter 12 in the XYJ), there are also noteworthy allusions to the pedigree of Xuanzang in the prose narration of the immediately following episode. The description of the monk after the poem repeats the standard genealogy (SDT, juan 3, p. 13a, cols. 1–3), while a few moments later (cols. 6–7), this is the scene of his audience with the emperor:
After hearing his name, Taizong thought silently for a long time before saying, “Are you Xuanzang, son of the Grand Secretary, Chen Guangrui?” Child River Float 
kowtowed and replied, “Your subject is indeed this person.”
In the following chapter (still part of chapter 12 in later editions) and during the episode of the Grand Mass and the epiphany of Guanyin, there is an even more impressive allusion that is overlooked by both Huang and Dudbridge, though it has been mentioned in passing by Sun Kaidi 
.6 Of Guanyin, who was searching for the scripture-pilgrim, the narrator says:
When she discovered, moreover, that the chief priest and celebrant was the monk, Child River Float, who was a child of Buddha born from paradise, and who happened also to be the very elder whom she sent to this incarnation, the Bodhisattva was highly pleased.
(SDT, JUAN 3, P. 17B, COLS. 4–5)
The significant aspect of this passage is the identification of Guanyin as the one responsible for Xuanzang’s immediate parentage, which is directly in harmony with the Chen Guangrui story included in all the Qing editions of the novel with the exception of the Xiyou Zhengdao shu 
, edited by Wang Danyi 
, and dated by Dudbridge to be sometime in the sixth decade of the seventeenth century.7 In the Qing versions, when Wenjiao, the captive mother of Xuanzang, fainted in the garden of her captor and gave birth to a son, she was told by the Spirit of the South Pole Star that her child was sent to her by the explicit order of the bodhisattva Guanyin. In the earlier version of the story by Zhu Dingchen, however, it was the Gold Star Venus who said that he came by the decree of the Jade Emperor (juan 4, p. 11a, cols. 3–4). That Zhu Dingchen was both imitated and altered by subsequent editors of the novel is at once apparent to anyone who has made a comparative study of the Tang Sanzang Xiyou shini (=E) zhuan 
with such later Qing editions as the Xiyou zhenquan 
, compiled by Chen Shibin 
(preface dated 1694), and the unabridged Xinshuo Xiyouji 
, edited by Zhang Shushen 
(preface dated 1749). What is interesting here is that, whereas all these editors follow Zhu Dingchen to the extent of committing the error of repeating the date of the thirteenth year of the Zhenguan period, both Chen Shibin and Zhang Shushen “correct” this point in the Zhu version and render the annunciation reference to Guanyin consistent with the 1592 edition. This small alteration raises the question of whether it is indicative of the sharp eyes of two editors almost half a century apart, and if so, it seems rather incredible that they who have such meticulous concern for details should miss the far more obvious inconsistency of the double date. Or, does this lend some credence, however slight, to the claim for an old version, a claim made by both Wang Danyi and Zhang Shushen and also implied by Chen Shibin in his commentary following chapter 9, in which the Chen Guangrui story is in some ways different from that of Zhu Dingchen?
It may be argued, of course, that even in such a “corrected version,” there is still the clash of details in that the divine messenger of the Zhu version happens to be Venus, whereas in the later editions the annunciation is made by the South Pole Star. In my judgment, however, this discrepancy is far outweighed by the significance of the “alteration” where Guanyin, and not the Jade Emperor, is said to be responsible for Xuanzang’s birth. The change may have been motivated in part by the simple fact that Guanyin in popular Chinese religious beliefs is the giver of sons par excellence. On the other hand, the emphasis in the episode of Guanyin’s epiphany in the novel clearly falls on the special relationship that exists between the bodhisattva and the incarnate disciple of Buddha (i.e., Gold Cicada as the priest Xuanzang). Their intimacy is founded not merely on their presumed acquaintance with each other in Xuanzang’s previous existence, but also on the more particular circumstance when Guanyin assumes the direct responsibility of sending him to be the son of Wenjiao. It is only with this background in mind that one can fully comprehend the force of the narrator’s comment in the recognition scene when he introduces the bodhisattva’s entrance into the temple where the Grand Mass is being celebrated:
so it is that
Having affinity 
one will old acquaintances meet,
As Perfection returns to this holy site.
(SDT, JUAN 3, P. 20B, COLS. 9–10; XYJ, P. 138)
and again in the following lines of the lüshi poem:
Since of this sanctuary she [Guanyin] made a tour,
She met a friend 
unlike all other men.
They spoke of the present and of countless things—
Of merit and trial in this world of dust.
(SDT, JUAN 3, P. 21A, COLS. 4–5; XYJ, P. 138)
Few readers of the XYJ can fail to notice the special eminence of Guanyin in the narrative, an honor not entirely attributable merely to her general popularity in Chinese Buddhism after the spread of the Pure Land School in the sixth century. Her peculiar importance in this work of fiction lies rather in the fact that every member of the pilgrimage to the Western Heaven for Scriptures has been chosen and converted by her, and their success or failure thus also arouses her special concern. When in the course of the Celestial Assembly Buddha announces his intention to impart the Tripitaka to the inhabitants of the East, it is Guanyin who volunteers a trip to China to find a suitable scripture-pilgrim (XYJ, chap. 8). In what may be regarded as a miniature journey to the West but with the order of events and the geographical direction in reverse, the author in chapter 8 artfully prepares for subsequent developments of the narrative by presenting successive encounters of Guanyin and the future disciples of Xuanzang: Sha Wujing (Sandy), Zhu Wuneng (Pigsy), the Dragon-Prince (later the white horse), and finally Sun Wukong (Monkey). It is she who succeeds in persuading every one of these condemned celestial delinquents to embrace the Buddhist faith by promising to accompany the scripture-pilgrim on his journey to the West, so that the merit thus achieved would atone for the person’s previous transgressions. This pattern of banishment, wandering, and return embodied in the experience of the disciples of Xuanzang has been compared, in fact, by Okuno Shintarō8 with the typical structure of those tales that exploit the theme of the nobles in exile (kishu ryūritan 
). What Okuno fails to perceive, however, is that this pattern is discernible not only in the lives of the disciples but supremely in the life of the Master-Pilgrim as well, since the Xuanzang of the narrative is none other than the second disciple of Buddha, Gold Cicada. Because he was inattentive to the discourse of Buddha and thereby slighted the Law, he was fated to face tremendous ordeals in the human world. Insofar as Guanyin is the one who mediates, as it were, “the grace of forgiveness” and the possibility to atone for one’s sins through merit making, her relation to the disciples and to Xuanzang himself is exactly the same. It is she who superintends the precarious entrance of Xuanzang into human life that eventuates in his reunion with Buddhism almost immediately after his birth when he is rescued by the abbot of Gold Mountain, and it is she who enlightens him to seek the Mahāyāna scriptures later during the mass. For this reason, the narrator can make this comment with the lüshi poem in chapter 15:
Buddha proclaimed the Tripitaka Supreme,
Which the Goddess [literally, the bodhisattva]9 declared throughout Chang’an.
Those great, wondrous truths could reach Heav’n and Earth;
Those wise, true words could save the spirits damned.
They caused Gold Cicada to cast again his shell;
They moved Xuanzang to mend anew his ways.
(SDT, JUAN 3, P. 55A, COLS. 11–12; XYJ, P. 170)
Most probably, it is the narrator’s intention to remind his readers of Guanyin’s double acts of kindness to Xuanzang, at his birth and during the Grand Mass, that he chooses to employ in these last two lines the peculiar rhetoric of repetition (again, anew 
).
Turning now to the rest of the evidence presented by Huang Suqiu, we find that there are eight more places in the narrative where, according to him, further allusions are made to the prior history of Tripitaka. And on these allusions, this is the comment we have from Dudbridge:
In two of these examples [i.e., XYJ, chap. 47, p. 546 and chap. 48, p. 561] the allusion goes no further than to remark that Tripitaka’s secular surname was Chen. In another there is the further detail of his family’s village [i.e., chap. 14]. Two examples (again within a few pages of one another) allude only to the manner of his mother’s wooing—the tossing of an embroidered ball from our upper floor [i.e., chap. 93, p. 1956 and chap. 94, p. 1962]. Three examples refer to the theme of disaster on the river [i.e., chap. 37, p. 424; chap. 49, p. 564; and chap. 64, p. 734]. The remaining one is the “List of Hardships” in chapter 99, with its four opening items.
Essentially, therefore, the distinct allusions are fewer than a numerical list suggests. In just two cases—the family village and the embroidered ball—they refer to parts of the story not covered in the verses of chapter 11. The argument for a lost chapter goes so far. It would be persuasive indeed if the author of the 100–chapter XYJ were known to have avoided casual references to legends outside the scope of his story, or again if he had given a full narrative account of every detail in the background of his other central characters. But in fact the novel alludes copiously to established legends at every point: in chapter 6 there is a rapid series of references to several Erlang [
] legends; chapter 66 opens with a similar cluster of stories about the Warrior of the North [
]; a brief paragraph in chapter 83 covers the whole story of Naṭa [
] and Li Tianwang [
]. Again the origins of such central figures as Zhu Bajie and Sha Heshang 
are presented only in allusion or otherwise indirectly, in moments of retrospect.10
I quote the full length of Dudbridge’s argument not only because of its importance and ostensible cogency, but also because the nature of his argument at this point of his essay has shifted from criticism of textual history to literary criticism proper—to speculations about the narrative practice of the author of the hundred-chapter novel. And it is in the light of his argument that I would like to advance some observations of my own.
It should be pointed out first of all that as far as Chen being the secular surname of Xuanzang is concerned, the list of Huang Suqiu is by no means exhaustive. To his examples must be added the following instances when Chen is indeed identified as the familial name of the pilgrim-monk (XYJ, chap. 13, p. 144; chap. 14, p. 154; chap. 29, p. 330; chap. 54, p. 629; chap. 57, p. 661; chap. 62, p. 717; chap. 91, p. 1035). These allusions are obviously not within a few pages of one another; they are sufficiently widespread throughout the novel to indicate consistency of usage on the part of the author. Since, however, Chen is in fact the surname of the historical Xuanzang, these references certainly have little significance for establishing the independent existence of the Chen Guangrui story as a probable structural unit.
With the reference to Haizhou 
as the seat of his family village such as the one made by Tripitaka in chapter 14, we have a small but interesting deviation from historical tradition that deserves some attention. The biography of Xuanzang by his disciples locates a place in modern Henan 
as his birthplace,11 but the Haizhou in the XYJ, as far as I can determine, belongs to the province of Jiangsu. How Xuanzang came to be associated with this latter district is a problem for another investigation; what is relevant for our discussion here is the fact that even the author of the earliest known version of the work, and not just Zhu Dingchen or Wang Danyi, has picked up this strand of what probably was part of a popular tradition. That the author of the hundred-chapter novel is familiar at least with some parts of the life of the historical Tripitaka may be seen in his near verbatim quotation of the Heart Sūtra, translated by the monk himself, and in his use of the Preface of The Holy Religion (Shengjiao xu) that Emperor Taizong was said to have composed in gratitude for the historical Xuanzang. On the other hand, the conscious appropriation of popular tradition, which may or may not testify to the existence in textual form of the Chen Guangrui story, is apparent in even a passing remark of the fictive Xuanzang, who said in chapter 80 (XYJ, p. 915) that he had been a monk the moment he left his mother’s belly (
), an assertion that surely contradicts the biographical account of his becoming a monk only at age thirteen.12
The emphasis of Tripitaka’s early entrance into religious life is heard again in chapter 91 (XYJ, p. 1035), which is itself an important omission by Huang Suqiu. When Tripitaka was questioned by one of the Rhinoceros Monsters who had captured him, he said:
The secular name of your poor monk is Chen Xuanzang, who since childhood had been a monk at Gold Mountain. Later, I was appointed a monk-official by the Tang Emperor at the Hongfu Monastery of Chang’an. Because of the execution of the Old Dragon of the Jing River by Prime Minister Wei Zheng in his dream, the Tang Emperor had to make a visit to the underworld before returning to the world of light, where he gave a Grand Mass of Land and Water for the salvation of lost souls. I was indebted to the Emperor again for his appointment of me as the high priest for that occasion.
The noteworthy elements in this speech by Tripitaka are the explicit naming of the Gold Mountain of his childhood and the residency at Hongfu Monastery by imperial appointment, both places prominently displayed in the Chen Guangrui chapter and in the verse introducing Tripitaka in chapter 11 (chap. 12 in the XYJ). Though this sketch of his past life is brief, it is nonetheless significant that such a cursory statement alludes to incidents in Tripitaka’s youth and those surrounding the Tang emperor’s journey to the underworld in such a manner that they form a continuous and consistent complex of events.
The reference to Gold Mountain brings into view once more the theme of disaster on the river, and apart from the three examples cited by Huang Suqiu (i.e., chaps. 48, 49, and 64), it should be added that the name River Float also appears in the title of chapter 29 (“Free of his peril, River Float came to the Kingdom; / Receiving grace, Bajie invaded the mountain forest”), and in at least four other instances again overlooked by Huang.
In chapter 20, when Tripitaka was taken captive by a Tiger Monster, the narrator has the comment:
O, pity that Tripitaka,
The River Float 
fated to suffer oft!
It’s hard to make merit in Buddha’s gate!
(SDT, JUAN 4, P. 60A, COLS. 9–10; XYJ, P. 229)
A few moments later, when Tripitaka was ordered to be bound by the Master of the Yellow Wind Cave, the pathetic reaction of the priest was thus depicted:
This is how that
Ill fated River Float 
on Pilgrim broods;
The god-monk in pain calls Wuneng to mind.
“Disciples,” he said, “I don’t know in what mountain you are catching monsters, or in what region you are subduing goblins…. But if you tarry any longer, it will never be preserved!”
(SDT, JUAN 4, P. 61A; COLS. 5–8; XYJ, P. 230)
When Tripitaka, near the end of his journey, was carried away by the Leopard Monster in chapter 85, the narrator comments:
This is why it’s hard for
Zen-nature plagued by demons to reach Right Fruit.
River Float 
meets again his Ill-luck Star!
(XYJ, P. 974)
And when Monkey returns to find his master gone but not knowing even where to begin to look for him, the narrator closes the chapter with the observation:
Alas! this is how
Woe-beset River Float 
keeps meeting more woes!
The demon-routing Great Sage is by demons met!
(XYJ, P. 975)
From the foregoing examples, we may conclude that the name River Float is peculiarly associated with the suffering Tripitaka, the pilgrim who must endure certain afflictions ordained for him in the human world. That this is a constant theme in the narrative may be seen once more in the heptasyllabic lüshi that forms the soliloquy of Tripitaka in chapter 49 (XYJ, p. 564). After having been captured by the Gold Fish Monster, the confined Tripitaka gives vent to his solitary anguish by the following poem:
I loathe River Float, a life plagued by woes!
How many water perils bound me at birth!
I left my mom’s womb to be tossed by waves;
I plumb the deep, seeking Buddha in the West.
I met disaster at Black River before.
Now in this ice-break, my life will expire.
I know not if my pupils can come here,
Or if with true scriptures I can go home.
The importance of this poem lies in its representation of a moment of truth, of self-reckoning for the pilgrim-monk of the story, who is, as has been observed by many readers, rather muddleheaded and imperceptive most of the time. Indeed, throughout the novel, Tripitaka is usually able to gain a measure of insight only at moments of extreme danger. Thus in chapter 65 (XYJ, p. 747), it was only when master, disciples, and even certain celestial warriors who came to the rescue, had been completely taken captive by the spurious Buddha that Tripitaka was seen to acknowledge in tearful penitence his own folly and the truthfulness of Wukong’s warning:
I loathe myself for not heeding you then,
Thus bringing this day such woe on my head!
Now you are hurt in the cymbals of gold.
Which person knows I’m bound here with ropes?
Fate, most bitter, caused what we four had met,
And merits, three thousand, are all o’erthrown.
What will free us from this painful restraint,
That we may reach smoothly the West and leave?
It should be obvious that these two poems spoken by Tripitaka are quite similar in tone, rhetoric (both beginning even with the phrase “I loathe 
”), and intended effect, for both soliloquies, not unlike some of those heard on the Elizabethan stage, are revelatory of the speaker’s sudden vision of himself in a certain light. To be sure, the speeches of Tripitaka have neither the complexity nor the tragic intensity comparable to those of a Faustus, a Hamlet, or a Vittoria, and the knowledge he acquires at the moment is short-lived. Consistent with the comic design and the author’s highly ironic view of his character, the knowledge that he gained is hardly retained to make any change of consequence in his action. But the function of self-dramatization is nonetheless analogous to Renaissance dramatic techniques, and it is hardly accidental that the present peril of water (note the title of chapter 49: “Tripitaka Meets Disaster and Sinks to a Watery Home”) should induce Tripitaka to recall past woes of a similar kind. This narrative feature again does not “prove” the existence, or even the necessity, of a “lost chapter,” but it does demonstrate, I believe, the author’s artful use of the Chen Guangrui legend to be more than perfunctory. The small but purposeful drama of this episode enhances the importance of the subsequent poem, when in a less threatening situation, Tripitaka answers the question of several arboreal immortals about his age by reciting the following:
Forty years ago I left my mother’s womb—
My life was disaster e’en before my birth!
Fleeing for life, I rolled with wave and tide.
By luck I met Gold Mountain and cast my shell [literally, original bones].
Myself I trained and sutras read with zeal.
In true worship of Buddha I dared not slack.
Now my King sends me to go to the West.
I thank you divines for love on the way.
(XYJ, CHAP. 64, P. 734)
Along with this poem, which rehearses again his youthful career and the theme of disaster on water, and the prefatory verse of chapter 11 (chap. 12 of the XYJ), the poem in chapter 49 thus serves also to provide the kind of background details without which the full force of Bajie’s pun on Tripitaka’s name cannot be felt (chap. 48, XYJ, p. 561: “The Master’s surname is Chen [homonymous with the word chen 
, “to sink”], and his name is To-the-Bottom 
”).
There is, moreover, a highly suggestive phrase in the poem of chapter 64 (XYJ, p. 734) that invites our attention. This is the line “By luck I met Gold Mountain and cast my shell 
.” Within the immediate context of the poem, this line refers undoubtedly to the abbot of Gold Mountain, who came to the rescue of the abandoned child. But in terms of the total economy of the narrative so thoroughly infused by the salvational ideologies of Mahāyāna Buddhism, this occasion also marks the formal entrance of Tripitaka into religious life. It is appropriate, therefore, for Xuanzang of this poem to transform that event into a symbol of redemption, of emancipation from the skeletal frame of his body. As such, the very poetic metaphor anticipates the events of chapter 98 (XYJ, p. 1105; the chapter is also suggestively titled “Only when horse and monkey are tame will the shell be cast 
; / With merit and work perfected they see the Real [i.e., Bhūtatathatā]), when the pilgrims were ferried across a river in a bottomless boat by the Buddha of the Light of Ratnadhvaja.” In midstream, they saw floating by the boat a corpse, which was first interpreted by Wukong to be Tripitaka himself (“Master, it’s you 
”), and in turn by each of the disciples as being the other person. After they reached the shores of paradise, they were congratulated by both the boatman and the narrator for finally attaining salvation through liberation from the body. From the way the river has been treated in the narrative, we may conclude that it has such particular significance as that noted by James Fu in a perceptive essay on the XYJ,13 for it is both a soteric and a destructive symbol in the life of its protagonist. There can be little doubt that in the mind of this fictive Xuanzang, the entire experience of the river—prenatal disaster met by his parents, abandonment, and rescue—forms a veritable part of his life history.
To look at Tripitaka’s self-consciousness this way may help to illumine further another allusion to the Chen Guangrui story, which also discloses yet another aspect of the author’s narrative subtlety. For the attentive reader of the novel is likely to notice that on numerous occasions, Tripitaka, true to the experience of many travelers in foreign lands, is said to be filled with nostalgic thoughts for his homeland. As he draws near to his distant goal, there is perceptibly an increasing emphasis by the narrator on his feelings of longing for the mother country, commingled with the fear of not fulfilling the emperor’s command and impatience with the remaining distance (XYJ, chap. 80, p. 911; chap. 81, pp. 922–923; chap. 85, pp. 966, 975; chap. 86, pp. 986–987; chap. 87, p. 988; chap. 88, p. 1000; chap. 91, p. 1029; chap. 92, p. 1039; chap. 93, p. 1050). There are also exclamations about the length of the journey they have undertaken (chap. 88, p. 1000; chap. 93, p. 1055). In this state of heightened hope and anxiety, the pilgrims approach the Tianzhu nation (India), and the psychological condition of Tripitaka is cunningly underscored by the narrator with repeated comparisons of the Land of the West with Tang territory (XYJ, chap. 88, p. 999; chap. 92, p. 1039) that occur in the mind of the scripture-pilgrim. It is in such a state of agitated memory that Tripitaka makes the following statement in chap. 93 (XYJ, p. 1056):
The people of this place—their clothing, their buildings, their utensils, their manner of speech and behavior—are all the same as our great T’ang nation. I’m thinking about the deceased mother 
of my secular home who, by throwing an embroidered ball, met someone she was destined to marry 
and they became man and wife. To think that they should have this custom here also!
Once again, a seemingly trivial element in the Chen Guangrui story is developed by the author into something of much greater appeal and significance. For what most impresses Tripitaka about the fictive India is, as he says, its cultural resemblance to his own land—down to the very custom that brought about the chance meeting of his own parents. That he makes this observation with a good deal of sentiment is probably what induces the mild teasing of Sun Wukong moments later (chap. 94, p. 1062: “The Master’s statement that his deceased mother, who also met her fated acquaintance by the throwing of an embroidered ball, and thereupon they became man and wife, seems to indicate a longing for the past”). As the story unfolds, Tripitaka, of course, displays little of that longing for the past intimated by his disciple, for he retains what may be his most solid and, perhaps, solitary virtue: a dogged resistance to the most winsome form of sexual and courtly allurement, which wins for him even the praise of Wukong himself (chap. 95, p. 1095).
This entire episode of the novel, however, which tells of Tripitaka’s also being hit by an embroidered ball and that he would thus have been forced to marry the king’s daughter had not Wukong exposed her to be the Jade Hare of the Lunar Palace, also becomes in the narrative an echo as well as a parody of the Chen Guangrui story. Unlike his father, who gained a beautiful and loyal wife on a similar occasion, Tripitaka’s threatened matrimony constitutes but another trial in a series to which he must be subjected in his journey. Like his father, however, his being struck by the ball is verily a prelude to a string of disasters to come.
II
I think that the foregoing analysis, admittedly brief, is sufficient to show the significance, if not the indispensability, of the Chen Guangrui episode in the narrative, though as I remarked earlier, these later allusions certainly cannot be construed as incontrovertible proofs for a “lost chapter.” The existence of such a chapter has to be established by further discovery of textual materials hitherto unknown, if such discovery is indeed still possible. It may be safely asserted, however, that the author of the hundred-chapter novel, Wu Cheng’en 
or whoever he might be, is thoroughly familiar with the tradition of the birth and adventures of the infant Xuanzang popularized in the dramas of Yuan and Ming China,14 and that he has consciously and skillfully exploited this tradition in his narrative. In this sense, I can hardly agree with Dudbridge’s statement that “of all the diverse blocks of narrative which fill the first 12 chapters, this episode [i. e., chap. 9] alone contributes nothing to the progress of the plot as a whole.”15 The argument here, I suppose, turns on what one means by “progress.” If one insists on the principle of plot development something as vigorously defined as the Aristotelian law of probability and necessity, one may be duly disappointed by the entire work of the XYJ.
At one point in his study of the XYJ manuscripts, Dudbridge cites with approval the negative criticism of Wang Danyi on one element of chapter 9 (How could the murderer of Chen Guangrui live as governor for eighteen years without being detected?), and he further mentions the “formidable list” of “absurdities” in the chapter drawn up by Chen Shibin (Wuyizi)16 in his commentary at the end of chapter 9. The objections of Chen, written with some of the most contrived “four-six clause 
” constructions in parallel prose, are as follows:
1. The incidents are full of paradoxes and contradict popular customs. Since what is commonly accepted as proper marriage etiquette does not record anything about the practice of selecting a son-in-law by throwing an embroidered ball from a festooned tower, this incident is not to be believed.
2. How can a zhuangyuan’s mother live all by herself in a strange place?
3. How can a prime minister’s daughter go with her spouse to his post without the accompaniment of guards?
4. How can the wife of a governor walk unseen to the bank of a river?
5. How can a raft made of a single board be considered an adequate lifesaver for a child?
6. How can one lose contact completely with one’s beloved daughter with no questions asked?
7. How can the mother of an official be reduced to pauperism after separation?
8. How can there be no investigation after eighteen years of silence on the part of the daughter?
9. How can someone enter directly into the inner chamber of a governor’s mansion to look for his own mother? How can such a huge mansion exist without the presence of guards or maids?
10. How can we believe that 60,000 troops are needed to capture the bandits at the end?17
Even allowing for a measure of cogency in Chen’s arguments, it should be obvious that his kind of misguided skepticism cannot be applied to the reading of a work like the XYJ without disastrous consequences. If one were to follow the example of this early Qing editor, one might well question not simply those incidents in the disputed chapter 9, but countless others throughout the narrative that are likely to strain a normal reader’s credulity. One might ask, for instance, how it was possible for the high priests of the entire empire to reach the capital for the Grand Mass with less than a month’s notice (XYJ, chap. 10, p. 130); or how could the Black Bear Monster be motivated to invite the Elder of the Golden Pool to attend a Festival of Buddha-Robe, when it was the monster himself who stole the robe from the residence of the elder moments before (XYJ, chap. 17, p. 195); or whether it was likely that monks living near India would say that their entire hope in reading and reciting scriptures was to achieve sufficient merit so that they would be born in China at their next incarnations (XYJ, chap. 91, pp. 1028–1029)!
If, however, one accepts the sort of poetic karma 
as an organizing principle that the author seems to share with many traditional storytellers of China, then the Chen Guangrui episode may not seem so out of place after all in the structure of the narrative. For the essential features of the story do not simply account for the familial origin of the pilgrim-monk, much less does the story exist, as Dudbridge thinks, “as a self-contained action concentrating [on] the strong emotive values of family loyalty.”18 Consistent with certain traditions of folklore and folk religions, the story rather focuses our attention on the special status of a particular hero by dwelling on his supernatural birth, miraculous deliverance, and the peculiar afflictions ordained for his mundane existence. So regarded, the theme of the river and its attendant perils utilized by the author of the hundred-chapter novel reinforces the theme of Tripitaka’s this-worldly identity as the incarnation of the banished Gold Cicada. Both themes in turn support the threefold etiology developed in the narrative for explicating the meaning of Tripitaka’s ordeals 
: as a form of chastisement for his preexistent transgression, as a test of endurance for the earthly pilgrim, and as an exemplum of the high cost of obtaining sacred writings from the West.
Compared with other authors of the classic Chinese novel, the author of the XYJ is remarkable for his eye for details and for the care in their treatment in the course of a work of such length and scope. A seemingly random remark of Tripitaka, his vow to sweep every pagoda he meets on his way in chapter 13 (XYJ p. 144), is transformed into the causal motif for an entire episode in chapter 62, and is picked up again in chapter 91 (XYJ, p. 1031). The diamond snare of Laozi, which knocked down the former celestial delinquent in chapter 6, is recalled by Wukong to that effect when he has to borrow it in chapter 52 (XYJ, p. 606). Five hundred years later and seventy-nine chapters after the incident, Li Jing still chafes at his defeat by the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven (XYJ, chap. 4 and chap. 83, p. 947). To be sure, the author shows no hesitancy in introducing all kinds of new and unrelated traditions in myth or history along the way, as Dudbridge has pointed out, but the presentation of things, events, and places related to the central characters is astonishing for the meticulous planning and execution. In the passage that I cited earlier in this essay, Dudbridge has declared that Huang Suqiu’s argument for a lost chapter “would be persuasive indeed if the author of the 100–chapter XYJ were known to have avoided casual references to legends outside the scope of his story, or again if he had given a full narrative account of every detail in the background of his other central characters.” Dudbridge further maintains that “the origins of such central figures as Zhu Bajie and Sha Heshang are presented only in allusion or otherwise indirectly, in moments of retrospect.” The question that must be asked at this point is whether these assertions can be supported by the text itself.
In the first place, we need to determine who are the central characters of the narrative. Dudbridge in the same passage speaks of the “copious” allusions of the novel at every point to “established legends,” and he mentions the figures of Erlang (chap. 6), the Warrior of the North (chap. 66), Naṭa, and Li Jing, all of whom, so the argument goes, appear in the novel without any background details presented by the author. But the question that immediately arises is whether these persons can be considered the central figures of the narrative, and the answer cannot be more apparent. By no stretch of the imagination can these deities, and for that matter we may include Guanyin, Laozi, the Gold Star Venus, and Mokṣa, who appear with even greater frequency, be identified as the central characters. That distinction surely must be reserved for only the five fellow pilgrims who have undertaken the journey to the West. It is they who engage our constant and undivided attention; the vicissitudes of their journey, the jocular forms of their action, and the lively varieties of their speech are what causes our amazement and delight, our laughter and sympathy. Vast as the pantheons of Heaven and Hell, of Buddhism and Daoism may be, they form only the supportive cast.
If we indeed acknowledge the pilgrims to be the central characters, we must still decide whether it is true that the origins of someone like Zhu Bajie “are presented only in allusion or otherwise indirectly, in moments of retrospect.” To do so, I propose to quote in full the lengthy pailü spoken by Bajie (Pigsy) when he was first questioned by Sun Wukong, in chapter 19:
My mind was dim since the time of my youth;
Always I loved my indolence and sloth.
Neither nursing nature nor seeking long life,
I passed my days deluded and confused.
I met a true immortal suddenly,
Who sat and spoke to me of Heat and Cold.
“Repent,” he said, “and cease your worldly way:
For taking life accrues a boundless curse.
One day when the Great Limit ends your lot,
For eight woes and three ways you’ll grieve too late!”
I listened and turned my will to mend my ways;
I heard, repented, and sought the wondrous rune.
By luck my teacher he became at once,
Pointing out passes key to Heav’n and Earth.
To get the Great Pills of Nine Cyclic Turns,
My work incessant went on night and day.
It reached the Mud-Pill Chamber of my crown
And the Rushing-Spring Points beneath my feet.
With kidney-brine flooding the Floral Pool,
My Cinnabar Field was thus warmly fed.
Baby and Fair Girl mated as yin and yang:
Lead and mercury mixed as sun and moon.
In concord Li-dragon and Kan-tiger used,
The spirit turtle sucked dry the gold crow’s blood.
Three flowers joined on top, the root reclaimed;
Five breaths faced their source and all freely flowed.
My merit done, I ascended on high,
Met by pairs of immortals from the sky.
Radiant pink clouds arose beneath my feet;
With light, sound frame I faced the Golden Arch.
The Jade Emperor gave a banquet for gods
Who sat in rows according to their ranks.
Made a marshal of the Celestial Stream,
I took command of both sailors and ships.
Because Queen Mother gave the Peaches Feast—
When she met her guests at the Jasper Pool—
My mind turned hazy for I got dead drunk,
A shameless rowdy, reeling left and right.
Boldly I barged through the Vast Cold Palace,
Where the charming fairy beckoned me in.
When I saw her face that would snare one’s soul,
My carnal itch of old could not be stopped!
Without regard for manners or for rank,
I grabbed Miss Chang’e, asking her to bed.
For three or four times she rejected me,
Hiding east and west, she was sore annoyed.
My passion sky-high I roared like thunder,
Almost toppling the arch of the Heaven’s gate.
Inspector General told the Emperor Jade;
I was destined that day to meet my fate.
The Lunar Palace enclosed airtight
Left me no way to run or to escape.
Then I was caught by the various gods,
Undaunted still, for wine was in my heart.
Bound and taken to see the Jade Emperor,
I should by law have been executed.
It was Venus, the Gold Star, Mr. Li,
Who left the ranks and knelt to beg for me.
My punishment changed to two thousand blows,
My flesh was torn; my bones did almost crack.
Alive! I was banished from Heaven’s Gate
To make my home beneath the Fuling Mount.
An errant womb’s my sinful destination:
Stiff-Bristle Hog’s my worldly appellation!
This is indeed the moment of retrospect, when Bajie recounts his past history to his opponent before a fight. Except for the extensive use of al-chemical and yin-yang rhetoric to describe the process of his first becoming an immortal, however, every essential detail of his past life has been established by prior narration in the novel. The rank of Marshal of Heavenly Weeds, the affront to Chang’e as a result of getting drunk, the divine chastisement of 2,000 blows by the bludgeon, the exile to earth, the wrong turn on the way to the next incarnation, and the settlement on Fuling Mountain—all of these events have been introduced in the all-important chapter 8. They form, in fact, the constitutive elements of Bajie’s life history that are faithfully repeated in every subsequent autobiographical account (e.g., XYJ, chap. 85, pp. 969–970; chap. 94, p. 1061).
Though space does not permit me to discuss the other disciples of Tripitaka, I should like to point out that the way Bajie has been presented in the narrative is exactly the same as Wukong and Wujing. If we study chapter 8 and subsequent episodes (e.g., chaps. 22 and 94), we shall see again that there is a basic core of incidents in the life of Sha Heshang that is first introduced by narration, and which will be repeated without deviation. Needless to say, the obvious importance of Monkey as a central character necessitates a much more dramatic and elaborate introduction (chaps. 1–7), and throughout the narrative, he is given many more opportunities for self-disclosure (e.g., XYJ, chaps. 17, pp. 192–193; chap. 52, pp. 600–601; chap. 63, p. 721; chap. 70, pp. 795–796; chap. 71; pp. 811–812; chap. 86, p. 980; chap. 94, pp. 1060–1061). But in all these instances, the consistency between what has been established in the first seven chapters and subsequent rehearsals is remarkable. In the absence of chapter 9, Tripitaka is the only member of the pilgrimage, in fact, whose origins are presented in the manner that Dudbridge ascribes to the disciples: in allusion or indirectly, in moments of retrospect. The early editors of the XYJ, therefore, were not wholly unjustified in their protest that a theme of such significance as the Chen Guangrui story had not been more fully accounted for by antecedent narrative.
As we have it today, the Chen Guangrui chapter may well have been the work of Zhu Dingchen with further modifications by the Qing editors. Style alone should make us question the chapter’s authenticity: in a work that is estimated to contain some 1,700 poems in the other ninety-nine chapters, this chapter alone does not have a single independent verse. Furthermore, it cannot be denied that the work of the later editors has brought numerous inconsistencies into the text. But by preserving the essential features of a well-known and popular legend directly germane to the entire narrative, the chapter harmonizes rather than intrudes; and perhaps in this sense, the early editors and compilers may have shown better judgment than what is accorded them by modern scholarship.
NOTES
This essay is an expanded version of a paper presented at the Conference on Chinese Narrative, Princeton, N.J., January 20–22, 1974.
1. Glen Dudbridge, “Xiyouji zuben kao di zai shangjue 
,” Xinya xuebao 6 (1964): 497–518; Glen Dudbridge, “The Hundred-Chapter Xiyouji and Its Early Versions,” Asia Major 14 (1969): 141–191.
2. Dudbridge, “Hundred-Chapter Xiyouji,” p. 184.
3. Huang Suqiu 
, “Lun Xiyouji di di jiu hui wenti 
,” in Xiyouji yanjiu lunwen ji 
(Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1957), pp. 173–177.
4. The name of the monk is Qian’an 
in this poem, whereas the monk of chapter 9 has the name Faming 
.
5. Dudbridge, “Hundred-Chapter Xiyouji,” p. 184.
6. Sun Kaidi 
, Riben Dongjing suo jian xiaoshuo shumu 
(Shanghai: Shanghai chubanshe, 1953), p. 108.
7. Dudbridge, “Hundred-Chapter Xiyouji,” p. 151.
8. okuno Shintarō, “Mizu to honoo no denshō: Saiyūki seiritsu no ichi sokumen,” Nihon Chūgoku gakkai hō 18 (1966): 225–226. For studies of the religious themes of the XYJ, see chapters 7 and 8 of the present volume.
9. I realize that Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara) was in all probability a male deity originally, but the figure in the novel is unambiguously feminine.
10. Dudbridge, “Hundred-Chapter Xiyouji,” pp. 183–184.
11. Huili 
and Yanzong 
, comps., Da Tang Da Ci’ensi Sanzang Fashi zhuan 
(Sibu beiyao edition), 1:4.
13. Zhu Xuan (Fu Shu-hsien 
), “XYJ di bashiyi nan 
” Zhongguo shibao 
/Chung-kuo shih-pao], March 17, 1973, p. 12.
14. Qian Nanyang 
, Song Yuan xiwen jiyi 
(Shanghai: Shanghai gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1956), pp. 165–172; Zhao Jingshen 
, Yuan Ming nanxi kaolue 
(Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1958), pp. 68–79; Glen Dud-bridge, The Hsi-yu chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 75–89.
15. Dudbridge, “Hundred-Chapter Xiyouji,” p. 184.
17. Juan 2, p. 12b. I use a 1924 edition of the Xiyou zhenquan 
, published in Shanghai (Yuanchang shuju.
18 Dudbridge, “Hundred-Chapter Xiyouji,” p. 184.
19. This passage is quoted from the revised version in The Monkey and the Monk: An Abridgment of “The Journey to the West,” trans. and ed. Anthony C. Yu (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 259–261.
6 