The Monk of the Yangtze-Kiang

This tale opens with a legendary account of Buddha leaving royal life to seek a way beyond suffering. It then imagines how his teachings reached an emperor of China through a dream.

In the reign of the Emperor Ming Di of the Eastern Han dynasty, a golden light was seen in the West, flashing and shining without a pause. One night the emperor dreamed that a golden saint twenty feet tall came into his room, barefoot, his head shaved, dressed in Indian clothes. “I am the saint from the West,” the figure said. “My teaching must be spread in the East!” When the emperor woke he puzzled over the dream and sent messengers to the western lands to learn what it meant.

In the story’s account, the emperor’s dream opens a path for Buddhist teaching in China. The narrative now moves to another emperor and another dream, this time involving a dragon and a broken promise.

In the time of the Emperor Tai Dsung of the Tang dynasty, a great drought came over the land, and the emperor and all his officials set up altars everywhere to pray for rain.

Then the Dragon-King of the Eastern Sea said to the Dragon of the Milky Way, “Today they are praying for rain down on earth, and the Lord of the Heavens has granted the King of Tang’s prayer. Tomorrow you must send down three inches of rain.”

“No,” said the old dragon, “I am to send only two inches.” So the two dragons made a bet, and whoever lost agreed to be turned into a mud salamander as his punishment.

The next day the Highest Lord suddenly issued an order: the Dragon of the Milky Way was to tell the spirits of wind and cloud to send three inches of rain upon the earth. There was no question of arguing with such a command. But the old dragon thought, “It seems the Dragon-King knew better than I did what would happen. Still, turning into a mud salamander is far too shameful.” So he let only two inches of rain fall, and reported to the court of heaven that the order had been carried out.

The Emperor Tai Dsung then offered a prayer of thanks to heaven. “The precious water was granted to us to a depth of two inches,” he wrote. “We humbly beg that more may be sent down so that the parched crops may revive.”

When the Lord of the Heavens read this, he was furious. “The criminal Dragon of the Milky Way has dared to cut down the rain I commanded,” he said. “He shall not be allowed to go on living in his guilt. We Dschong, who is a general among men on earth, shall behead him as a warning to all living things.”

That evening Tai Dsung dreamed that a giant came into his room and begged him, fighting back tears: “Save me, O Emperor! Because I cut down the rain of my own accord, the Lord of the Heavens in his anger has ordered We Dschong to behead me tomorrow at noon. If you will only keep We Dschong from falling asleep at that hour, and pray for my rescue, disaster may still pass me by.” The emperor promised, and the giant bowed and left.

The next day the emperor sent for We Dschong. They drank tea together and played chess. Toward noon We Dschong suddenly grew tired and drowsy, but he did not dare ask leave to go. The emperor, who had just lost a piece, stared at the board for a moment, thinking, and before he knew it We Dschong was snoring like distant thunder. The emperor was alarmed and called to him at once, but he did not wake. He had two eunuchs shake him, and it was a long time before he could be roused.

“How did you come to fall asleep so suddenly?” asked the emperor.

“I dreamed,” said We Dschong, “that the Highest God ordered me to behead the old dragon. I have just cut off his head, and my arm still aches from the effort.”

Before he had even finished, a dragon’s head as big as a grain measure dropped out of the sky. The emperor jumped up in horror. “I have wronged the old dragon,” he said. He withdrew into the inner rooms of his palace with his mind in turmoil and lay on his couch with his eyes closed, silent, barely breathing.

Suddenly he saw two figures in purple robes holding a summons. “The old Dragon of the Milky Way has brought a complaint against the emperor in the underworld,” they said. “Please have your chariot made ready.” Without thinking, the emperor followed them. His chariot stood waiting in the palace courtyard. He climbed in, and away they flew through the air, and in a moment they had reached the city of the dead.

When he went in, he saw the Lord of the High Mountain seated in the middle of the city, with the ten princes of the underworld in rows on either side. They all rose, bowed and asked him to sit down.

“The old Dragon of the Milky Way truly did something that deserved punishment,” said the Lord of the High Mountain. “But Your Majesty promised to ask the Highest God to spare him, and that prayer would probably have saved his life. Letting the matter slip over a game of chess may fairly be called a mistake. Now the old dragon complains to me without end. When I think how he has worked for more than a thousand years to become holy, and must now fall back into the round of rebirths, I am truly saddened. That is why I have called together the princes of the ten pits of the underworld to find a way out, and invited Your Majesty to talk it over. In heaven, on earth and in the underworld, only Buddha’s teaching knows no limits. So when you return to earth, great sacrifices must be offered to the thirty-three lords of the heavens, and three thousand six hundred holy priests of Buddha must chant the sutras to free the old dragon, so that he may rise into the sky again and keep his true form. But the writings and chanting of men will not be enough. Someone must go to the Western Heavens and bring back words of truth from there.”

The emperor agreed, and the Lord of the Great Mountain and the ten princes rose, bowed, and said, “Please return now.” Suddenly Tai Dsung opened his eyes and found himself lying on his own couch. He announced publicly that he had been at fault, and sent for the holiest of Buddha’s priests to fetch the sutras from the Western Heavens. The one who answered the summons and came to court was Huan Dschuang, the Monk of the Yangtze-kiang.

This Huan Dschuang had been born with the family name Tschen. His father had passed the highest examinations under the previous emperor and was made district mandarin of a place on the Yangtze-kiang. He set out with his wife for his new post, but when their boat reached the Yellow River it fell in with a gang of robbers. Their leader killed all the attendants, threw Tschen into the river, and seized his wife and the papers naming him mandarin. Then he went to the district town under a false name and took over the office himself, bringing only members of his robber band as his servants. Tschen’s wife and her baby son he locked in a room in a tower, and every servant who waited on her was in the robbers’ pay.

Under the tower lay a small pond, fed by a spring that ran beneath the walls to the Yellow River. One day Tschen’s wife took a small bamboo basket, sealed up its cracks and laid her baby inside. She cut her finger and with the blood wrote the day and hour of his birth on a strip of silk paper, adding that when he was twelve he must come and rescue her. She put the strip beside the boy, and that night, when no one was around, she set the basket on the pond. The current carried it down to the Yangtze-kiang, and on it floated as far as the monastery on Golden Hill, an island in the middle of the river. A priest who came down to draw water spotted it, pulled it out and carried it into the monastery.

When the abbot read what was written in blood, he told his priests and novices to say nothing about it to anyone, and he raised the boy in the monastery himself. At five the child began to study the holy books. He was cleverer than all his schoolmates, quickly grasped the meaning of the scriptures and went deeper and deeper into their mysteries. So he was allowed to take his vows, and when his head was shaved he was named the Monk of the Yangtze-kiang.

By twelve he was as big and strong as a grown man. The abbot, who knew of the duty still waiting for him, called him into a quiet room, took out the letter written in blood and gave it to him. When the young monk had read it, he threw himself on the ground and wept bitterly. Then he thanked the abbot for all he had done. He set out for the city where his mother lived, and there he walked around and around the mandarin’s offices, beating his wooden fish and calling, “Freedom from all suffering! Freedom from all suffering!”

Since sneaking into his post by fraud, the robber who had killed the monk’s father had made sure of his position by winning powerful friends, and he even allowed Tschen’s wife, who had spent years as a prisoner, a little more freedom. That day official business had taken him away from home. The woman was sitting indoors when she heard the wooden fish being beaten again and again outside the door and the words of deliverance being called, and her heart cried out within her. She sent a maid to bring in the priest. He came in by the back door, and when she saw that he looked exactly like his father, she could not hold back and burst into tears. Then the Monk of the Yangtze-kiang knew that this was his mother, and he took out the letter written in blood and handed it to her.

She stroked it and said through her sobs, “My father is a high official who has retired and lives in the capital. But I could never write to him, because this robber watched me so closely. So I stayed alive as best I could, waiting for you to come. Now hurry to the capital for your father’s sake. If his honor is cleared, I can die in peace. But go quickly, so that no one finds out.”

The monk hurried away. First he went back to his monastery to say goodbye to the abbot, and then he set out for Sianfu, the capital. By then his grandfather was dead, but one of his uncles, who was known at court, was still alive. This uncle took soldiers and soon finished off the robbers. In the meantime, though, the monk’s mother had died.

From then on the Monk of the Yangtze-kiang lived in a pagoda in Sianfu and was known as Huan Dschuang. He was about twenty when the emperor’s order went out calling Buddha’s priests to court. He was received by the emperor, who honored him as a great teacher, and then he set out for India.

He was away for seventeen years. When he came home he brought three collections of books, each made up of five hundred and forty manuscript rolls, and with them he presented himself to the emperor. The emperor was overjoyed and wrote, with his own hand, a preface to the holy teachings, setting down everything that had happened. Then the great sacrifice was held to free the old Dragon of the Milky Way.

Where this story comes from

“The Monk of the Yangtze-kiang” is chapter LXIX of Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1921), the last of his “Historic Legends.”

Wilhelm’s note identifies the Emperor Tai Dsung as Li Schi Min, whom he praises in emphatic terms, and the Highest Lord as Yu Huang, the Lord of Jade. He explains that the monk’s title literally means “the monk washed ashore by the stream,” that the wooden fish is a hollow fish-shaped block Buddhists strike as a sign of watchfulness, and that the three collections of books are the Tripitaka. He also points out that the baby in the bamboo basket is a Moses-like motif found in other Chinese tales, and that one of Huan Dschuang’s legendary companions on his journey is the hero of the book’s last chapter, “The Ape Sun Wu Kung.”

Read the original: The Chinese Fairy Book (Project Gutenberg)

For older readers: execution, murder, a captive mother, a baby set adrift, a letter written in blood and the mother’s death before rescue. The emperor’s dream and the monk’s childhood are presented as legend, not verified history.

Reading the story closely

Two unfinished obligations join the plot. The emperor promises help but cannot prevent the dragon’s execution; the monk discovers a family duty but reaches the wider rescue too late for his mother. Scripture-seeking follows these failures, rather than erasing them. The dragon is condemned for reducing the rain before the chess game, so the game prevents a hoped-for rescue rather than creating the original sentence.

Trace the documents: the rain report, underworld summons, stolen appointment papers and mother’s hidden letter. Official writing can expose deception, authorize punishment or conceal a crime when held by an impostor. Compare how each document’s reader decides to trust it. The final scriptures promise a larger release, while the mother’s death remains an irretrievable loss within the narrative.

The original introduction places Buddhism’s beginning in southern India/Ceylon and generalizes dismissively about later monks. Those claims are not retained here. The Metropolitan Museum’s account of the Buddha’s life locates the Buddha’s teaching in northeastern India and distinguishes traditional accounts from historical uncertainty. Wilhelm’s heading ‘Historic Legends’ should therefore not be read as a certificate of factual accuracy.

Talk about it

• Why does the old dragon disobey the command to send three inches of rain?
• What has already condemned the dragon before the chess game, and why does the emperor still feel responsible?
• How does the young monk find his mother without the robber noticing?

Related stories

• Kwang-Jui and the God of the River — a mandarin attacked by river robbers and a son who rights the wrong
• The Dragon After His Winter Sleep — more Chinese dragon lore from Wilhelm
• The Three Ruling Gods — another Wilhelm tale linking a monk’s story with dragon ancestry