The Mysterious Buddhist Robe

The Emperor Li Shih-ming had paid a short visit to the Land of Shadows, and he came back a changed man. There he had watched the pain and misery that people must suffer for the wrongs they freely chose to do in this life. He had seen for himself what he had always refused to believe: that every wrong is followed by a penalty, paid either in this world or in the next. Now he knew the sages had been right, for he had seen the horrors waiting for criminals who had slipped through the hands of justice on earth, once they came before Yam-lo, the judge of the dead.

What troubled him most was a grim thought he could not silence. Many of the souls in that land who went hungry and naked were there because of his own cruelty and injustice. Their cries would rise to Heaven, and sooner or later they would bring vengeance down on him. Mixed with this fear of judgment was real pity, for he was truly sorry for the wretched people he had seen in the City of the Wronged Ones, whose accusations and threats of heavenly punishment had pierced him to the soul.

So he resolved to hold a magnificent service for the spirits of all those who had lost their lives through the injustice of rulers, the weakness of the law or private revenge, and who now suffered untold hardship in the other world. He would have prayers said for them that would fill their lives with plenty and, in time, open the way for them to be born again among men. In this way he hoped to make peace with those he had harmed, and at the same time to store up so much merit for his kindness that the gods would deal gently with him when his own day of reckoning came and the accounts of his life were balanced.

The narrator describes the ceremony as unprecedented, and the Emperor wanted a leader whose conduct matched its purpose. The leader must be a man of solid character, whose life was so pure and holy that not a single stain could be found on his saintly name.

His Majesty therefore sent orders to every viceroy in the Empire to proclaim from one end of the country to the other the great religious service he meant to hold in the capital for the unhappy spirits in the Land of Shadows. The orders also called for a search for a priest of spotless character, one who had proved his love for his fellow men by great deeds of compassion. That man was to be invited to come before the Emperor and take charge of the splendid service the Emperor himself had planned.

News of the Emperor’s noble plan spread through his lands with astonishing speed. It even reached the far-off Western Heaven, where the mysterious beings who live in that happy land are always ready to welcome any effort to ease human suffering. The Goddess of Mercy thought the occasion so important that she decided to play her own part in it, by providing fitting robes for the man who would lead the ceremony.

And so, while everyone was talking about the coming service for the dead, two priests suddenly turned up in the streets of the capital. Nobody had ever seen such strange, old-fashioned figures. They were small and shabby to look at, and their priestly robes were so travel-worn and dirty that they clearly had not been washed for a very long time. People stared at them as they went by, for they seemed to have stepped out of some long-ago age into a world that had left their kind far behind.

Soon, though, their odd appearance was forgotten in amazement at what they carried. They kept their treasures wrapped in several layers of cloth to protect them from dirt, but they were happy to unwrap them for anyone who wanted to look. Inside was a hat and a robe of the kind an abbot might wear when the Buddhist Church held its grandest and most solemn rites, and a staff of office set with precious stones, suited to the leader of the solemn service.

The hat and robe were wonderfully beautiful. The rich embroidery, the unusual patterns, the harmony of the colors and the quiet genius of whoever had designed and finished them caught the attention of even the poorest people in the crowds that gathered around the two priests, gazing with awe. Some instinct told the onlookers that these magical garments had not come from any loom in the Empire. No human mind or hand had ever invented the shades and tints that flashed before their eyes, with a delicacy and beauty that none of the great artists of the past had ever managed to achieve.

The priests of the city’s temples and monasteries soon heard the talk about the marvelous hat and robe and came in crowds to see them.

“Do you want to sell these things?” one of the city priests asked.

“If anyone can pay the only price we will accept, we are willing to let him have them,” came the answer.

“And what is the price?” the priest asked eagerly.

“The hat and robe cost four thousand taels, and the staff, which is made of the rarest materials with the rarest skill, costs the same.”

A roar of laughter went through the crowd. In those days eight thousand taels was a huge fortune that only one or two of the richest men in the land could have paid. But the laughter soon died away when the strangers explained that they had set the price high on purpose, so that the holy garments would never fall into the hands of anyone unworthy of them.

“You all know,” said one of them, “that His Majesty the Emperor understands how much his service for the dead matters, not only to the spirits suffering in the Land of Shadows but to the well-being of the whole Empire. He has already sent out orders to find a holy and godly priest worthy to lead the prayers for the men and women who live their dreary lives in the land where Yam-lo rules.”

The story of the two men quickly spread through homes of every rank in the capital. Once people understood that the strangers had no wish to make money from the rare and lovely things they showed so freely to the crowds that followed them, a kind of glow of romance began to surround them. People whispered that these were no ordinary inhabitants of the earth but fairies in disguise, sent as messengers by the Goddess of Mercy. No mortal eyes had ever seen garments like theirs, and they were plainly meant for some ceremony of special importance, like the one the Emperor was planning.

At last word of the strange scenes in the streets reached the palace, and Li Shih-ming sent officers to bring the two priests before him. When he saw the wonderful robe, embroidered in tints no craftsman had ever been known to design, and held in his hand the staff that sparkled with jewels, he felt that the unseen gods approved of his plan and had prepared vestments worthy of the high priest who would lead it.

“I hear you want eight thousand taels for these things,” the Emperor said to the two men, who stood respectfully before him.

“We do not care about the price, Your Majesty,” one of them answered. “It means very little to us. We named that large sum only to keep these things from anyone with an unworthy mind. There is something special about that robe. Whoever wears it with a pure and honest heart will be kept safe from every disaster that can threaten him in this world. No sorrow can touch him, and the plots of the most spiteful evil spirits will have no power over him. But if a man ruled by some low passion dares to put on that mysterious robe, he will be caught up in all kinds of misfortune and grief that will never leave him until he takes it off and lays it aside for good. What we have really come for is to help Your Majesty find a priest of noble, blameless life who is worthy to lead the service for the unhappy spirits in the Land of Shadows. When we have found him, our task will be done, and we can go back and report our success.”

Just then letters arrived for the Emperor from high officials all over the country, and every one of them named Sam-Chaong as the only man in the Empire fit to serve as high priest at the great service. Sam-Chaong happened to be in the capital at the time. He was sent for, the Emperor approved of him, and he was appointed at once to the sacred office that he alone, of all the countless priests in China, seemed worthy to fill.

The two strangers, who had been watching closely and anxiously, were delighted with the choice. With deep reverence they stepped up to Sam-Chaong and presented him with the precious vestments that had amazed everyone who saw them. They refused to take any payment, bowed gracefully to the Emperor and withdrew. As the door of the audience hall closed behind them, they vanished from human sight, and no trace of them was ever found.

On the great day the Emperor had chosen, a gathering came together such as China had never seen in all its long history. Abbots from distant monasteries came in their finest robes. Old priests with wrinkled faces and young monks in slate-gray gowns had crossed the hills and mountains of the North to take their places in the great hall. Famous men known for their devotion to the Buddhist Church and their generous gifts to its temples came with long trains of their kinsmen to add to the splendor of the day.

But the chief glory of the occasion, for the watching crowds, was the Emperor Li Shih-ming himself, never before seen in such pomp. Around him stood the princes of the royal house, the great officers of state and the members of his council in their rich and colorful robes. Beyond them were earls and dukes, provincial viceroys, and great generals whose brave deeds in the border wars were known in every town and village of the Empire. Some of China’s most famous scholars were there too; they did not belong to the Buddhist Church, but they felt they could not refuse the Emperor’s invitation. In short, the very flower of the Empire had gathered for the kindly purpose of rescuing the spirits of the dead from a misery that only the living could relieve.

The high point came when Sam-Chaong and more than a hundred of the Church’s most learned and devout priests marched in a solemn procession, chanting a litany, and took their places on the raised platform from which they would lead the service.

During the ceremony Li Shih-ming was astonished to see the two men who had given Sam-Chaong the magical vestments, standing one on each side of him. They took part wholeheartedly, but the Emperor could not help noticing a look of dissatisfaction on their faces, and now and then something like scorn passing over them like a shadow.

When the service was over, he summoned them and told them how surprised he was at their behavior. They explained that their displeasure came entirely from their feeling that the order of service used that day was not good enough for such an occasion. It lacked dignity and grandeur, they said, so that although it might bring some relief to the spirits suffering in the Land of Shadows, it would fail in the most important thing of all: setting them free from the underworld so that they could be born again into the land of the living.

The Emperor soon learned that this had worried the Goddess of Mercy a great deal as well. In the middle of their conversation a voice suddenly rang out through the great hall, where the huge congregation still lingered: “Send Sam-Chaong to the Western Heaven to bring back the order of service that will be given to him there, one worthy to be chanted by a whole nation.”

This command from the unseen Goddess so moved the Emperor that he began at once to prepare for Sam-Chaong’s great journey. Within a few days, supplied with everything such a hard undertaking required, the famous priest set out on what looked like a wild, dreamlike quest, chasing a goal that anyone with less faith than his would have thought beyond the power of any human being.

To protect him on the road and wait on him, the Emperor appointed two men to go with him. His Majesty would have given him a whole regiment of soldiers if he had been willing to take them, but Sam-Chaong flatly refused more than two. He trusted chiefly in the fairy robe, which guarded him against every danger from any enemy he might meet. Besides, as he told the Emperor, his mission was one of peace and goodwill, and it would agree neither with his own wishes nor with the Goddess’s for him to be able to avenge any wrong done to him by taking human life.

Before many days had passed, Sam-Chaong began to understand how dangerous his task was. One afternoon the travelers were jogging along at an easy pace through a wild, lonely district when two fierce-looking goblins suddenly swooped down on them and, almost before a word could be spoken, swallowed both his poor servants. They were about to do the same to Sam-Chaong when a fairy appeared and sent them fleeing, screaming with terror, to the caves in the nearby hills where they seemed to live.

For a few moments Sam-Chaong was in great distress. He had only just escaped a terrible danger, he was entirely alone in what seemed an empty land, and the shadows of night were already closing in. He was wondering where he could spend the night when a man appeared and invited him home to a mountain village on a spur of the hills that rose steeply some distance ahead.

Though he was a complete stranger who had never even heard Sam-Chaong’s name, this man treated his guest like a king and gave him the very best his house could offer. Deeply touched by such generosity, Sam-Chaong decided to repay his host with something that would bring great joy to him and his whole household. He set up a makeshift altar in front of the image of the family’s household god, who happened to be the Goddess of Mercy, and chanted the service for the dead there. It was so well received that the spirit of his host’s father, who had been held in the Land of Shadows, was freed from that sunless country and allowed to be born again among the living. That very night the father appeared to his son in a dream and told him that thanks to the prayers of Sam-Chaong, whose reputation for holiness was well known in Yam-lo’s kingdom, he had been allowed to leave that gloomy land and had just been born into a family in the province of Shensi.

The son was overjoyed at the wonderful news. To show his gratitude, he offered to go with Sam-Chaong all the way to the borders of China and share whatever dangers and hardships they met on the road.

After many weary days of travel this stage of the journey was finished at last. They were about to part at the foot of a sizable hill on the border between China and the lands beyond, when a loud, ringing voice cried out, “The priest has come! The priest has come!” Sam-Chaong asked his companion what the words meant and which priest they were talking about.

“There is an old story in these parts,” the man replied, “that five hundred years ago a certain fairy, swollen with pride, dared to rebel against the Goddess of Mercy in the Western Heaven. To punish him she turned him into a monkey and shut him in a cave near the top of this hill. There he must stay until Sam-Chaong comes this way, and then he can win forgiveness by leading the priest into the presence of the Goddess who summoned him.”

They climbed the hill toward the spot from which the cry kept ringing out and came upon a natural cave whose mouth was blocked by a huge boulder, so carefully balanced that there was no way out. Peering through the cracks at its edge, they could clearly see a monkey turning its face eagerly toward Sam-Chaong and his companion.

“Let me out,” it cried, “and I will lead you faithfully to the Western Heaven, and never leave you until you stand before the Goddess of Mercy.”

“But how can I get you out?” asked Sam-Chaong. “The boulder that shuts you in is far too big for human hands to move. I pity you in your trouble, and I would dearly like your help to guide me along the unknown roads ahead, but I am afraid the task of freeing you must fall to someone else.”

“Setting me free is easier than you think,” said the monkey. “Five hundred years ago the Goddess pushed this great rock into place with one touch of her finger, as if it were the lightest bit of down floating on a summer breeze. Look along its edge and you will see something yellow standing out against the black, lichen-covered stone. That is the Goddess’s own seal. She stamped it on the rock when she condemned me to stay in this narrow cell until you came to release me. Only your hand can remove that mysterious mark and save me from the punishment of being buried alive.”

Following the monkey’s directions, Sam-Chaong carefully scraped away the yellow markings, which he tried and failed to read. As soon as the last faint scrap was gone, the enormous boulder moved aside silently and smoothly, tilting over until the prisoner had come out, and then slid neatly back into place.

Guided by the monkey, who now took the form of a strong, energetic young athlete, Sam-Chaong went on his way. They crossed mountains so tall they seemed to touch the sky and valleys at their feet that lay in shadow all day long except at noon, when the sun stood straight overhead. Then they crossed deserts whose restless, wind-whipped waves of sand kept no trace of human footsteps, where death seemed to lie in wait like a cunning enemy.

Here Sam-Chaong understood how kindly the Goddess had cared for him in giving him such a companion. The monkey might have been born in those sandy wastes, so well did he know their moods. Something in the air, and in the colors of the sky at dawn and dusk, told him what was coming, and he could say almost for certain whether a storm was on its way to turn the silent desert into a raging ocean of sand, more merciless than the sea, ready to swallow every living thing. He also knew where hidden springs lay under the blinding glare, and without a single landmark in all that endless space he would walk unerringly to the very spot where water bubbled up from deep below.

When they had crossed those howling wildernesses, where Sam-Chaong would surely have died if he had traveled alone, they came to a country of herdsmen that was full of robber bands. Monkey was a bold fellow who never feared to meet any enemy in a fair fight. Yet for the sake of Sam-Chaong, whose loving nature had been quietly taming his wild and fiery spirit, he did his best to avoid clashing with any wicked men or spirits who might want to cross weapons with them.

One day they had crossed a wide plain dotted with flocks of sheep grazing under the eyes of their shepherds, and had reached the foothills of the mountains beyond, when Sam-Chaong’s deep meditation was broken by a startled cry from Monkey. Monkey came close and said in a low voice, “Do you see those six men coming down the hill toward us? They look like simple farmers, but every one of them is a devil who has taken human shape to catch us off guard. What they really want is to kill you, and so ruin the Goddess’s kind plan to free the souls in the Land of Shadows from their torment. I know them well. They are fierce, spiteful spirits and very bold, for they have hardly ever been beaten in a fight. But they have no idea who is walking beside you. If they did, they would come on more carefully, for even though I am alone, they would think twice about taking me on. I am glad they have not found out who I am, because I have long wished for a day like this, when I can fight a battle worthy of the gods and my fame will spread through the Western Heaven and even into the wide realm of the Land of Shadows.”

With a glad shout, as if some wonderful piece of luck had come his way, he bounded down the road to meet the enemy and challenged them scornfully to a fight to the death. As soon as the devils saw who dared to defend Sam-Chaong so proudly, they rushed at him all together with hideous yells and shrieks, hoping to confuse him and make him run.

But they had misjudged their man. As daring as they were and far more skillful, Monkey caught a javelin that came flashing through the air just when he needed it, and hurled it at one of them with such force that the demon sprawled on the ground and, with a cry like a lost soul’s, breathed his last.

Now the battle grew mighty indeed. Arrows from unseen bows flew faster than lightning at the lone fighter, but they bounced off a magic shield that fairy arts had placed in front of him. Weapons that no mortal hand had ever wielded in any of the world’s great battles were brought against him, but Monkey never lost his head. With wonderful courage he fended them off, and with one tremendous thrust he struck down a second demon.

Fear began to creep into the hearts of those that were left. Losing courage, they turned to the sly tricks that had never failed them against human beings, trying to lure Monkey into a spot where he would be sure to be destroyed. Three-pronged spears were flung at him with deadly aim, and if he had not leaped high into the air at that very instant, nothing on earth could have saved him.

That was the moment of his greatest triumph. Landing lightly while his enemies still had their backs to him, he struck down three more of them with the two-edged swords he held in each hand. The last demon was so terrified when he saw his comrades lying dead on the road that he ran for his life, and soon he was only a black dot shrinking away on the far horizon.

So ended the great battle in which Monkey won such a striking victory over the wild demons of the frozen North. Sam-Chaong came forward to look at the bodies of the fierce spirits who only a moment earlier had been fighting so desperately.

Now Sam-Chaong had by nature the gentlest heart toward every living thing, and as he looked a cloud of sadness came over his face and he sighed at the loss of life he had just seen. The demons had come to kill him, yet that did not put them beyond his sympathy. But to him life was always precious, whatever form it lived in. Life was Heaven’s special gift and could not be destroyed on purpose without committing a crime against the gods.

He became so lost in this thought, and his heart was so heavy, that he forgot altogether to thank the hero beside him, who had risked his life for him and without whose strength he would have fallen victim to these enemies of mankind. Resentment began to stir in Monkey when he saw that Sam-Chaong seemed to feel more pity for the dead demons than gratitude for the heroic fight that had saved him from a cruel death.

“Are you unhappy with the service I have done you today?” he asked sharply.

“My heart is deeply moved by what you have done for me,” said Sam-Chaong. “My only regret is that you could not save me without killing these poor wretched demons and robbing them of life, which is as dear to them as it is to you or me.”

Monkey, who had a fierce and hasty temper, could not stand such stingy praise. In angry, passionate words he declared that he would no longer serve such a cowardly master, who might be the Goddess’s favorite but was not a man he cared to risk his life for again.

With that he sprang into the air and flew away, on and on across countless leagues of endless sky, until he reached the edge of a vast ocean. He plunged into it as if it had always been his home and, following paths he seemed to know, made his way to the palace of the Dragon Prince of the Sea, who welcomed him most warmly and invited him to stay as his guest for as long as he liked.

For a while he amused himself with the many marvels hidden under the waters of the great ocean, which have a life and beauty all their own, perhaps stranger and more mysterious than anything people see on land. But in time he grew restless and unhappy with himself. The uncomfortable thought crept slowly into his heart that in a fit of temper he had shamefully abandoned Sam-Chaong and left him helpless in a strange, unknown country, and worse, that he had betrayed the trust the Goddess had placed in him. He began to realize, too, that though he had fled to the bottom of the sea he could never escape her power, and that whenever she wished she could shut him up again with one stern word in the mountain cave where he had eaten his heart out for five hundred years.

While he was in this repentant mood, his eye fell on a scroll hanging in one of the palace rooms. As he read the story written on it, his conscience stung him, and from that moment he was determined to hurry back to the post he had deserted.

The words on the scroll, written in gold, told how long ago the fairies had decided to help the fortunes of a young man named Chang-lung, whose noble conduct in everyday life had won their admiration. He came from a very poor family, and without help such as theirs he could never rise high enough in the state to serve his country. But first he had to be tested, to see whether he had the strength of character to bear the strain that greatness would bring. So one of the most experienced fairies was sent to try him.

Disguised as an old countryman in shabby, worn-out clothes, the fairy sat down on a bridge over a stream near the village where the gods’ favorite lived. By and by Chang-lung came walking briskly along. Just as he reached the old man, the fairy let one of his shoes drop into the water below and, looking very upset, begged the young man to wade in and fetch it. Smiling cheerfully, Chang-lung jumped straight into the stream. In a moment he was back with the shoe and was handing it to the old man, when the old man asked him to put it on his foot for him. This was a lowly service that most men would have scornfully refused, but Chang-lung, feeling sorry for the frail-looking stranger, knelt down at once and carefully fastened the dripping shoe onto his foot.

While he was doing so, the fairy cleverly let the other shoe slip off his foot, as if by accident, over the side of the bridge into the running water. Apologizing for his clumsiness, and blaming it on his age and his stiff old fingers, he begged Chang-lung to be kind enough to fetch the second shoe as well. As cheerfully as before, as though he were not being asked to do a servant’s work, Chang-lung stepped down into the shallow brook, brought back the shoe, and without a moment’s hesitation put it on the old man’s foot just as he had the first.

Now the fairy was entirely satisfied. He thanked Chang-lung for his kindness, took a book from one of the sleeves of his jacket and gave it to him, urging him to study it diligently, and then vanished. That meeting on the country bridge shaped Chang-lung’s whole future, for in time he rose to great heights and finally became Prime Minister of China.

As Monkey studied the golden words, he compared his own behavior with Chang-lung’s. Stung to the heart by the sense of his wrongdoing, he set off at once, without even saying goodbye to the Dragon Prince of the Sea, to go back to Sam-Chaong’s service. He was just coming up out of the ocean when whom should he find waiting for him on the yellow sand but the Goddess of Mercy herself. She had come all the way from her distant home to warn him of what would happen to him if he ever again failed in the duty she had given him, of leading Sam-Chaong to the Western Heaven.

Terrified of the dreadful fate that threatened him, and at the same time truly sorry for what he had done, Monkey leaped up high above the tallest mountains and flew with unbelievable speed until he stood beside Sam-Chaong once more.

No word of reproach came from Sam-Chaong’s lips as the runaway returned to his post. A tender, kindly smile was the only sign of displeasure he showed. “I am truly glad you have come back to me,” he said, “for I was lost without your guidance in this unknown world I am traveling through. But I may as well tell you that since you left, the Goddess appeared to me and comforted me with the promise that you would soon return to your duties and be my friend, as you have so nobly been. She was very troubled to see me so forlorn, and so determined that it should never happen again, that she kindly gave me a magic cap, made and embroidered by the fairy hands of the maidens in her own palace.

“‘Guard this well,’ she told me, ‘and treasure it like your life, for it will keep for you the service of one who was held prisoner for five hundred years so that he would be ready to escort you to the Western Heaven. He alone has the daring and the courage to face the enemies who will try to destroy you on your journey, but he is as full of passion as a raging storm. If he ever deserts you again, you need only put this cap on your head, and he will be gripped by such terrible, unbearable pains that even if he were a thousand miles away he would hurry back as fast as he could to beg you to take it off, so that the agony tearing at his body would stop.’”

After many more adventures, too long to tell, Sam-Chaong reached the shore of an enormous lake, many miles across, spanned by a bridge just one foot wide. Shaking with fear, as people tremble at the edge of eternity, often with terror in his eyes and his heart fluttering as he looked at the narrow footing beneath him, he at last crossed safely, and then found to his astonishment that the pulse of a new life had already begun to beat strongly inside him. Beyond a narrow strip of land on the far side of the lake ran a broad river, and on its bank waited a boat with a ferryman ready to row him across.

When they reached the middle of the stream, Sam-Chaong saw a man struggling in the water as if fighting for his life. Moved with pity, he begged the boatman to go to the man’s rescue and save him from drowning. But the boatman sternly told him to be quiet. “The figure you see there is you,” he said, “or rather the empty shell of your old self, in which you worked out your salvation in the world behind you. You could never use it in the new life you have now begun.”

On the far bank of the river stood the Goddess of Mercy, who welcomed him with a smile into the ranks of the fairies.

The narrator concludes that Sam-Chaong later reappeared on earth to help people in danger and brought back the new ritual prepared by the Goddess of Mercy. This is the legend’s explanation of a sacred service, rather than verified history of Buddhist ritual across Asia.

Where this tale comes from

“The Mysterious Buddhist Robe” is the fifth chapter of Chinese Folk-Lore Tales by the Rev. J. Macgowan (London: Macmillan, 1910). It opens just after the Emperor Li Shih-ming has returned from a short visit to the Land of Shadows, the underworld ruled by Yam-lo, and follows the priest Sam-Chaong from the Emperor’s great service for the dead all the way to the Western Heaven.

Macgowan’s storyteller weaves a second story into the first: the golden scroll in the Dragon Prince’s palace tells of the young Chang-lung, who twice fetches an old man’s shoe from a stream and is rewarded with a book that leads him to become Prime Minister. The monkey guide freed from his cave, the coercive cap, and the journey west connect this version with the pilgrim-monk-and-Monkey story tradition. Macgowan uses terms such as “fairies” and “Buddhist Church”; his literary presentation should not be treated as an account of every Buddhist community’s doctrine or ritual. In his specific version, Sam-Chaong wears the cap to cause Monkey pain, so that detail is retained here rather than replaced with a more familiar telling.

Read the original: Macgowan’s Chinese Folk-Lore Tales (Project Gutenberg)

For older readers: tormented souls, two attendants killed, supernatural combat, long imprisonment and threatened torture to compel service. The robe, resurrection beliefs and final river crossing are elements of this literary legend.

Reading the story closely

The robe is offered at an impossible price and then given freely once the right wearer is chosen, separating moral worth from purchasing power. Its protection is nevertheless personal: Sam-Chaong survives the goblins while his two attendants die. Set that episode beside his later insistence that even hostile demons’ lives matter. The narrative celebrates his mission but leaves other deaths along its route unresolved.

Monkey returns after reflecting on Chang-lung’s willing help, before he learns about the cap. His repentance and the threat of pain are therefore different means of securing cooperation. Compare the shoe story, the priest’s welcoming words and the cap’s promised punishment: does compelled service express the same humility as freely offered care? The tale also leaves a ritual puzzle. The court service is declared unable to release souls, yet Sam-Chaong’s later prayers free his host’s father before the new ritual is obtained. Readers can notice that tension without inventing a doctrinal explanation the text does not supply.

Talk about it

• Why do the two strange priests ask such an impossible price for the robe?
• Monkey saves Sam-Chaong’s life, yet the two quarrel. Who do you think was more in the right?
• What does Monkey learn from the story of Chang-lung and the old man’s shoes?

Related stories

• The Monk of the Yangtze-Kiang — Wilhelm’s telling of how a pilgrim monk was sent west for scriptures
• The Fairy Bonze — the chapter just before this one in Macgowan’s book
• Dschang Liang — another version of the young man who fetches an old man’s shoe from under a bridge