THE CHINESE FAIR Y BOOK-中国民间故事-英文

Buddha answered with a smile: “Let us make a wager. If you can so much as leave my hand with one of your somersaults, then I will beg the Lord of the Heavens to make way for you. But if you are not able to leave my hand, then you must yield yourself to my fetters.” Sun Wu Kung suppressed his laughter, for he thought: “This Buddha is a crazy fellow! His hand is not a foot long; how could I help but leap out of it?” So he opened his mouth wide and said: “Agreed!” Buddha then stretched out his right hand. It resembled a small lotus-leaf. Sun Wu Kung leaped up into it with one bound. Then he said: “Go!” And with that he turned one somersault after another, so that he flew along like a whirlwind. And while he was flying along he saw five tall, reddish columns towering to the skies. Then he thought: “That is the end of the world! Now I will turn back and become Lord of the Heavens. But first I will write down my name to prove that I was there.” He pulled out a hair, turned it into a brush, and wrote with great letters on the middle column: “The Great Saint Who Is Heaven’s Equal.” Then he turned his somersaults again until he had reached the place whence he had come. He leaped down from the Buddha’s hand laughing and cried: “Now hurry, and see to it that the Lord of the Heavens clears his heavenly castle for me! I have been at the end of the world and have left a sign there!” Buddha scolded: “Infamous ape! How dare you claim that you have left my hand? Take a look and see whether or not ‘The Great Saint Who Is Heaven’s Equal,’ is written on my middle finger!”