The personal attendants then went back into the inner quarters and reported, “Your Majesty, the Venerable Sun can take your pulses with hanging threads: he does not need to see Your Majesty's face.”

At this the king reflected, “In the three years we have been ill we have never tried this technique. Send him in.”

At once the courtiers in attendance announced, “His Majesty has consented to pulse-taking by the hanging threads. Send the Venerable Sun to the inner quarters at once to make his diagnosis.”

Monkey then entered the throne hall, where the Tang Priest met him with abuse: “Wretched ape! You will be the death of me!”

“My good master,” Monkey replied with a smile, “I'm bringing you credit. How can you say I'll be the death of you?”

“In all the years you've been with me,” Sanzang shouted, “I have never seen you cure a single person. You know nothing about the nature of drugs, and you have never studied medical books. How can you be so reckless and bring this disaster on us?”

“You don't realize, Master,” said Monkey with a smile, “that I do know the odd herbal remedy and can treat serious illnesses. I guarantee I can cure him. Even if the treatment kills him I'll only be guilty of manslaughter through medical incompetence. That's not a capital offence. What are you afraid of? There's nothing to worry about, nothing. You sit here and see what my pulse diagnosis is like.”

“How can you talk all this rubbish,” Sanzang asked, “when you have never read the Plain Questions, the Classic of Difficulties, the Pharmacopoeia and the Mysteries of the Pulses, or studied the commentaries to them? How could you possibly diagnose his pulses by hanging threads?”

“I've got golden threads on me that you've never seen,” Monkey replied, putting out his hand to pull three hairs from his tail, hold them in a bunch, call, “Change!” and turn them into three golden threads each twenty-four feet long to match the twenty-four periods of the solar year. Holding these in his hand he said to the Tang Priest, “These are golden threads, aren't they?”

“Stop talking, reverend gentleman,” said the eunuchs in attendance on the king. “Please come inside and make your diagnosis.” Taking his leave of the Tang Priest Monkey followed the attendants into the inner quarters to see his patient. Indeed:

The heart has a secret prescription that will save a country;

The hidden and wonderful spell gives eternal life.

If you do not know what illness was diagnosed or what medicines were used and wish to learn the truth listen to the explanation in the next installment.

The Heart's Master Prepares Medicine in the Night

The Monarch Discusses a Demon at the Banquet

The story tells how the Great Sage Sun went with the eunuchs in attendance on the king to the inner quarters of the palace and stood outside the doors of the royal bed-chamber. Handing the three golden threads to the eunuchs to take inside he gave them these instructions:

“Tell the queens and consorts of the inner palace or the eunuchs in personal attendance to fasten these threads to His Majesty's left wrist at the inch, the bar and the cubit, then pass them out of the window to me.” The eunuchs did as he said, asking the king to sit on his dragon bed while they fastened one end of the golden threads to the inch, the bar and the cubit and passed the other ends outside.

Monkey took these ends and first held the end of one between the thumb and the forefinger of his right hand and felt the pulse at the inch point. He held the next against his middle finger and felt the pulse at the bar, and then pressed his thumb against his third finger and felt the cubit pulse. Next he regulated his own breathing to examine the four functions, the five depressions, the seven exterior and eight interior symptoms, the nine tempers, the deep pulses within the floating ones and the floating ones within the deep ones. He thus determined the insufficiencies and excesses of the functioning of organs, then told the eunuchs to take the threads off the king's left wrist and fasten them to the same points on the right wrist. He felt the threads one by one with the fingers of his left hand.

With a shake he put the golden threads back on his body and shouted at the top of his voice, “Your Majesty, the inch pulse on your left wrist is strong and tense, the bar pulse is sluggish and tardy, and the cubit is hollow and deep. On your right wrist the inch is floating and slippery, the bar is slow and knotted, and the cubit is frequent and firm. The left inch being strong and tense means that you have an internal emptiness and pains in the heart. The left bar being sluggish and tardy shows that you sweat and that your muscles feel numb. The hollowness and depth of the cubit suggest red urine and bloody stools. The floating, slippery inch pulse on the right wrist shows internal accumulations and blocked channels. The bar being slow and knotted is from indigestion and retained drinking. The frequency and wiriness of the cubit shows a chronic opposition of irritable fullness and empty coldness. My diagnosis of Your Majesty's ailment is that you are suffering from alarm and worry. The condition is the one known as the 'pair of birds parted.'”

When the king heard this inside his chamber he was so delighted that his spirits revived and he shouted in reply, “You have understood my illness through your fingers. That is indeed my trouble. Please go out and fetch some medicine.”

Monkey walked slowly out of the inner palace, by when the eunuchs watching him had already given the news to everyone. When Monkey emerged a moment later the Tang Priest asked him how it had gone. “I made a diagnosis from his pulses,” Monkey said. “I now have to prepare the medicine for his condition.”

All the officials then came forward to ask, “Holy monk, reverend sir, what is the 'pair of birds parted' condition of which you spoke just now?”

“It's when a cock bird and a hen who were flying together are suddenly separated by a violent storm,” replied Monkey with a smile. “The hen misses the cock and the cock misses the hen. Isn't that 'a pair of birds parted?'“ At this the officials all cried out over and over again in admiration. “He really is a holy monk! He really is a divine doctor!”

“You have diagnosed the condition,” said one of the fellows of the Royal College of Medicine, “but what drugs will you use to treat it?”

“There's no need to stick to prescriptions,” said Monkey. “I'll choose the drugs when I see them.”

“According to the medical classic, “There are 808 varieties of medicine and 404 varieties of sickness,'“ said the fellows of the Royal College of Medicine. “How can it be right to use all the medicines when one person does not have all the ailments? You can't just choose your drugs on sight.”

To this Monkey replied, “The ancients said, 'In preparing medicines do not stick rigidly to the formulae; use them as appropriate.' That's why I've asked for the full range of pharmaceutical materials so that I can make adjustments as I need to.”

The fellows of the Royal College could say no more to this, but went out through the palace gates and sent those of the college's staff who were on duty to tell all the pharmacies in the city, whether selling raw materials or prepared drugs, to send three pounds of each to Monkey.

“This is no place for preparing medicine,” said Monkey. “All the medicines and a set of pharmacist's utensils must be sent to the Hostel of Meeting and handed over to my two fellow disciples.” The fellows did as they were told. Three pounds of each of the 808 ingredients of medicine together with pharmacist's rollers, hand-mills, sieves, mortars, bowls, pestles and the like were all sent to the hostel, handed over and received.