The Tower of Myriad Mirrors

by Tung, Yueh; Lin, Shuen-Fu; Schulz, Larry James; Wu, Cheng-En; Dong, Yue

• ISBN13: 9780892641420
• ISBN10: 0892641428
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Center for chinese

Summary

China's most outrageous character--the magical Monkey who battles a hundred monsters--returns to the fray in this seventeenth-century sequel to the Buddhist novelJourney to the West. InThe Tower of Myriad Mirrors, he defends his claim to enlightenment against a villain who induces hallucinations that take Monkey into the past, to heaven and hell, and even through a sex change. The villain turns out to be the personification of his own desires, aroused by his penetration of a female adversary's body inJourney to the West. In this, his only novel, author Tung Yueh (1620-1686), a monk and Confucian scholar, picks up the slapstick of the original tale and overlays it with Buddhist theory and bitter satire of the Ming government's capitulation to the Manchus. After a nod toJourney's storyteller format, Tung carries Monkey's quest into an evocation of shifting psychological states rarely found in premodern fiction. An important though relatively unknown link in the development of the Chinese novel and window into late Ming intellectual history,The Tower of Myriad Mirrorsfurther rewards by being a wonderful read. Shuen-fu Lin is Professor of Chinese literature at the University of Michigan. Larry Schulz holds a Ph.D. in Chinese intellectual history from Princeton University and has published his dissertation, "Lai Chih-te and the Phenomenology of Change," and articles on traditional Chinese medicine. He is currently a senior officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(14)
As the Peonies Glow Red, the Ch'ing Fish Breathes Out Its Spell; Issuing an Elegy for the Wrongly Killed, the Great Sage Tarries.	15	(8)
A New T'ang Dynasty Appears on the Western Road; The Glorious Emperor Rests in the Green Jade Palace.	23	(8)
Hsuan-tsang Is To Be Commissioned and Given a Peach Flower Battle-Axe; The Mind-Monkey Is Startled by the Axes of Sky Gougers.	31	(6)
A Crack Reveals a Myriad of Bewildering Mirrors; Where the Shapes of Things Appear, Their Original Form Is Lost.	37	(6)
Through the Cast Bronze Mirror the Mind-Monkey Enters the Past; In Green Pearl's Tower the Wayward Disciple Knits His Brows.	43	(8)
For a Face Half Covered with Tears, the True Beauty Dies; At the Mention of P'ing-hsiang, the General of Ch'u Is Grieved.	51	(6)
Four Drumbeats Between Ch'in and Ch'u; Beautiful Ladies, True and False, Appear in the Same Mirror.	57	(8)
In the World of the Future, Monkey Exterminates the Six Thieves; As Yama, for Half a Day Monkey Judges Good and Evil.	65	(6)
How Ch'in Kuei, Even with a Hundred Bodies, Could Not Redeem Himself; The Great Sage Wholeheartedly Takes Refuge in Yueh Fei.	71	(12)
Monkey Returns to the Tower of Myraid Mirrors; In the Palace of Creeping Vines Wu-k'ung Saves Himself.	83	(6)
Reading Accounts Before the Palace of the Hexagram of Limitation; Collecting Hairs on the Crest of the Hill of Grief.	89	(6)
In the Palace of Crying Ospreys, the Tears of the T'ang Priest Fall; A Young Girl Plucks the P'i-p'a and Sings a Tale.	95	(12)
Monkey Meets an Old Man in Green Bamboo Cave; By the Reed Flowers Monkey Seeks the Emperor of Ch'in.	107	(8)
Young Lord T'ang Accepts an Order to Lead the Troops; Lady Green-twine Becomes a Broken Jade by the Pool.	115	(4)
The T'ang Priest Musters His Troops Under the Midnight Moon; The Great Sage's Spirit Falters Before the Banners of Five Colors.	119	(8)
The Elder of the Void Rouses Monkey from His Dream; When the Great Sage Retuns, the Sun Is Half Hidden in the Mountains.	127	(6)
Appendix Tung Yueh's Answers to Questions on The Tower of Myriad Mirrors	133	(4)
Chinese Names & Terms	137