The return from the west : A humanist tale
chapter Seven
Journey to the West, Chapter 99
She was driving back from Klang, the road long and unremarkable, after attending Hari Moyang at Pulau Carey. The ritual was over the community had dispersed. What remained was not a sense of mystery, but a quiet weight the kind that settles after witnessing how remembrance is carried without spectacle.
Hari Moyang marked the remembering of Moyang, the ancestors of the Mah Meri. Among them was Datuk Panglima Hitam, the Black Commander, honoured as a guardian who once stood watch, not as a god who could be summoned at will. On this first day, prayers were offered not to ask for intervention, but to acknowledge protection already given.
The Mah Meri did not ask their ancestors to intervene. There were no bargains, no appeals for protection. The prayers acknowledged what had already been given. Guardianship, once received, was not something to be endlessly claimed. It was something to be lived with. As the road stretched ahead, her thoughts returned to a name she had encountered more than once in different places: Datuk Panglima Hitam, the Black Commander.
A guardian remembered across traditions, appearing not as a hero of conquest, but as a figure of restraint. Someone who stood watch, and then stepped away. It struck her that guardians in many cultures shared this quality. They assist at the crossing, but they do not carry the traveller all the way. Protection has its limits, and those limits are deliberate.
Later, while revisiting the final chapters of Journey to the West, she would recognise the same pattern in the figure of the great turtle. By the time the priest and his three companions reached the final river, they believed the journey was complete. The scriptures were in their possession. The trials had been endured. Mountains crossed, demons subdued, kingdoms passed through. What remained, they thought, was only distance.
The river was wide and slow-moving, its surface dark and unreadable. No bridge spanned it. No boat waited at the shore. They stood in silence, uncertain whether this final obstacle was meant to test them or simply delay them. It was then that the great turtle surfaced. Its shell was vast enough to bear them all ancient, scarred, and patient. The priest stepped forward first. The Monkey followed, then the Pig, then the Friar. When they were settled, the turtle slid back into the water and began to move, steady and unhurried, carrying them across the current.
For a long while, none of them spoke. The opposite bank was still distant, but no longer unseen. The turtle did not falter. Its movement was sure, practiced, as though it had made this crossing countless times.
Halfway across, the turtle’s voice rose from the water calm, almost casual. “Priest,” it said, “did you remember my question?” The priest leaned forward, blinking, as though the river wind had stolen the words from his mind.
“Your question?” he repeated. The turtle’s voice did not harden, but it sharpened.
“When you went to fetch the scriptures, I asked you to speak to the Great Buddha on my behalf. I asked you how many years remain before I may cast off this shell and be reborn in human form. You promised you would ask. So tell me what was the answer?”
The priest’s hands tightened around the bundle of scriptures. His mouth opened, then closed. A pause. Then, quietly, he said, “I… forgot.” The river seemed to hold its breath. The turtle did not rage. It did not curse. It only became very still, as if something inside it had shut like a door.
“So,” it said at last. “You forgot.” The water around them darkened. The turtle shifted its massive body beneath their feet. Before any of them could speak, before the Monkey could jump to argue, before the Pig could protest, before the Friar could plead the turtle submerged.
The priest and his companions were thrown into the river. They fought the current, struggling to keep the scriptures dry, clutching them as they kicked and thrashed toward the shore. Some scrolls were soaked. Some characters blurred and ran.
When they finally crawled onto land, coughing and shivering, the turtle was gone. No explanation was offered. No apology made. No second crossing granted. They gathered themselves on the riverbank, the weight of what had happened settling slowly.
The journey, they realised, had not ended with arrival. Something had been lost in the crossing not enough to erase what they carried, but enough to change it forever. The scriptures were incomplete. And the river behind them moved on, silent as a witness.
This whole image of the turtle caught her attention.
In chapter 49, The Great White Turtle appears and ferries them across the Heaven-Reaching River. In Hindu mythology, the turtle appears as Kurma, an incarnation of Vishnu, during the churning of the Ocean of Milk. When Mount Mandara, used as the churning rod by gods and demons alike, began to sink beneath its own weight, Vishnu took the form of a giant turtle and supported the mountain on his back.
He did not direct the churning, nor did he claim its rewards. His role was limited and exact: to bear the weight long enough for transformation to take place. Kurma does not remain at the centre of the story. Once stability is achieved, he withdraws. The work of churning with all its consequences belongs to those who set it in motion.
The turtle appears across Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucian thought sometimes as myth, sometimes as metaphor, sometimes as cultural memory. In all three, it represents what moves slowly but endures: time, karma, and responsibility.
Across all three traditions, the turtle consistently represents something that outlasts human emotion:
• Taoism → time & balance
• Buddhism → karma & opportunity
• Confucianism → memory & duty
Different languages. Same core function.
So when Wu Cheng’en places a turtle at this moment in Journey to the West, he is drawing from a shared symbolic reservoir, not inventing meaning from scratch. The turtle had helped them before and asked Tripitaka to pose a question to the Buddha on its behalf. Tripitaka agreed but forgot.
They already crossed a river. Tripitaka already died symbolically. Yet they are thrown into the river again.
Why?
Because: Transformation is not a single event. Integration is repetitive. This second fall is not about enlightenment it is about carrying wisdom into action. When they are thrown into the river, chaos erupts. There is no meditation or chanting or serenity. Instead they scrambling, panic, urgency and teamwork.
And this is where wisdom is preserved. As she see it, Wisdom survives through effort, not perfection. Through action, not ideals. The disciples do not save everything perfectly. They save enough but one page is lost. This is not an accident. In her opinion, this is the last lesson of the entire epic.
The message is : complete knowledge is impossible. Perfect transmission is a myth. Something will always be missing. And that missing page is not a failure but an invitation. An invitation to: Think, interpret, question and live the teaching instead of reciting it.
The real scripture is no longer the text. It is the person who returns. And what the returning pilgrim does with the scriptures now matters more than what the scriptures say.
Knowledge carried but not lived remains inert. Wisdom begins only when the text is tested against the world against memory, responsibility, failure, and time. To turn knowledge into wisdom is not to preserve it perfectly, but to let it shape action, restraint, and choice.
The journey ends not with understanding, but with accountability.
And then she remembered something she once wrote in Shakti Sadhana, when someone asked her what the difference was between knowledge and wisdom.
She replied Knowledge is information without understanding. Or put simply knowledge without understanding is garbage. Knowledge with understanding is wisdom. Wisdom is when you use that understanding for the good of humanity and it becomes evil when the same knowledge is used as a weapon to hurt another.
She was driving back from Klang, the road long and unremarkable, after attending Hari Moyang at Pulau Carey. The ritual was over the community had dispersed. What remained was not a sense of mystery, but a quiet weight the kind that settles after witnessing how remembrance is carried without spectacle.
Hari Moyang marked the remembering of Moyang, the ancestors of the Mah Meri. Among them was Datuk Panglima Hitam, the Black Commander, honoured as a guardian who once stood watch, not as a god who could be summoned at will. On this first day, prayers were offered not to ask for intervention, but to acknowledge protection already given.
The Mah Meri did not ask their ancestors to intervene. There were no bargains, no appeals for protection. The prayers acknowledged what had already been given. Guardianship, once received, was not something to be endlessly claimed. It was something to be lived with. As the road stretched ahead, her thoughts returned to a name she had encountered more than once in different places: Datuk Panglima Hitam, the Black Commander.
A guardian remembered across traditions, appearing not as a hero of conquest, but as a figure of restraint. Someone who stood watch, and then stepped away. It struck her that guardians in many cultures shared this quality. They assist at the crossing, but they do not carry the traveller all the way. Protection has its limits, and those limits are deliberate.
Later, while revisiting the final chapters of Journey to the West, she would recognise the same pattern in the figure of the great turtle. By the time the priest and his three companions reached the final river, they believed the journey was complete. The scriptures were in their possession. The trials had been endured. Mountains crossed, demons subdued, kingdoms passed through. What remained, they thought, was only distance.
The river was wide and slow-moving, its surface dark and unreadable. No bridge spanned it. No boat waited at the shore. They stood in silence, uncertain whether this final obstacle was meant to test them or simply delay them. It was then that the great turtle surfaced. Its shell was vast enough to bear them all ancient, scarred, and patient. The priest stepped forward first. The Monkey followed, then the Pig, then the Friar. When they were settled, the turtle slid back into the water and began to move, steady and unhurried, carrying them across the current.
For a long while, none of them spoke. The opposite bank was still distant, but no longer unseen. The turtle did not falter. Its movement was sure, practiced, as though it had made this crossing countless times.
Halfway across, the turtle’s voice rose from the water calm, almost casual. “Priest,” it said, “did you remember my question?” The priest leaned forward, blinking, as though the river wind had stolen the words from his mind.
“Your question?” he repeated. The turtle’s voice did not harden, but it sharpened.
“When you went to fetch the scriptures, I asked you to speak to the Great Buddha on my behalf. I asked you how many years remain before I may cast off this shell and be reborn in human form. You promised you would ask. So tell me what was the answer?”
The priest’s hands tightened around the bundle of scriptures. His mouth opened, then closed. A pause. Then, quietly, he said, “I… forgot.” The river seemed to hold its breath. The turtle did not rage. It did not curse. It only became very still, as if something inside it had shut like a door.
“So,” it said at last. “You forgot.” The water around them darkened. The turtle shifted its massive body beneath their feet. Before any of them could speak, before the Monkey could jump to argue, before the Pig could protest, before the Friar could plead the turtle submerged.
The priest and his companions were thrown into the river. They fought the current, struggling to keep the scriptures dry, clutching them as they kicked and thrashed toward the shore. Some scrolls were soaked. Some characters blurred and ran.
When they finally crawled onto land, coughing and shivering, the turtle was gone. No explanation was offered. No apology made. No second crossing granted. They gathered themselves on the riverbank, the weight of what had happened settling slowly.
The journey, they realised, had not ended with arrival. Something had been lost in the crossing not enough to erase what they carried, but enough to change it forever. The scriptures were incomplete. And the river behind them moved on, silent as a witness.
This whole image of the turtle caught her attention.
In chapter 49, The Great White Turtle appears and ferries them across the Heaven-Reaching River. In Hindu mythology, the turtle appears as Kurma, an incarnation of Vishnu, during the churning of the Ocean of Milk. When Mount Mandara, used as the churning rod by gods and demons alike, began to sink beneath its own weight, Vishnu took the form of a giant turtle and supported the mountain on his back.
He did not direct the churning, nor did he claim its rewards. His role was limited and exact: to bear the weight long enough for transformation to take place. Kurma does not remain at the centre of the story. Once stability is achieved, he withdraws. The work of churning with all its consequences belongs to those who set it in motion.
The turtle appears across Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucian thought sometimes as myth, sometimes as metaphor, sometimes as cultural memory. In all three, it represents what moves slowly but endures: time, karma, and responsibility.
Across all three traditions, the turtle consistently represents something that outlasts human emotion:
• Taoism → time & balance
• Buddhism → karma & opportunity
• Confucianism → memory & duty
Different languages. Same core function.
So when Wu Cheng’en places a turtle at this moment in Journey to the West, he is drawing from a shared symbolic reservoir, not inventing meaning from scratch. The turtle had helped them before and asked Tripitaka to pose a question to the Buddha on its behalf. Tripitaka agreed but forgot.
They already crossed a river. Tripitaka already died symbolically. Yet they are thrown into the river again.
Why?
Because: Transformation is not a single event. Integration is repetitive. This second fall is not about enlightenment it is about carrying wisdom into action. When they are thrown into the river, chaos erupts. There is no meditation or chanting or serenity. Instead they scrambling, panic, urgency and teamwork.
And this is where wisdom is preserved. As she see it, Wisdom survives through effort, not perfection. Through action, not ideals. The disciples do not save everything perfectly. They save enough but one page is lost. This is not an accident. In her opinion, this is the last lesson of the entire epic.
The message is : complete knowledge is impossible. Perfect transmission is a myth. Something will always be missing. And that missing page is not a failure but an invitation. An invitation to: Think, interpret, question and live the teaching instead of reciting it.
The real scripture is no longer the text. It is the person who returns. And what the returning pilgrim does with the scriptures now matters more than what the scriptures say.
Knowledge carried but not lived remains inert. Wisdom begins only when the text is tested against the world against memory, responsibility, failure, and time. To turn knowledge into wisdom is not to preserve it perfectly, but to let it shape action, restraint, and choice.
The journey ends not with understanding, but with accountability.
And then she remembered something she once wrote in Shakti Sadhana, when someone asked her what the difference was between knowledge and wisdom.
She replied Knowledge is information without understanding. Or put simply knowledge without understanding is garbage. Knowledge with understanding is wisdom. Wisdom is when you use that understanding for the good of humanity and it becomes evil when the same knowledge is used as a weapon to hurt another.
