A Core Ship From The Start

Watching Guanyin silently leaving, Duanmu Huai sneered without a word. His previous question to Guanyin, "What is the True Scripture?", was not merely to antagonize her, but a genuine inquiry into what the True Scripture actually is.

Actually, speaking of this True Scripture, it’s quite strange when mentioned.

In "Journey to the West", it is recorded that at the Ullambana Festival, all Bodhisattvas gathered, and then Tathagata Buddha, pleased, said something about evaluating the four continents before adding, "I have the Tripitaka True Scriptures, which can persuade people to do good."

Then guess what the Bodhisattvas’ reaction was?

Upon hearing it, the Bodhisattvas all clasped their hands in devotion and asked Buddha, "What are these Tripitaka True Scriptures?"

Meaning, after hearing it, the first reaction of the Bodhisattvas was, "What Tripitaka True Scriptures, we’ve never heard about them, what are you talking about?"

This just makes it weird, they have all attained Bodhisattvahood and yet they don’t know what True Scripture you are talking about; where did this True Scripture come from then?

Plainly speaking, it’s just something Tathagata wrote.

It’s like a bunch of people attending a banquet, where someone, intoxicated, begins proclaiming they’ve written a book that can liberate one from suffering and lead them straight to bliss -- You say you wrote the ’He-Man Scripture’, I might even believe you. If the Tribunal were here, just for this statement, they’d slap a bomb gun right onto your face as if you were some Evil God Cultist.

So, frankly speaking, the entire "Journey to the West" seems more like Tathagata advertising a book he wrote for himself, with Monk Tang being a human billboard.

Look, wherever he goes, he says, "This humble monk comes from the Eastern Tang Dynasty, heading to the Western Paradise to retrieve the scriptures." This piques people’s curiosity about what scriptures he is referring to. On looking, oh, it’s the True Scripture written by Tathagata.