Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 1-2 | Page 50

The Encounter with Ksher-Rakshasa
St Margaret's Co-educational English Secondary & Primary School, Nair, Aditya - 8
X
uanzang, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing were making their way towards the eastern
part of India in search of the Markandeya-samvada, the Buddhist sutras of good living. During the
previous night, the demoness Vishakanya dressed up as a celestial beauty and distracted Zhu Bajie
from following the right path, and she misled them to an extremely dangerous forest called Sundarbans
which was full of man-eating demons.
As the sun dawned, Xuanzang and Sun Wukong realised the trickery and noted the immediate danger that
lay ahead of them. As they were slowly trudging across the densest part of Sundarbans next to a fast flowing
river, they came across an old tiger who was lying on the side of the trail with his tail blocking their path. As
they were about to walk over the tail, the tiger in a frail voice said, “You cannot walk over this poor tiger’s
tail. It will bring you bad luck. You will need to answer this riddle to move my tail: My friend lies on this
path who can be smaller than the smallest and bigger than the biggest. Who is he?”
While Xuanzang was thinking of the answer, Sun Wukong realized that the tiger was none other than the
feared demon Ksher-rakshasa. Sun Wukong also knew that answering the riddle would not be enough to
pass this task, so he whispered something into the ear of Sha Wujing. Xuanzang spoke politely, “Dear old
tiger, your friend is your own shadow. An ant’s shadow can be smaller than the ant and an elephant’s
shadow can be bigger than the elephant. Would you ple