202 CAVES OF THE THOUSAND BUDDHAS CH. XII
years for this cherished pious object he had spent next to nothing on himself and his two humble acolytes.
I need not tell here the whole story of our lengthy struggle with his objections, conscientious and otherwise. Wang Taoshih's ignorance of all that constitutes traditional Chinese learning would have made it useless to talk to him about my scholarly interests. But there was fortunately other help to fall back upon—the memory of the great Chinese pilgrim Hsüan-tsang. And to this our success in the end was largely due, apart from Chiang Ssû-yeh's tactful diplomacy. Already the fact of my well-known attachment to the memory of the saintly traveller had been helpful; for curiously enough the Tao-shih, though poorly versed in, and indifferent to, things Buddhist, was quite as ardent an admirer in his own way of Tang-sên', `the great monk of the Tang period', as Hsüan-tsang is popularly known, as I am in another.
There was visible proof of the priest's devotion to the great pilgrim's memory in the pictures with which he had caused the new loggia facing the cave temple to be decorated. They illustrated quaintly enough those fantastic legends which have transformed my Chinese patron saint in popular Chinese belief into a kind of Münchhausen. It is true they are not to be found in the genuine Memoirs and biography of Hsüan-tsang. But why should this little difference matter? The priest was obviously impressed by what in my poor Chinese I could tell him of my own devotion to the great pilgrim, and how I had followed his footsteps from India across inhospitable mountains and deserts.
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