放下經卷 Put Down the Scrolls
長老捧幾卷登臺，方欲諷誦，忽聞得香風繚繞，半空中有八大金剛現身，高叫道：「誦經的放下經卷，跟我回西去也。」這底下行者三人連白馬，平地而起；長老亦將經卷丟下，也從臺上起於九霄，相隨騰空而去。慌得那太宗與多官望空下拜。长老捧几卷登台，方欲讽诵，忽闻得香风缭绕，半空中有八大金刚现身，高叫道：「诵经的放下经卷，跟我回西去也。」这底下行者三人连白马，平地而起；长老亦将经卷丢下，也从台上起于九霄，相随腾空而去。慌得那太宗与多官望空下拜。
逐句解 Line by line
The elder took up a few scrolls and mounted the platform, and was just about to chant when all at once he smelled a fragrant wind winding about him, and the eight great vajra-guardians showed themselves in mid-air and called down loudly: “You who are reciting the scriptures — put down the scrolls and come back west with us!”
方欲諷誦 — was just about to chant. He never does. In a hundred chapters nobody reads a word of the scriptures aloud, and the one time somebody is on the point of it, heaven interrupts. 聞得 — caught the scent. The second character is the light one, read de. And the fragrant wind is the chapter's own recurring sign: it carried them home twice already, and last chapter the same smell turned out to be a thief coming for the scriptures. 誦經的 — you who are reciting. That is how the guardians address the holy monk of the Tang court: by what he is doing at that moment. Last chapter they called him a runaway.
Down below, Monkey and the other two, with the white horse, rose straight up off the level ground;
平地而起 — rose from flat ground. No leap, no cloud summoned, no incantation. They simply go up. 連白馬 — the white horse along with them. It has been led, ridden, unloaded and treated as luggage for the whole chapter, and it leaves under its own power with the rest.
The elder too threw the scrolls down, and rose from the platform into the ninth heaven, and went up after them into the air.
丟下 — dropped, threw down. It is the same verb Pigsy used last chapter when he complained the guardians had dumped them halfway home. The Tang monk drops the scriptures on a platform in front of the emperor of China and the assembled civil service, and goes. 九霄, the ninth heaven, the topmost layer of sky. 相隨 — following along after; he goes up last, behind his disciples.
It threw Taizong and all his officers into such a fluster that they bowed down towards the sky.
慌得 — flustered into doing something. The same construction the novel used at the top of the chapter for the villagers coming down to an empty tower, and for the same reason: the pilgrims have gone without warning again. 望空下拜 — bowed down looking up at the empty air. An emperor on his knees in a courtyard, facing nothing. And the scrolls are lying on the platform where they were dropped.
He gets as far as picking the scrolls up. The platform is built, the court is assembled, the canon is in his hands and he is about to begin — and the guardians appear overhead and tell him to put them down.
Nobody reads the scriptures. Not in this chapter and not in the whole hundred. They are fetched, counted, listed, praised, copied and archived, and the single moment at which somebody is on the point of reading one aloud is the moment heaven interrupts to take the reader away.
And what the guardians call him is worth hearing. You who are reciting the scriptures — the guardians name him by the activity, not by his name or his title. Last chapter they called him a runaway. Neither time is he the holy monk of the Tang court.
So he throws the scrolls down — the same verb Pigsy used when he accused the guardians of dumping them halfway home — and goes up after his disciples, last of the four. The emperor of China ends the scene on his knees in a courtyard bowing at empty air, with the canon lying on the platform where it fell.