合一藏也 It Makes One Full Basket
此經有三十五部，各部中檢了幾卷傳來，共計五千零四十八卷。此數蓋合一藏也。」此经有三十五部，各部中检了几卷传来，共计五千零四十八卷。此数盖合一藏也。」
逐句解 Line by line
“These scriptures are in thirty-five collections, and some scrolls were picked out of each collection and handed over — five thousand and forty-eight scrolls in all.”
⚠ 檢了幾卷 — picked out a few scrolls. Not the whole canon: a selection. The reader has just spent a chapter watching the pilgrims fight for the complete truth, and what they are carrying is an anthology. 五千零四十八卷, five thousand and forty-eight. The number the last two chapters turn on. Fourteen years is five thousand and forty days; the arithmetic that dropped four men into a river existed to make those two figures agree.
“And that count makes one full basket.”
⚠ 一藏 — one zàng, one basket or repository of scripture. Its second character is read zàng, and it is the same character as the second in the Tang monk's own name: the emperor called him Sanzang, Three Baskets, after the three divisions of the canon. He has just come home carrying one of them. ⚠ And the number in front of it moves with it. 一 shifts its tone according to what follows, so ruling this character from level to falling drags the yī in front of it to yí. The pair have to be set together or the reading in front goes stale. 蓋 — for indeed. A little classical flourish to close a very long speech.
The speech ends on the figure. Thirty-five collections, a selection out of each, five thousand and forty-eight scrolls — and that, he says, makes one full basket.
⚠ The word he uses is his own name. Taizong titled him Sanzang, Three Baskets, before he left, after the three divisions of the Buddhist canon. He has walked to India and back and come home with one of the three.
⚠ And it is worth noticing what he does not say. He does not say the canon is complete. He says some scrolls were picked out of each collection. After a hundred chapters, what arrives in Chang'an is a selection — which is exactly the thought Monkey will offer the reader later on, that a perfect scripture would not have fitted the world it was carried into.