Going forward a long while, they came to the place of the Six Paths of Rebirth.

六道輪迴, liù dào lún huí, is the Six Paths of rebirth — the turning wheel every being re-enters according to what it has done. This is the cosmological centre of the tour.

There he saw beings mounting the clouds, robed in rosy cloud-capes; and others who had received the registers, with golden fish-tallies at their waists.

Two kinds of ascended soul, distinguished by their kit. 霞帔, xiá pèi, is a cape of rosy cloud, the uniform of an immortal. 受籙 is to have received the Daoist registers — the ordination documents that certify a priest, the sect's equivalent of holy orders — and 金魚 is the gold fish-shaped tally worn at the belt as a badge of rank. Even ascension comes with paperwork and a lanyard.

Monks and nuns, Daoists and laymen, running beasts and flying birds, sprites and goblins — all in a ceaseless stream rushed beneath the Wheel of Rebirth, each entering upon its own path.

魑魅魍魎, chī mèi wǎng liǎng, is a four-character phrase for the whole tribe of hill and marsh demons, and still the standard Chinese expression for a crowd of dubious characters. All four characters are built on the 鬼 radical, so the word looks like what it means before you have read it. 滔滔 is an unbroken flood. 都 is dōu.

The Tang king asked, 'What does this mean?'

The question that lets the magistrate deliver the doctrine.

The magistrate said, 'Your Majesty, of clear mind and discerning nature, must surely remember this and make it known to the people of the world of light:'

明心見性, "clear the mind and see your own nature," is a Chan Buddhist phrase for the moment of insight — the school's whole programme in four characters. And once again the emperor is told to remember and to publish: he is being briefed.

'This is called the Six Paths of Rebirth: those who do good ascend transformed onto the path of immortals; the wholly loyal rise reborn onto the noble path; the filial are reborn onto the path of blessings; the fair-dealing return to life onto the path of men; the accumulators of virtue are reborn onto the path of wealth; and the vicious sink down onto the path of ghosts.'

The Six Paths, moralised. 那 here is the pointing nà, "those who." 昇化 is to rise and be transformed. 行 is xíng, to practise; 盡忠 uses jìn. 還生 is huán shēng, to come back to life. Note how the scheme has been bent: the orthodox Buddhist six paths are gods, titans, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hell-beings. Here they have become immortals, high office, blessings, ordinary human life, wealth and ghosts — a ladder of Chinese social outcomes, with loyalty and filial duty as the entry requirements.