袈裟寶光 The Cassock's Jeweled Radiance
詩曰：诗曰：
逐句解 Line by line
This cassock — in idle times folded away, only for a holy occasion worn.
折 reads zhé in 折疊, to fold. The line states a pair — folded when idle, worn when a sage comes — and the next two lines take it up one half at a time. It is the same expanding structure the ritual-site poem used.
Folded away in idle times, wrapped in a thousand layers, yet it shines through like a rainbow;
The first half expanded, 折 again zhé. A thousand layers of wrapping and the rainbow still comes through: the thing glows even in storage.
worn for a holy occasion, it startles all the heavens and makes the spirits and demons afraid.
The second half expanded, and now the effect is fear rather than beauty — the heavens startle, the ghosts take fright. The garment is quietly being given the properties of a weapon.
Upon it are the wish-granting pearl, the mani pearl, the dust-repelling pearl, the wind-stilling pearl;
The 摩尼珠, maṇi jewel, is the wish-fulfilling gem of Buddhist lore. Each of the four named pearls confers a protection of its own: the wish, the dust, the wind, and the maṇi itself.
and there are red agate, purple coral, night-shining pearls, and sarira relics.
那 is the pointing nà; 舍利子 (shè lì zǐ, śarīra) are the relics left in the ash when a Buddha or saint is cremated — and here they are being sewn on like beads.
Stealing the moon's white glow, contending with the sun in redness.
偷月沁白 and 與日爭紅 set the jewels against the two great lights, stealing from one and contending with the other. The verbs are deliberately unequal: you may rob the moon, but the sun has to be fought.
Strand upon strand of immortal vapor fills the air; cluster upon cluster of auspicious light upholds the holy.
The statement-then-expansion move again: 條條仙氣 and 朵朵祥光, each to be picked up whole in the two lines that follow.
Strand upon strand of immortal vapor fills the air, shining clear through to the gate of heaven;
了 is the toneless aspect marker le. The immortal vapour is followed as far as 天關, the barrier-gate of heaven.
cluster upon cluster of auspicious light upholds the holy, casting its glow throughout the world.
了 again le, matching the line before character for character. Where the vapour went up to heaven's gate, the light goes out across the world: the poem has covered both directions.
It lights the mountains and streams, and startles the tigers and leopards;
The verse contracts to five characters a line for the last two effects. 驚虎豹 startles tigers and leopards with the same verb that startled the ghosts earlier: the cassock frightens whatever it is turned on, spirit or animal.
it shadows the sea-isles, and stirs the fish and dragons.
The matching contraction: sea for mountain, 魚龍 for 虎豹. Between them the two lines have covered land and water, which is how this poem signals that it has finished.
Along its edges, two bands of gold-wrought clasps; at its collar-fastening, a linked ring of white-jade cong.
A 琮 (cóng) is a jade tube, square without and round within, among the oldest ritual objects in China — pressed into service here as a collar-fastening.
The poem says:
The lead-in 詩曰 introduces the closing verse, which draws the moral of the whole display.
The Three Treasures, lofty and high, their Way to be revered; the Four Births and Six Ways, all fully weighed and judged.
The 三寶 are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. 四生六道 — the Four Births, from womb, egg, moisture and transformation, and the Six Ways of rebirth — between them account for every sentient thing there is. 盡 in 盡評論 is jìn, all, fully.
Clarifying the mind, it can nurture the Law of men and gods; seeing one's nature, it can transmit the lamp of wisdom.
明心 and 見性, clarify the mind and see one's own nature, is the core Chan formula for awakening. The 智慧燈, lamp of wisdom, is the light passed from master to disciple — a lamp lit from a lamp, which is how Chan describes its own succession.
Guarding the body, majestic as a golden world; body and mind made pure as ice in a jade vessel.
玉壺冰, ice in a jade pot, is a classic figure for flawless purity: a clear thing inside a clear thing, with nowhere to hide.
Ever since the Buddha ordained the cassock, through a myriad kalpas who would dare cut off the monkhood?
萬劫, a myriad kalpas, is Buddhist time on its largest scale. 斷僧, to cut off the monkhood, reads 斷 as duàn. The verse closes by making the cassock the emblem and the guarantee of the monastic order itself — and it does so with a question nobody in the hall can answer.
The rhapsody's second movement turns from making to effect, and above all to light. Studded with named pearls and relics — wish-granting, dust-repelling, wind-stilling — the cassock is imagined as a source of cosmic radiance whose glow reaches the gate of heaven, fills the world, and stirs the very beasts of mountain and sea.
The closing verse then lifts the whole description onto the doctrinal plane: the garment becomes the emblem of the Three Treasures and an instrument of awakening, clarifying the mind and transmitting the lamp of wisdom, and its final line — who would dare cut off the monkhood? — makes the cassock stand for the perpetuity of the Buddhist order itself. Ornament and doctrine are fused: the treasure's dazzle turns out to be an argument for the dignity and permanence of the Dharma.