金蟬轉世 The Golden Cicada Reborn: Xuanzang's Origins
次日三位朝臣，聚眾僧，在那山川壇裡，逐一從頭查選，內中選得一名有德行的高僧。你道他是誰人？次日三位朝臣，聚众僧，在那山川坛里，逐一从头查选，内中选得一名有德行的高僧。你道他是谁人？
逐句解 Line by line
The next day the three court ministers gathered the assembled monks in the Altar of Mountains and Streams, and reviewed them one by one from the beginning, choosing out from among them a single eminent monk of true virtue and conduct.
山川壇 ('the Altar of Mountains and Streams') is an altar to the nature-spirits, here the site of the selection. 那 in 那山川壇 is the demonstrative nà; 得 in 選得 ('to select and obtain') is the resultative de.
And who, do you ask, was he?
The storyteller's direct address to the audience, 你道他是誰人 ('who, do you ask, was he?'), is the citation formula that ushers in the origin verse.
Numinous and penetrating, his true name was the Golden Cicada; only because, careless of heart, he let slip the Buddha's lecture,
金蟬 (the Golden Cicada) is Xuanzang's prior incarnation — a disciple of the Buddha demoted to mortal rebirth for inattention at a sermon. This verse is the chapter's key mythological anchor, and in the 世德堂 recension it is the principal place where Xuanzang's origins are given (the long Chen Guangrui prose narrative being absent from the main sequence, as flagged at Chapter 9). 為 in 只為 ('only because') is wèi.
he was cast into the dusty mortal world to suffer its grinding, and born into the common age to meet its snares and nets.
轉托塵凡 ('cast into the world of dust') and 遭羅網 ('to meet snares and nets') describe the fall into saṃsāra. 降 in 降生 ('to be born, to descend into life') is jiàng.
Falling to earth in the womb, he met with violence at once; before ever he was born, he faced a wicked band.
The lines compress the perils surrounding Xuanzang's birth: his father murdered and his mother seized before the child was even born.
His father was Chen, the Top Graduate of Haizhou; his mother's father, a Commander, was a chief of the reigning court.
陳狀元 is Chen Guangrui, first-place graduate of the palace examination; the maternal grandfather is Yin Kaishan, a 總管 (Area Commander). 朝 in 當朝 is cháo, and 長 in 當朝長 ('chief of the court') is zhǎng.
At birth his fate fell under the star of the drowned river; on the current, amid the waves, he drifted in the swelling flood.
落江星 ('the star of falling into the river') names the ill-omened horoscope under which the infant was set adrift — the origin of his childhood name, Jiangliu, 'River Current.'
On the island of Gold Mountain lay a great affinity; the monk Qian'an took him in and reared him.
金山 is the island monastery of Gold Mountain, where the abandoned infant was found and raised. The 世德堂 names the monk 遷安 (Qian'an); the more familiar tradition calls him Faming. 將 in 將他養 is the disposal jiāng.
When just eighteen he knew his own mother again, and hastened to the capital to seek his mother's elder kin.
都 in 京都 ('the capital') is dū; 長 in 外長 ('the mother's senior kinsman') is zhǎng.
The Commander Kaishan mustered a great army, and at Hongzhou put down the brigands and slew the wicked band.
開山 is Yin Kaishan, avenging his son-in-law by campaigning against the bandit who had murdered him. 調 in 調大軍 ('to muster troops') is diào.
The Top Graduate Guangrui escaped the net of heaven; father and son met once more, a thing to be praised and prized.
光蕊 is Chen Guangrui, miraculously restored to life. 子 in 子父 ('son and father') is the noun zǐ; 相 in 相逢 ('to meet one another') is xiāng.
Once more he paid court to the reigning sovereign and received his grace; on the Lingyan Tower his worthy name resounded.
凌煙閣 (the Lingyan Pavilion) is the tower where the Tang hung portraits of its most meritorious officials — here a mark of Chen Guangrui's restored honor.
The office of favor he would not take, wishing to become a monk; at Hongfu Temple, a śramaṇa, he went seeking the Way.
Xuanzang declines worldly office to take orders. 為 in 願為僧 ('wished to become a monk') is wéi; 將 in 將道訪 is the disposal jiāng; 沙門 (shā mén) is a Buddhist ascetic.
His childhood name was Jiangliu, the ancient Buddha's child; his dharma-name was called Chen Xuanzang.
The couplet names him at last. 古佛兒 ('the ancient Buddha's child') carries the diminutive 兒, read er; 奘 in 玄奘 is read zàng.
The origin verse is the mythological keystone of the whole novel, and the chapter places it here with deliberate weight. In twelve tight couplets it establishes Xuanzang's double identity — the Golden Cicada, a disciple of the Buddha cast down to mortal rebirth for a lapse of attention — and races through the melodrama of his earthly beginnings: the murdered father, the seized mother, the infant set adrift on the river, the rescue at Gold Mountain, the revenge and reunion, and at last the young man's renunciation of office for the monastic Way. In the 世德堂 recension this compressed verse is essentially the only place the Chen Guangrui / Jiangliu story is told, the long prose interpolation of that tale being absent from the main sequence (as noted at Chapter 9). To read the couplets is thus to receive, in shorthand, the entire back-story of the pilgrim on whom the rest of the book depends.