Taizong raised the cup and asked: 'What is the Imperial Brother's elegant style-name?'

甚 in 甚稱, what is it styled, is the question-word shén. A 雅號 is an elegant style-name, the literary sobriquet a gentleman took for himself.

Xuanzang said: 'Your poor monk is one who has left the household; I have not presumed to take a style-name.'

出家人, one who has left the household, is the ordinary word for a monk — and it is his entire answer. A man who has left the household does not go about under a gentleman's style-name.

Taizong said: 'The Bodhisattva said just now that in the Western Heaven there are scriptures in Three Baskets. The Imperial Brother might take his name from the scriptures — what if you were styled "Tripitaka"?'

Both occurrences of 藏 in 三藏, the Three Baskets or Tripiṭaka, are zàng — the reading first set out when the Greater Vehicle was named. The emperor now hangs a man's name on it. From this line to the end of the novel Xuanzang is Sanzang, Tripitaka: called after books he has not yet fetched.

Xuanzang thanked him again, and taking the imperial wine said: 'Your Majesty, wine is the very first prohibition of the monk's house; since I became a man, I have never drunk wine.'

為 in 自為人, since I became a man, is wéi. Drink is the first of the monastic prohibitions, and he says so before he says no.

Taizong said: 'Today's journey is unlike other matters; this is but a plain wine — drink only this one cup, to fulfill my wish to speed you on your way.'

素酒, plain wine, is understood as something unfermented or weak enough for a monk to take — 素 being the same character as in the meatless feast earlier in the chapter. 盡 in 以盡 … 之意 is jìn. The emperor is not overruling the precept so much as arguing round it.

Tripitaka dared not refuse; he took the wine and was just about to drink, when he saw Taizong bend down, pinch up a bit of dust with his imperial fingers, and flick it into the cup.

藏 in 三藏 is zàng; 將 in 將御指 is the disposal jiāng. The Son of Heaven bends down in front of his whole court and picks up a pinch of dirt. Nobody is told why, least of all the man holding the cup.

Tripitaka did not understand his meaning, and Taizong smiled and said: 'Imperial Brother — this journey to the Western Heaven, when will you return?'

藏 in 三藏 is zàng. He does not explain the dust. He asks a question instead, and smiles.

Tripitaka said: 'In but three years I shall come straight back to the high land.'

藏 in 三藏 is zàng. Three years, he says, and says it quite certainly. The journey takes fourteen.

Taizong said: 'The days will be long and the years deep, the mountains far and the road distant. Let the Imperial Brother drink this wine, and: better to cherish one pinch of your native soil than to love ten thousand taels of another land's gold.'

寧戀本鄉一捻土，莫愛他鄉萬兩金 — better to cherish one pinch of your own soil than to love ten thousand taels of another land's gold. It is among the most quoted lines in the novel, and the dust in the cup was its wordless half, delivered before the words. Spoken as a proverb inside a character's speech, it is set here as prose rather than as cited verse.

Then Tripitaka grasped the meaning of the pinched dust, and thanking him again, drank the cup dry, took his leave, and went out beyond the barrier. The Tang king's carriage returned.

藏 in 三藏 is zàng; 盡 in 飲盡, drank it dry, is jìn. He understands, drinks the dirt down with the wine, and goes out through the barrier. The pilgrimage starts here.