Now Sanzang, on the third day before the full moon of the ninth month in the thirteenth year of the Zhenguan reign, had been seen out beyond the passes of Chang'an by the Tang king and his many officers. For a day or two his horse never stayed its hooves, and he came early to the Temple of the Dharma Gate. The abbot of the upper hall, at the head of more than five hundred monks, drew up his community in two ranks, received him within, and after the exchange of greetings offered tea. When the tea was done they went in to the vegetarian meal; and when the meal was over, evening had come before they knew it. It was just like this:

The story proper begins with a date, and the precision is deliberate — it lends a fantastical journey the air of a record. 貞觀十三年 is the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, the reign-period of Emperor Taizong, around 639 CE. 望 (wàng) is the full moon, the fifteenth of the lunar month, so "three days before 望" puts the departure near the twelfth. 法門寺 is a real place: Famen Temple, west of Chang'an, which held a finger-bone relic of the Buddha and still stands. 齋 (zhāi) is the monastic vegetarian meal — a word worth holding on to, because it will cause Xuanzang some trouble later in this chapter. 正是那, "it was just like this," is the storyteller clearing his throat before verse.

Shadows stir, and the River of Stars draws near; the moon shines bright, without a single mote of dust.

星河 (xīng hé), the "Star River," is the Milky Way. The couplet is doing the work of a establishing shot: a temple at rest under a sky with nothing in it.

Wild geese cry out against the far sky; the note of the fulling-block sounds from the neighbour to the west.

遠漢 (yuǎn hàn), the "far Han," is the night sky again — the Milky Way was also called the River Han. 砧 (zhēn) is the block of stone women pounded cloth on to soften it, autumn work done in the evening. In classical verse that sound is shorthand for the season and for missing somebody; a Chinese reader hears it the way an English one hears church bells at dusk.

Homing birds roost in the withered trees; the Chan monks expound the Brahmā-sounds.

梵音 (fàn yīn), the "Brahmā-sounds," is the deep resonant voice of Buddhist chanting — the sound of the teaching itself, not merely of someone reciting it.

On the rush cushion, upon a single couch, he sits until the night is about to divide.

蒲團 (pú tuán) is the round woven rush mat a monk sits on to meditate. 夜將分 — the night "about to divide," 將 being jiāng, "on the point of" — means the small hours, when the night-watches change over. He sits through the whole of it.