頂上金字 The Golden Seal on the Summit
三藏聞言，滿心歡喜道：「你雖有此善心，又蒙菩薩教誨，願入沙門，只是我又沒斧鑿，如何救得你出？」那猴道：「不用斧鑿，你但肯救我，我自出來也。」三藏道：「我自救你，你怎得出來？」那猴道：「這山頂上有我佛如來的金字壓帖，你只上山去將帖兒揭起，我就出來了。」三藏依言，回頭央浼劉伯欽道：「太保啊，我與你上山走一遭。」伯欽道：「不知真假何如？」那猴高叫道：「是真，決不敢虛謬。」三藏闻言，满心欢喜道：「你虽有此善心，又蒙菩萨教诲，愿入沙门，只是我又没斧凿，如何救得你出？」那猴道：「不用斧凿，你但肯救我，我自出来也。」三藏道：「我自救你，你怎得出来？」那猴道：「这山顶上有我佛如来的金字压帖，你只上山去将帖儿揭起，我就出来了。」三藏依言，回头央浼刘伯钦道：「太保啊，我与你上山走一遭。」伯钦道：「不知真假何如？」那猴高叫道：「是真，决不敢虚谬。」
逐句解 Line by line
Hearing this, Sanzang was filled with joy and said, "Though you have so good a heart, and have received the Bodhisattva's instruction, and are willing to enter the gate of religion — still, I have neither axe nor chisel. How am I to free you?"
Sanzang's delight lasts about one sentence before his literal mind catches up: he believes the monkey, and cannot see how to get him out. 沙門 (shā mén) comes from the Sanskrit śramaṇa and stands for the Buddhist order — to 'enter 沙門' is to become a monk. 斧鑿, axe and chisel, are the tools he does not have.
The monkey said, "No axe or chisel is needed. Only be willing to save me, and I shall come out of myself."
The answer shifts the whole problem from force to willingness. No tool can free him; only the monk's consent can. It is the first hint that this rescue runs on destiny rather than labour.
Sanzang said, "I am willing to save you — but how will you get out?"
得 heads its own clause in 怎得出來 and so takes dé — the reading this whole family of question-plus-得 keeps right across the corpus: 怎生得, 怎麼得, 如何得. The chapter has one more, 怎麼得出來的, handled the same way. 自 here is 'for my own part, willingly', answering the monkey's 但肯救我 in the line before.
The monkey said, "On the summit of this mountain there is a golden-lettered seal set by my Buddha, the Tathāgata. Only go up and peel the strip away, and I shall come out at once."
壓帖 (yā tiě) is the seal-strip the Buddha pasted down to hold the mountain fast — the golden-lettered slip we are about to see. 如來 (rú lái) is the Chinese for the Sanskrit Tathāgata, the Thus-Come One, a title of the Buddha. 將 here works like 把, marking what the verb acts on, and is read jiāng.
Sanzang did as he was told, and turning back he entreated Liu Boqin: "Guardian, let me climb the mountain with you a while."
Unable to do anything alone, Sanzang recruits the hunter for the climb. 央浼 (yāng měi) is to entreat, to beg a favour of someone.
Boqin said, "I cannot tell whether this is true or false." The monkey cried aloud, "It is true — I would never dare to deceive you!"
Boqin's doubt is the reader's: is this thing to be trusted? The monkey's emphatic 決不敢虛謬 — I would never dare deceive you — is aimed squarely at that hesitation.
The exchange settles the practical question of the rescue and, in settling it, changes its character. Sanzang, literal to a fault, worries about axe and chisel; the monkey tells him no tool will do it — only his willingness, and the peeling away of the Buddha's seal. The release is being set up as an act of faith and fate rather than of engineering.
The 壓帖 on the summit, a slip of paper with golden letters, is the visible sign of the Buddha's authority. The Buddha imprisoned Wukong and the Buddha's word holds him; only that word, lifted, can let him go. The next passage climbs up to it and reads out its six characters.
Boqin's flat 'true or false?' is a natural wariness of a ragged talking creature in a hole, and the monkey's vehement denial does the work of reassurance. It is a small drama of trust, and it prepares the moment when a timid monk will put his hand on the Buddha's own seal.