While master and disciple were still speaking, they had already reached the gate.

說著話 takes the unstressed zhe; 門首 is the gate-front.

Sanzang dismounted, and saw upon the gate three great characters — Shrine of Village and Soil — and so went in at the door.

里社祠 unpacks into two old institutions. The 里 was the village or ward of the old administrative geography — the smallest unit the state counted — and the 社 was the altar of the soil-god standing at its centre. The old man is about to gloss both of them himself. 那門上 is the pointing nà.

Inside there was an old man with a string of prayer-beads about his neck, who came to meet them with palms joined, calling: "Master, be seated."

數珠兒 shù zhū is a rosary — Sanskrit japamālā, the string of beads counted through during recitation, which is where the European rosary comes from too. 掛著 takes the unstressed zhe; 那裡邊 is the pointing nà. He greets them with the añjali, palms together, before a word is spoken.

Sanzang hastily returned the courtesy, went up into the hall, and did reverence before the holy image.

答禮 is to return a salutation. Punctilio is Sanzang's one unfailing competence and it never deserts him — not before a soil-god's image, and not before a Bodhisattva he has already missed.

The old man at once called a boy to bring tea.

童子 is the temple boy, the acolyte. After a day of dragons and Guardians, the rites of hospitality unfold in their proper order, and the ordinariness comes as a considerable relief.

Tea over, Sanzang asked the old man: "Why is this shrine called 'Village and Soil'?"

何為 is "for what reason", with 為 read wèi. It is a scholar's question — the monk wants to know what the name means — and it draws out the only piece of village ethnography in the chapter.

Said the old man: "Our poor district lies within the borders of the Western Fan land of Habi.

敝處 is "this humble place of mine". 西番, the "Western Fan", is a blanket term for the non-Chinese lands out beyond the frontier; 哈咇 Hābì is a transliterated place-name whose original nobody has convincingly identified, with 咇 read bì. The pilgrims are now outside the Tang world altogether, which is worth registering: everything from here on happens abroad.

Behind this shrine is a hamlet of households who, of one devout heart, raised this temple.

共發虔心 is "together sent forth a devout heart". This is no state foundation. It is a village shrine, put up by neighbours clubbing together.

'Village' means the land of a single hamlet; 'Soil' means the soil-god of a single community.

里者… 社者… is the classical glossing formula — "as for 里, it is…" — the exact frame a commentator uses when explaining a difficult word in a classic. A shrine-keeper on the far side of the frontier is defining his terms like a scholar, and doing it correctly.

At each season — the ploughing of spring, the weeding of summer, the reaping of autumn, the storing of winter —

Here is the only place in this entire chapter where the character 藏 is read cáng, to store away — everywhere else it is zàng, the second syllable of the monk's own name. 耕, 耘, 收, 藏: ploughing, weeding, reaping, storing, the canonical four turns of the farming year.

we make ready the three victims, with flowers and fruit, and come here to sacrifice to the soil, that the four seasons may be clear and auspicious, the five grains abundant, and the six beasts of the farm flourish."

三牲 are the three sacrificial victims — ox, sheep and pig; 五穀 the five grains; 六畜 liù chù the six domestic animals. The wish for 五穀豐登, grain in abundance, is still printed on red paper and pasted up at New Year across rural China. What is striking is the register: this is the wording of the imperial state sacrifice, spoken by the caretaker of a mud-walled shrine in a foreign country.

Hearing this, Sanzang nodded in praise: "Just so — 'three lǐ from home, and the customs of the village are other.'

Careful with 正是 here: it means simply "just so", and is not the storyteller's tag that elsewhere brings on verse. What follows is a proverb — 離家三里遠，別是一鄉風, "go three 里 from home and the customs are different" — and the monk has built it round the very 里 the old man has just defined for him. He has been listening closely.

Among the folk of my own country there is no such piety."

我那裡 is "where I come from", the pointing nà; 更無此善 is "there is not even this much goodness". The compliment is handsome and costs him something: the Tang emperor's sworn brother is telling a foreign villager that his own country has nothing to match this, at a shrine to a god that is not his.

The old man then asked: "And what is the master's own honoured native place?"

仙鄉, "immortal village", is the polite circumlocution for asking a stranger where he is from — roughly "and where might you hail from?" with a flourish on it.

Said Sanzang: "This poor monk is from the Great Tang land in the East, sent by imperial command to the Western Heaven, to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures.

奉旨意 is "in obedience to the imperial will". And here, from the one member of the party who cannot fight, is the plain self-introduction — who I am, where I am from, what I am here for — that Wukong could not bring himself to produce at the gorge, and for want of which a horse was eaten.

Passing by your precious district, and the sky growing late, I have come to your holy shrine expressly to beg lodging for one night. At daybreak we shall go on."

寶坊, "precious ward", is a courteous way of referring to another man's locality; 天色將晚 takes 將 as jiāng, "about to". 天光即行 is "at first light we go".

The old man was mightily pleased, said "Forgive my poor welcome" several times over, and called the boy again to set out a meal. When Sanzang had eaten, he gave thanks.

失迎 — "I failed to come out and meet you" — is the standing apology of a host caught unprepared, and it is entirely formulaic: he could not possibly have known they were coming. 十分歡喜 is delighted to the highest degree.