有眼無珠 Eyes without Pupils
其間有兩個膽量大的和尚道：「老爺，你們在禪堂裡已燒死了，如今又來討袈裟，端的還是人，是鬼？」行者笑道：「這夥孽畜，那裡有甚麼火來？你去前面看看禪堂，再來說話。」眾僧們爬起來往前觀看，那禪堂外面的門窗槅扇，更不曾燎灼了半分。眾人悚懼，才認得三藏是種神僧，行者是尊護法。一齊上前叩頭道：「我等有眼無珠，不識真人下界。你的袈裟在後面方丈中老師祖處哩。」三藏行過了三五層敗壁破牆，嗟嘆不已。只見方丈果然無火，眾僧搶入裡面，叫道：「公公，唐僧乃是神人，未曾燒死，如今反害了自己家當。趁早拿出袈裟，還他去也。」其间有两个胆量大的和尚道：「老爷，你们在禅堂里已烧死了，如今又来讨袈裟，端的还是人，是鬼？」行者笑道：「这伙孽畜，那里有甚么火来？你去前面看看禅堂，再来说话。」众僧们爬起来往前观看，那禅堂外面的门窗槅扇，更不曾燎灼了半分。众人悚惧，才认得三藏是种神僧，行者是尊护法。一齐上前叩头道：「我等有眼无珠，不识真人下界。你的袈裟在后面方丈中老师祖处哩。」三藏行过了三五层败壁破墙，嗟叹不已。只见方丈果然无火，众僧抢入里面，叫道：「公公，唐僧乃是神人，未曾烧死，如今反害了自己家当。趁早拿出袈裟，还他去也。」
逐句解 Line by line
Among them were two monks of bolder spirit, who said, "Your Worship, you were burned to death in the meditation hall.
膽量大的, "the large of gall" — courage, in Chinese physiology, is seated in the gall-bladder; 量 is liàng, the noun. Only two of two hundred and thirty are brave enough to address the thing they take for a ghost.
"Now you come again to ask for the cassock. Are you truly a man, or a ghost?"
端的 ("truly, in fact") takes duān dì. 還是人，是鬼？ — 還 is hái. It is a perfectly reasonable question, and it is the wrong one.
The Pilgrim laughed. "You pack of sinful brutes! Where has there been any fire? Go and look at the meditation hall in front, and then come back and talk."
孽畜, "sin-beasts," creatures whose animal birth is the fruit of past evil. Wukong tells them to go and look, which is the one instruction nobody in this monastery has been able to follow all night.
The monks scrambled up and went forward to look. The doors, the windows, the lattice-leaves on the outside of that meditation hall — not half a part of them had been so much as scorched.
槅扇 (géshàn) are the latticed leaves of a Chinese door. 更不曾燎灼了半分: not scorched by half a part. The proof of the miracle is a door-frame; and the shield that saved it was borrowed from Heaven by a creature who then blew the fire the other way.
The crowd was struck with awe, and knew at last that Sanzang was a monk of the gods, and the Pilgrim a guardian of the Law.
認得 takes the neutral de. 種神僧, a monk of the divine kind; 尊護法, an honoured Dharma-protector. They arrive at the correct theology by way of an unburnt window.
Together they came forward and knocked their heads. "We have eyes but no pupils in them; we did not know that True Men had come down to the world.
有眼無珠 — "eyes without pupils," blind to what is before one. It is the same organ the old monk blamed for not seeing the cassock by lamplight. 真人下界, Perfected Men descended to the world: a Daoist formula, in a Chan monastery, applied to a Buddhist pilgrim.
"Your cassock is at the back, in the abbot's quarters, with our old Grand Master."
The sentence they have been dreading. 在後面方丈中老師祖處哩 — the cassock is where it has been all night: with the old man, behind the one door the fire could not reach.
Sanzang walked through three or four courses of ruined wall and broken brick, sighing without ceasing.
敗壁破牆, ruined walls and broken brick. 嗟嘆不已, sighing without end. It is Sanzang's only response to the destruction, and it is more than anyone else in the chapter will offer.
He found the abbot's quarters indeed untouched by fire. The monks rushed inside, calling,
搶入裡面 — they rush in, the same verb (搶) used of their snatching at cooking-pots in the ashes.
"Grandfather! The Tang monk is a divine man. He has not burned to death, and now we have destroyed nothing but our own property.
家當 is read jiādàng, "household property." Hear the arithmetic: the Tang monk did not burn, therefore we have destroyed only our own goods. Two hundred and thirty men have discovered that they are not murderers, and are appalled to find that they are merely paupers.
"Bring out the cassock at once, and give it back to him."
還他去也: 還 is huán, give it back. Twelve hours after it was borrowed for a single night's viewing, the monks are shouting through a door for its return.
The monastery is converted by a window-frame. Told to go and look, the monks find the meditation hall's doors and lattices 更不曾燎灼了半分 — not scorched by half a part — and instantly know what they are dealing with: 三藏是種神僧，行者是尊護法, a monk of the gods and a guardian of the Law. It is correct. It is also arrived at by the same faculty with which they appraised eight hundred cassocks: they have looked at a surface and priced it. Their confession, 有眼無珠, "eyes with no pupils in them," is truer than they can know — it is the abbot's own excuse, that he could not see the robe by lamplight, turned into a general condition.
And then the finest line in the passage, shouted through a door: 如今反害了自己家當. "Now we have only destroyed our own property." Not we tried to murder two men. Not we burned a house consecrated to the Bodhisattva of Compassion. 家當 — household goods. The horror they feel is a horror of loss, and it arrives at the precise moment they learn that no one died. Between them and the Way stands, as it has stood the whole chapter, an inventory.