敘坐問程 Seated, They Speak of the Road Travelled
眾僧道：「師祖來了。」三藏躬身施禮迎接道：「老院主，弟子拜揖。」那老僧還了禮，又各敘坐。老僧道：「適間小的們說，東土唐朝來的老爺，我才出來奉見。」三藏道：「輕造寶山，不知好歹，恕罪，恕罪。」老僧道：「不敢，不敢。」因問：「老爺，東土到此，有多少路程？」三藏道：「出長安邊界，有五千餘里。過兩界山，收了一眾小徒，一路來，行過西番哈咇國，經兩個月，又有五六千里，才到了貴處。」众僧道：「师祖来了。」三藏躬身施礼迎接道：「老院主，弟子拜揖。」那老僧还了礼，又各叙坐。老僧道：「适间小的们说，东土唐朝来的老爷，我才出来奉见。」三藏道：「轻造宝山，不知好歹，恕罪，恕罪。」老僧道：「不敢，不敢。」因问：「老爷，东土到此，有多少路程？」三藏道：「出长安边界，有五千余里。过两界山，收了一众小徒，一路来，行过西番哈咇国，经两个月，又有五六千里，才到了贵处。」
逐句解 Line by line
The monks said, "The Grand Master has come." Sanzang bowed from the waist, made his greeting, and said, "Venerable prior, this disciple salutes you."
師祖 ("the master's master") makes the whole house his descendants. Sanzang, not knowing this, addresses him as 老院主, "venerable prior" — a rank too low — and the old man lets the error stand. 拜揖 is the bow with joined hands.
The old monk returned the courtesy, and each was seated in his order.
還了禮: here 還 is huán, "to return, to give back," not hái. 敘坐 is to be seated in the order of precedence — the same rite performed at the end of the last passage.
The old monk said, "Just now my little ones told me that a gentleman had come from the Tang court in the Land of the East, so I came out to pay my respects."
適間, "just now." 小的們, "the little ones," is a proprietor's word for his disciples, not a teacher's. 唐朝 takes cháo. He came out, he says, to pay respects; he came out, the reader may suspect, to see what had arrived.
Sanzang said, "I have come lightly to your precious mountain, not knowing good from ill. Forgive the offence, forgive the offence." "I dare not accept it," said the old monk, "I dare not."
寶山 ("precious mountain") is the courteous name for another's monastery — and, in this house, a description. 不知好歹 ("not knowing good from bad") is self-deprecation; 不敢 ("I dare not") the formulaic deflection of praise. Both formulae will be spoken again before the chapter ends, and neither will be a formula then.
Then he asked, "Reverend sir, from the Land of the East to this place — how long is the road?"
The exchange is the small change of any meeting on the road. It is also the exact hinge of the old man's envy: distance travelled is merit accrued, and he has travelled none.
Sanzang said, "From the borders of Chang'an there were something over five thousand lǐ.
長安 is Cháng'ān — 長 is cháng here, though the same graph is zhǎng in 長老. The 里 (lǐ) is left untranslated: something under half a kilometre.
"Past the Mountain of Two Frontiers I took on a young disciple, and coming along the road
兩界山, the Mountain of Two Frontiers, is the peak under which Wukong lay pinned five hundred years (chapter fourteen). Sanzang compresses that entire deliverance into four graphs and a classifier: 收了一眾小徒, "took on one young disciple."
we passed through Hābì, a kingdom of the Western Fan; and after two months and another five or six thousand lǐ, only now have we reached your honoured place."
西番, the "Western Fan," is a loose Ming term for the Tibetan and Central Asian peoples. 哈咇 (Hābì) is a transliterated name, commonly identified with Hami; 咇 reads bì. 貴處, "your honoured place."
Nothing happens in this passage, and everything is prepared. Two men exchange the formulae of hospitality — the salute, the returned courtesy, the seating by rank, the apology for intruding, the deflection of the apology — and then one of them asks the other how far he has come. Sanzang answers plainly: ten thousand lǐ, five hundred years of a disciple's imprisonment lifted on the way, two months across the Western Fan. The old monk has not left his own gate.
Wú Chéng'ēn is scrupulous about what the formulae conceal. 寶山 — "your precious mountain" — is a courtesy in every mouth in the empire, and in this mouth it is a valuation. 不敢 — "I dare not" — is the modest man's reflex, and in this house it will shortly be the terrified man's truth. Even 師祖, "grand-patriarch," a title of spiritual lineage, turns out on inspection to describe a landlord with two hundred and thirty tenants. The vocabulary of the Buddhist establishment is intact; the thing it once described has quietly gone.