七八百件 Seven or Eight Hundred Cassocks
三藏道：「可憐，我那東土無甚寶貝；就有時，路程遙遠，也不能帶得。」行者在傍道：「師父，我前日在包袱裡，曾見那領袈裟，不是件寶貝？拿與他看看如何？」眾僧聽說袈裟，一個個冷笑。行者道：「你笑怎的？」院主道：「老爺才說袈裟是件寶貝，言實可笑。若說袈裟，似我等輩者，不止二三十件；若論我師祖，在此處做了二百五六十年和尚，足有七八百件。」叫：「拿出來看看。」那老和尚也是他一時賣弄，便叫道人開庫房，頭陀擡櫃子，就擡出十二櫃，放在天井中，開了鎖。兩邊設下衣架，四圍牽了繩子，將袈裟一件件抖開掛起，請三藏觀看。果然是滿堂綺繡，四壁綾羅。三藏道：「可怜，我那东土无甚宝贝；就有时，路程遥远，也不能带得。」行者在傍道：「师父，我前日在包袱里，曾见那领袈裟，不是件宝贝？拿与他看看如何？」众僧听说袈裟，一个个冷笑。行者道：「你笑怎的？」院主道：「老爷才说袈裟是件宝贝，言实可笑。若说袈裟，似我等辈者，不止二三十件；若论我师祖，在此处做了二百五六十年和尚，足有七八百件。」叫：「拿出来看看。」那老和尚也是他一时卖弄，便叫道人开库房，头陀擡柜子，就擡出十二柜，放在天井中，开了锁。两边设下衣架，四围牵了绳子，将袈裟一件件抖开挂起，请三藏观看。果然是满堂绮绣，四壁绫罗。
逐句解 Line by line
Sanzang said, "Alas, in my Land of the East there are no treasures worth the name; and had there been, the road is far, and I could not have carried them."
無甚 is shén, elliptical for 甚麼: "nothing much in the way of." 帶得 takes dé, the potential — "able to bring." Sanzang's refusal is honest, complete, and about to be overturned by his own disciple in the very next line.
The Pilgrim, standing at his side, said, "Master, the other day, in the bundle, I saw that cassock. Is that not a treasure?
傍 is páng, "at the side." 領 is the classifier proper to robes. This is the hinge of the whole chapter, and it is Wukong who swings it. The disciple lately scolded for not knowing high from low cannot bear for his master to be thought a pauper.
"Suppose we take it out and let him have a look?" Hearing the word cassock, the monks laughed coldly, every one of them.
冷笑 is the cold laugh of connoisseurs. Note that the monks laugh before they have seen anything: it is the word cassock that amuses them, because they own eight hundred of them. It is an expensive mistake to laugh at a garment sewn in Heaven.
"What are you laughing at?" said the Pilgrim. The prior said, "Your reverence has just called a cassock a treasure. The words are laughable indeed.
言實可笑, "the words truly deserve laughter." The prior speaks for the accumulated expertise of the house — and the house is a fortnight's march from the nearest thing that would correct it.
"If we speak of cassocks — of the kind that men such as we possess, there are no fewer than twenty or thirty;
似我等輩者, "such as the likes of us"; 似 is sì. In two clauses the measure of a cassock has slid from holiness to number, and nobody has noticed the substitution.
"and if we speak of our Grand Master, who has been a monk in this place two hundred and fifty or sixty years, he has a full seven or eight hundred." He called out, "Bring them here and let him look."
The arithmetic is the point. Two hundred and seventy years become seven or eight hundred robes, and the conversion is offered without the least embarrassment, as a proof of eminence. 拿出來看看 — the prior, who was laughing a moment ago, now cannot wait to display.
The old monk, in a moment's vanity of his own, ordered the lay servant to open the storehouse and the ascetics to carry out the chests;
賣弄, "to show off." 頭陀 (tóutuó) transliterates Sanskrit dhūta, the discipline of austerity, and by extension the monks who practise it. This monastery's ascetics are employed shifting its furniture.
and twelve chests were carried out, set down in the courtyard, and the locks opened.
天井 is the small open court enclosed by the buildings. Twelve chests — and a lock on every one of them, in a house whose gate stands open to any traveller.
Clothes-racks were set up on either side, ropes strung round on all four, and the cassocks shaken out and hung up one by one, and Sanzang was invited to view them.
將 is the coverb jiāng, governing the cassocks as its object. Racks, ropes, garments shaken out and hung in rows: it is the staging of a cloth-market, and equally the staging of a Buddha-hall hung with banners. The ambiguity is the passage's whole meaning.
Truly it was damask and embroidery filling the hall, silk gauze and figured satin on all four walls.
綺繡 and 綾羅 are the fabrics of wealth, not of renunciation — damask, embroidery, gauze, figured satin. The four-graph pairs close the passage with a flourish that is also an indictment: in eight hundred robes, not one robe of the Way.
Sanzang says no. That is the fact to hold onto: asked to display a treasure, the Tang monk answers that he has none worth showing and could not have carried it if he had. The catastrophe of this chapter does not begin with the old man's greed, which is merely waiting to be fed; it begins with Wukong's inability to let a slight pass. 不是件寶貝？ — "Is that not a treasure?" — is spoken to a room of men who have just laughed, and it is spoken to win.
Then the chests come out. Twelve of them, locked, and behind the locks the whole moral situation of the monastery laid open on ropes: 滿堂綺繡，四壁綾羅. Wú Chéng'ēn spends four graphs on damask and four on gauze and does not editorialise once. He does not need to. A cassock — the 袈裟, from Sanskrit kāṣāya, "of a dulled colour" — is by its origin a robe pieced from rags, dyed the colour of dirt, worn to be indifferent to. Eight hundred of them, in embroidery and gold, hanging in a courtyard for a stranger to admire. The monks have not merely accumulated wealth; they have accumulated the emblem of not accumulating wealth, and the joke is old enough that the novel can afford to leave it silent.