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，头陀抬柜子，就抬出十二柜，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, short for 甚麼: "nothing much in the way of." 帶得 takes dé, the reading that means "able to" — could not have brought it. Sanzang's refusal is honest and complete, and it is 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 counting-word proper to robes, as "a head" goes with cattle. 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 to have his master taken for 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 at all: it is the word cassock that amuses them, because they own eight hundred. 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 is "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 might 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 is "such as the likes of us"; 似 is sì. Watch what happens in these two clauses: the measure of a cassock slides from holiness to number, and nobody in the room notices the substitution being made.
"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."
Here is the exchange rate this house runs on. Two hundred and seventy years of monastic life convert, without a word of embarrassment, into seven or eight hundred robes — and the sum is offered as a proof of eminence, the way a man might mention how many years he has been with the firm. Then 拿出來看看, "bring them out and let him look." The prior who was laughing coldly a moment ago cannot now 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 is "to show off." 頭陀 (tóu tuó) transliterates Sanskrit dhūta, the discipline of austerity — twelve practices including begging for food and sleeping in the open — and by extension the monks who follow 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 who asks.
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 here is jiāng, a word that does nothing except shove the object in front of the verb — English would say "took the cassocks and hung them up." Racks, ropes, garments shaken out and hung in rows: it is the staging of a cloth-market, and it is equally the staging of a Buddha-hall hung with banners. That 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 two four-character 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 sitting there 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 characters on damask and four on gauze and does not editorialise once, because he does not need to. A cassock — 袈裟, from Sanskrit kāṣāya, "of a dulled colour" — is by its very origin a robe pieced together from rags and dyed the colour of dirt, so that its wearer need not think about it. Eight hundred of them, in embroidery and gold, hanging in a courtyard for a stranger to admire. These 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.