三藏詰問 The Monk's Confucian Doubt
三藏聞言道：「女菩薩，你語言差了。聖經云：『父母在，不遠遊，遊必有方。』你既有父母在堂，又與你招了女婿，有願心，教你男子還，便也罷，怎麼自家在山行走？又沒個侍兒隨從。這個是不遵婦道了。」那女子笑吟吟，忙陪俏語道：「師父，我丈夫在山北凹裡，帶幾個客子鋤田。這是奴奴煮的午飯，送與那些人吃的。只為五黃六月，無人使喚，父母又年老，所以親身來送。忽遇三位遠來，卻思父母好善，故將此飯齋僧，如不棄嫌，願表芹獻。」三藏闻言道：「女菩萨，你语言差了。圣经云：『父母在，不远游，游必有方。』你既有父母在堂，又与你招了女婿，有愿心，教你男子还，便也罢，怎么自家在山行走？又没个侍儿随从。这个是不遵妇道了。」那女子笑吟吟，忙陪俏语道：「师父，我丈夫在山北凹里，带几个客子锄田。这是奴奴煮的午饭，送与那些人吃的。只为五黄六月，无人使唤，父母又年老，所以亲身来送。忽遇三位远来，却思父母好善，故将此饭斋僧，如不弃嫌，愿表芹献。」
逐句解 Line by line
Hearing this, Tripitaka said, "Lady Bodhisattva, your words are amiss.
語言差了 "your speech is mistaken," 差 (chà) (wrong, err). The elder, momentarily the Confucian scholar, catches an inconsistency — a flash of the discernment that will desert him at the crucial hour.
"The Sage's Classic says: 'While your parents live, do not journey far; and if you journey, have a fixed destination.'
A near-quotation of the Analects (里仁): 父母在，不遠遊，遊必有方 — the Confucian precept on filial duty. Tripitaka, though a Buddhist monk, reaches instinctively for the Confucian canon (聖經 "the Sage's Classic") to test the woman's account.
"Since your parents are alive at home and have taken in a son-in-law for you, if there was a vow to keep, then letting your husband fulfil it would have served well enough — so why are you roaming the mountains alone?
教你男子還 "have your husband redeem [the vow]," 男子 (nán zǐ) (子 (zǐ), "man, husband"), 還 (huán) (to fulfil a vow). 自家 "oneself, alone"; 行走 "to walk about," 行 (xíng). The objection is sharp and just: a dutiful wife with a husband would not wander a wild mountain unescorted.
"And with not so much as a maidservant in attendance."
侍兒 "a serving-maid," 兒 (ér) (a young attendant, the noun-sense). The absence of a chaperone compounds the impropriety Tripitaka has identified — a respectable woman would not travel so.
"This is to flout the way proper to a wife."
婦道 "the womanly way, the norms of wifely conduct"; 不遵 "to fail to observe." Tripitaka's charge is framed wholly in Confucian propriety — the terms in which he, and his culture, weigh a woman's respectability.
The woman, smiling sweetly, hastened to answer with charming words: "Master, my husband is in a hollow on the mountain's north side, with a few hired hands, hoeing the fields.
笑吟吟 "smiling brightly"; 陪俏語 "to reply with pretty, ingratiating speech." 那女子 "that woman," 那 (nà); the two 子: 女子 = zǐ (first, the noun), 客子 = zi (second, "hired hands," suffix). The demon smoothly patches the hole Tripitaka has poked.
"This is the midday meal I cooked, to bring to those men to eat.
那些人 "those men," 那 (nà) (demonstrative). The everyday domestic detail — a wife carrying lunch to the field-workers — is calculated to normalize her solitary presence.
"It is only that, in the height of summer, there was no one to send, and my parents besides are old, so I have come to bring it myself.
只為 "only because," 為 (wèi) (for the sake of, because). 五黃六月 (wǔ huáng liù yuè) "the fifth and sixth months," an idiom for the peak of summer heat and farm-labour. The demon accounts for the very absence of servants (無人使喚) that Tripitaka had noted.
"Chancing to meet you three from afar, and mindful of my parents' love of good works, I would give this food as alms to monks — and if you do not scorn it, I offer it as my humble gift."
將此飯齋僧 "take this food to feed monks," 將 (jiāng) (coverb). 芹獻 (qín xiàn) "an offering of parsley" — a self-deprecating idiom (from the 列子) for a poor gift humbly given. The demon closes by folding her alms back into her parents' piety, sealing the tale.
Put to the test, the monk reaches not for Buddhist doctrine but for the Analects — 父母在，不遠遊 — judging the woman by the norms of 婦道, wifely propriety. His objection is genuinely acute: a respectable married woman would not roam a wild mountain alone and unattended. For a moment the elder's discernment is exactly equal to the danger before him.
The demon's recovery is the passage's real display. She meets each specific doubt with a specific, homely answer — the husband hoeing fields close by, the servants unavailable in the summer press, the parents too old to send. Under pressure the fabrication grows more plausible, not less, revealing an intelligence that reads its interrogator and reassures him point by point.
The exchange stages the chapter's deepest irony: Tripitaka's very virtues — courtesy, learning, moral seriousness — are the surfaces on which the demon inscribes her lie. He is deceived not despite his goodness but by means of it.