倒換文牒 Requesting Audience
唐僧步行至朝門外，對閣門大使道：「有唐朝僧人，特來面駕，倒換文牒，乞為轉奏轉奏。」那黃門奏事官連忙走至白玉階前奏道：「萬歲，唐朝有個高僧，欲求見駕，倒換文牒。」唐僧步行至朝门外，对阁门大使道：「有唐朝僧人，特来面驾，倒换文牒，乞为转奏转奏。」那黄门奏事官连忙走至白玉阶前奏道：「万岁，唐朝有个高僧，欲求见驾，倒换文牒。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka walked on foot to the outer gate of the court and said to the gate-usher, 'There is a monk of Tang who has come expressly to have audience with the throne and to have his travel-rescript renewed. I beg you to relay it up, relay it up.'
Every kingdom on the road means the same piece of admin: 倒換文牒 (倒 = dào), having the travel-document re-issued, because each realm the pilgrim crosses must add its own seal. It is a passport being stamped at the border, and it is what gets a shabby foreign monk into a throne room. 步行 (行 = xíng) is to go on foot; 朝門 (朝 = cháo) is the court gate; 閣門大使 is the usher who mans it. 乞為轉奏 (為 = wèi) asks him to pass the request up, and the doubling — 轉奏轉奏 — is the spoken language leaning on a word for emphasis, the way one might say "please, please."
The eunuch memorial-officer hurried to the foot of the white-jade steps and reported, 'Your Majesty, there is an eminent monk of Tang who begs to see the throne and to have his travel-rescript renewed.'
The request goes up one more rung. The 黃門奏事官, the "Yellow-Gate memorial-officer," was a eunuch whose job was carrying petitions to the throne — so a monk at the gate reaches the king through an usher and then a private secretary, exactly as one would expect. 白玉階 are the white-jade steps of the throne-hall, and 萬歲, "ten thousand years," is how you begin when you address a sovereign.
The scene turns to the civil business that punctuates the whole pilgrimage: the 倒換文牒, the renewal of the travel-rescript. At every kingdom Tripitaka must present his papers to be re-sealed, and this recurring formality — half diplomatic courtesy, half red tape — is one of the threads stitching an episodic journey back to the Tang throne that authorised it. Here it does something more: it walks Tripitaka, with no idea what he is walking into, straight into the court of the princess whose letter he is carrying.
The passage is attentive to the layered protocol of a royal audience. The petition passes from the monk to the gate-usher (閣門大使) to the eunuch memorial-officer (黃門奏事官) before it reaches the king, each relay marked by its proper formula. The novel's interest in the decorum of courts — the steps, the titles, the acclamations — belongs with its larger investment in Tang as the model of an ordered world.