禮樂雍容 The Court Admires the Envoy
那國王聞知是唐朝大國，且又說是個方上聖僧，心中甚喜，即時准奏。叫：「宣他進來。」把三藏宣至金階，舞蹈山呼禮畢。兩邊文武多官無不嘆道：「上邦人物，禮樂雍容如此。」那国王闻知是唐朝大国，且又说是个方上圣僧，心中甚喜，即时准奏。叫：「宣他进来。」把三藏宣至金阶，舞蹈山呼礼毕。两边文武多官无不叹道：「上邦人物，礼乐雍容如此。」
逐句解 Line by line
When the king learned that this was from the great realm of Tang, and heard moreover that it was a holy monk from abroad, his heart was greatly pleased, and he granted the petition at once. 'Summon him in,' he called.
The king's pleasure is a matter of prestige: 唐朝大國 (朝 = cháo), "the great state of Tang," plus a 方上聖僧, a holy man from far parts, is a distinguished visitor by definition. Watch 心中甚喜: this 甚 is shèn, "greatly," a different word from the interrogative shén, "what," that the same character carries elsewhere in the chapter; 中 is zhōng. 准奏 is to approve a memorial.
Tripitaka was summoned to the golden steps, and when he had finished the dance of homage and the acclamation of long life, the many officials on either hand, civil and military, all sighed in admiration: 'A man of the superior realm — how decorous and composed his rites and bearing!'
Court obeisance had choreography. 舞蹈山呼 is "the ritual dance and the mountain-shout" — courtiers performed a set series of movements and then cried 萬歲, the acclamation said to have echoed back once from Mount Song, which is where the "mountain" in the phrase comes from. What the officials then admire is not the man but his training: 禮樂 (樂 = yuè, "rites and music") 雍容, decorous and unhurried. 上邦 is "the superior state," meaning Tang. Remember this scene — his disciples are coming.
The king's eager welcome and the court's collective sigh register the cultural prestige this novel always grants to Tang. It is enough that the monk comes from the 上邦, the "superior realm," for his bearing to be found exemplary; the officials praise not the person but the 禮樂雍容, the decorous rites and unhurried composure his homeland has trained into him. Throughout the book Tang stands as the civilised centre against which the kingdoms of the road measure themselves.
The ceremony itself — the summons to the golden steps, the dance and acclamation of 舞蹈山呼 — is given with the novel's usual relish for protocol. That a foreign envoy-monk should perform the full obeisance of a subject is treated as unremarkable good manners. All of which makes the coming breach that much funnier: the two disciples about to be summoned into this hall are incapable of a single one of these graces.