寶林寺賦 A Rhapsody on the Monastery
那長老在馬上遙觀，只見那山凹裡有樓臺疊疊，殿閣重重。三藏道：「徒弟，此時天色已晚，幸得那壁廂有樓閣不遠，想必是庵觀寺院，我們都到那裡借宿一宵，明日再行罷。」行者道：「師父說得是。不要忙，等我且看好歹如何。」那大聖跳在空中，仔細觀看，果然是座山門。但見：那长老在马上遥观，只见那山凹里有楼台叠叠，殿阁重重。三藏道：「徒弟，此时天色已晚，幸得那壁厢有楼阁不远，想必是庵观寺院，我们都到那里借宿一宵，明日再行罢。」行者道：「师父说得是。不要忙，等我且看好歹如何。」那大圣跳在空中，仔细观看，果然是座山门。但见：
逐句解 Line by line
From his horse the elder gazed into the distance, and saw there in a fold of the mountains tower upon tower, hall stacked upon hall.
山凹 (shān āo) a hollow or fold in the hills; 疊疊 / 重重 "layer upon layer, tier upon tier," with 重 read chóng ("layered"). 長 in 長老 read zhǎng ("elder").
Tripitaka said: “Disciples, the sky grows late; luckily there are towers and halls not far off on that side — surely a convent or temple. Let us all go there to lodge for a night, and travel on again tomorrow.”
壁廂 (bì xiāng) "over on that side" (a vernacular locative). 庵觀寺院 names four kinds of religious house — Buddhist convent (庵), Daoist abbey (觀, read guàn), monastery (寺), and cloister (院). 罷 here is the suggestive particle ba; 得 the complement de.
The Pilgrim said: “Master is right.”
說得是 "well said," with 得 as the structural complement de.
“But don't be hasty — let me first look and see how good or ill it is.”
好歹 (hǎo dǎi) "good or bad, one way or the other." Wukong's caution — scouting before approaching — is his habitual role.
The Great Sage leapt up into the air, looked carefully, and sure enough it was a temple gate.
山門 (shān mén) the formal entrance-gate of a Buddhist monastery (so named because temples were often set in the hills). 仔細 (zǐ xì) "carefully"; 那 read nà, 中 read zhōng.
He saw:
但見 ("one saw only —") is the conventional formula introducing a descriptive set-piece.
Eight-fold brick walls plastered in red; on the doors to either side, golden nails are driven.
八字磚牆 walls splayed in the shape of the graph 八 ("eight"), a spreading forecourt wall; 泥 here is verbal, "to plaster." 金釘 the rows of gilt studs on a grand gate.
Tier upon tier, towers nestle against the ridge; rank upon rank, palace-gates lie hidden in the hills.
藏 here is cáng ("to be nestled, hidden"); 中 read zhōng ("within"). 宮闕 (gōng què) "palace-towers," a grand term for the monastery's gate-towers.
The Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas faces the Tathāgata Shrine; the Tower of the Morning Sun answers the Gate of the Great Hero.
如來 (rú lái) the Tathāgata; 大雄 (dà xióng, "Great Hero," Mahāvīra) an epithet of the Buddha and the name of the main hall. 應 read yìng ("to answer, correspond to," parallel to 對). 朝陽 is read zhāo yáng ("morning sun"), the literary reading. 佛 read fó.
The seven-storied pagoda gathers cloud and beds down mist; the three holy Buddhas manifest a radiant glory.
屯 (tún) "to mass, gather"; 宿 (sù) "to lodge, settle." 三尊佛 the Buddhas of the three times (past, present, future) enshrined together.
Mañjuśrī's terrace faces the Saṃghārāma hall; Maitreya's shrine leans on the Hall of Great Compassion.
文殊 Mañjuśrī, bodhisattva of wisdom. 伽藍 (qié lán), from saṃghārāma, the monastery precincts and their guardian spirits. 彌勒 (Mí lè) Maitreya, the future Buddha; 勒 read lè. 大慈 "Great Compassion," an epithet of Maitreya.
Beyond the Mountain-Gazing Tower a blue light dances; above the Void-Pacing Pavilion purple clouds arise.
步虛 (bù xū) "pacing the void," a Daoist term for a hymn or a transcendent's flight, here a pavilion-name. 紫雲 purple clouds, an auspicious sign — a Daoist note amid the Buddhist.
At the pine-gate and bamboo-court, green on tender green; in the abbot's quarters and meditation halls, clear stillness everywhere.
方丈 (fāng zhàng) the abbot's quarters (and, by extension, the abbot). 依依 "soft, luxuriant," of foliage; 處處 read chù chù ("everywhere").
Elegant and secluded, it furnishes its joys; on stream after stream and path after path, gladness turns to welcome.
供樂事 "provides joyful things"; 樂 here is lè ("joy"). The reduplications 雅雅幽幽 / 川川道道 lend the couplet a chanting quality.
Where meditation is practiced, Chan monks expound; in the music hall, many instruments sound.
參禪 (cān chán) "to practice Chan meditation." In 演樂房 ("music-performance hall") and 樂器 ("musical instruments"), 樂 is read yuè ("music") — not the lè of the line before.
On the Sumeru terrace the udumbara petals fall; before the preaching-altar the palm-leaf scriptures grow.
妙高 (miào gāo) "Wondrous-High," a rendering of Mount Sumeru. 曇花 (tán huā) the udumbara flower, proverbially rare. 貝葉 (bèi yè) pattra, the palm-leaves on which Indian sūtras were written.
Truly, the grove screens a Land of the Three Treasures; the mountains embrace a Palace of Brahmā-kings.
三寶 (sān bǎo) the Three Treasures — Buddha, Dharma, Saṃgha. 梵王 (fàn wáng) Brahmā; 那 read nà.
Halfway up the walls, lamp-smoke flickers and gleams; a line of incense-haze blurs into misty dimness.
一行 here is "a line, a streak of," with 行 read háng (a row/line). 靄 (ǎi) haze; 朦朧 (méng lóng) dim, blurred. The couplet closes on lamplight and incense, marking a place of active worship.
With evening coming on, the pilgrims sight a monastery folded into the hills, and Wukong flies up to survey it before they approach — his habitual caution. The description that follows is a monastery-rhapsody, the ecclesiastical counterpart to the wilderness-rhapsody a few pages earlier: where that catalogued crags and beasts, this catalogues halls, pagodas, and shrines, naming the great figures of the Buddhist pantheon — Śākyamuni, Mañjuśrī, Maitreya, the Buddhas of the three times — alongside the incidental music and greenery of a prosperous establishment.
The verse is dense with Buddhist and Daoist proper terms — the Saṃghārāma precincts, the udumbara flower, the palm-leaf sūtras, the Land of the Three Treasures, but also the Daoist ‘Void-Pacing Pavilion’ with its purple clouds — a syncretic vocabulary typical of the novel, which cheerfully mingles the two traditions. The closing image of flickering lamp-smoke and a line of incense-haze fixes the place as one of living devotion; the irony, developed in the passages to come, is that its resident abbot will prove strikingly deficient in the compassion his splendid halls proclaim.