立帝知情 The Oracle Knows All
人只有天地蓋載，日月照臨，國王水土，那得個父母養育來？」太子怒道：「和尚是那遊手遊食削髮逆君之徒！人不得父母養育，身從何來？」三藏道：「殿下，貧僧不知。但只這紅匣內有一件寶貝，叫做立帝貨，他上知五百年，中知五百年，下知五百年，共知一千五百年過去未來之事，便知無父母養育之恩，令貧僧在此久等多時矣。」人只有天地盖载，日月照临，国王水土，那得个父母养育来？」太子怒道：「和尚是那游手游食削发逆君之徒！人不得父母养育，身从何来？」三藏道：「殿下，贫僧不知。但只这红匣内有一件宝贝，叫做立帝货，他上知五百年，中知五百年，下知五百年，共知一千五百年过去未来之事，便知无父母养育之恩，令贫僧在此久等多时矣。」
逐句解 Line by line
A man has only heaven and earth to cover and sustain him, sun and moon to shine upon him, the king’s land and water — whence should he get a father and mother to rear him?”
And there is the heresy, stated baldly: three kindnesses, not four, because nobody has parents. Coming from a monk — a man who left his family — it is calculated to enrage. 那得個 is rhetorical, "where would he get one," with 那 as nǎ and 得 as dé; 蓋載 keeps 載 as zài.
The prince said angrily, “You, monk, are one of those idle-handed, idle-eating, head-shaving, sovereign-defying sorts!
It works, and the abuse that comes back is the standard Confucian case against Buddhism, compressed into a single breath: monks are idle-handed and idle-eating (they do no work and beg their food), they shave their heads (mutilating the body their parents gave them), and they defy the sovereign (owing allegiance to a foreign order). 削髮 is to take the tonsure; 逆君 is to defy the ruler; 那 is the pointing nà, "those sorts."
If a man got no rearing from father and mother, whence should his body come?”
And the unanswerable retort, which is also the exact question Tripitaka wanted asked: if there were no parents, where did your body come from? 不得 has 得 as dé.
Tripitaka said, “Your Highness, this poor monk does not know.
The monk immediately disclaims all knowledge, having produced the question he wanted. 不知 — "this poor monk does not know."
But within this red casket is a treasure called Establish-the-Emperor Ware; it knows five hundred years above, five hundred years between, and five hundred years below — one thousand five hundred years of things past and to come; it will know whether there be no kindness of parents’ rearing, and has kept this poor monk here waiting a long while.”
The device is produced on cue: a thing in a box that can settle the matter. Note that Tripitaka gives the fifteen hundred years in the order up-middle-down, where Wukong rehearsed him in up-down-middle — either a nervous man garbling his script or the printer's own slip, preserved as it stands. 立帝貨 is the oracle-name; 中知五百年 takes the locative zhōng.
Tripitaka springs the heresy in full — that a man has no parents to thank at all — and it provokes exactly what it was meant to. The prince's abuse is not random: idle-handed, idle-eating, head-shaving, sovereign-defying is the classic Confucian indictment of the monastic life, and a boy raised by court academicians would have it by heart. His closing question is unanswerable and entirely sincere: if not from parents, then where did I come from?
Which is precisely the question the monk wanted on the table. Having driven the argument to the edge of the buried subject, he produces the oracle in the casket, "Establish-the-Emperor Ware," a thing that knows fifteen hundred years and can therefore settle the question of parentage. The doctrinal quarrel has been steered, step by careful step, to the threshold of the revelation.