Seeing how ferocious they were, Tripitaka had no help for it but to get to his feet; and joining his palms before his breast he said, “Great Kings, this poor monk is one sent by the Tang emperor of the Land of the East to fetch scriptures from the Western Heaven.”

合掌當胸, palms joined before the breast, puts 當 in its sense of being at or facing something, so dāng. 差往 is chāi, the reading for being sent on official business — not chà. Tripitaka opens with his credentials, which is what a man does when he thinks the problem is a misunderstanding.

“Since I parted from Chang’an the years have grown deep and the days long, and what little travelling money I had is all spent.”

The same character does two different jobs inside one passage. Here 長安 is the place-name Chang'an, so cháng, long; a few lines away 長 turns up in 長老, elder, as zhǎng. 盡 is jìn, used up.

“One who has left the household lives by begging and nothing else — where should I come by money or silk?”

出家人 — one who has left the household — is the standard way a monk refers to himself. 那得 is the rhetorical nǎ, whence?, with 得 in its sense of coming by something, dé.

“I beg the Great Kings will show me a little accommodation and let this poor monk go by.”

方便 is a serious Buddhist term — upāya, skilful means, the expedients a teacher uses to get somebody to enlightenment — worn smooth by everyday use into something like doing a person a favour. Tripitaka reaches for it in the polite sense. The robbers are about to throw it back at him in the next breath. 罷 sits at the end of the sentence, so it is the soft ba.

The two robbers led their band forward and said, “We have set up a tiger’s heart here, cut the highway, and want nothing whatever but money and silk. What is all this accommodation, accommodation?”

They repeat 方便方便 back at him word for word, sneering, which is why the English repeats it too. 甚麼 is the question word, so 甚 is shén, not shèn.

“If you truly have no money, then get your robe off quickly and leave the white horse behind, and we will let you pass.”

The demand narrows from money in general to the only two things Tripitaka actually has on him. Both are imperial gifts rather than possessions — which is exactly what makes his next answer possible.

Tripitaka said, “Amitābha Buddha! This robe of mine is cloth begged from a house in the east and needles begged from a house in the west, got together scrap by scrap.”

阿彌陀佛 is read ā mí tuó fó, with 佛 held at fó throughout this project. Then watch 化: it falls three times in three lines, every time in the beggar-monk's sense — cloth begged here, needles begged there, the whole robe begged scrap by scrap — and every time it is huà.

“If you strip it off me, will you not have killed me outright?”

可不…也 is a rhetorical frame: is it not the case that…? Note the shift. The elder has stopped pleading and started arguing, for the first time in the scene.

“It is only that those who play the bold fellow in this life are turned into beasts in the next.”

This is doctrine, not abuse. 畜生 is the 畜生道, the Animal Realm, one of the three bad destinies in the Buddhist scheme of rebirth, and Tripitaka means it in precisely that technical sense. It keeps its fixed everyday reading chù sheng. 那世裡, the next life, is the pointing nà, set against 這世裡, this one.

The robbers were furious to hear it. They whipped out their great cudgels and came forward to strike.

掣 is to whip a weapon out. Up to this line the threat has been conditional — hand it over and nobody gets hurt. What converts it into action is Tripitaka's remark about coming back as an animal.

The elder said nothing aloud, but thought within himself: “Poor wretches! You speak only of your own cudgels — you do not yet know about my disciple’s cudgel.”

Read 可憐 carefully: it is aimed downward at the robbers, not upward at heaven. The elder is pitying the men who are about to beat him. And 棍子 is one word doing duty for two very different objects, which is the whole of the joke and the whole of the threat.

The robbers would allow no explaining. They raised their staves and struck at him without regard for head or face.

The same character twice in one clause, with opposite readings two characters apart: the pointing nà of 那賊, those robbers, and the rhetorical nǎ of 那容分說, as if they would let him explain.

The elder had never in all his life been able to tell a lie; but having run into this urgent strait he had no help for it, and brought out a falsehood: “Let the two Great Kings hold their hands a moment.”

遇著 takes zháo, the reading for something that has come off — the encounter has happened — on the pattern of 撞著 and 碰著. That is a different animal from the zhe of action under way in 舉著 one line above. 難處 is nán chù, a tight spot. And 誑語 is the Buddhist term for false speech — the fourth of the five precepts, which is to say the elder is not merely lying but breaking a vow, and the narrator has just told us he has never managed it before.

“I have a young disciple who will be along directly behind me. He has a few taels of silver about him, and you shall have it.”

幾兩銀子 — the 兩 is the tael, ten 錢, and the standard English name for the Chinese unit is used because English borrowed it for exactly this purpose. Note what is being promised: silver that does not exist, carried by a disciple who does exist.

The robbers said, “This monk is one who will not stand a loss. Tie him up for now.”

吃不得虧 — a man who will not take a loss — puts 得 at the neutral de of being able to. Because that syllable goes neutral, the 不 in front of it keeps its ordinary bù instead of shifting up to bú.

The whole gang of underlings fell to at once, bound him with a rope, and hung him high up in a tree.

嘍囉 is the standing word for a bandit chief's rank and file — the mooks. 高高吊在樹上 leaves Tripitaka hanging exactly where his disciples will find him, which is the image the rest of the chapter turns on.